Seed Oils the Devil's Delight

Eusebius Baca
Nov 30, 2022
7 min read

What is something that could make you depressed, fat, insulin resistant, inflamed, weak-boned, and autistic all in one shot? How about a diet which includes drinking machine lubricant, and eating paintings?

Yes, when you make and eat your salad, and you use the average dressings, think brand names like Ken’s, Kraft, and Olive Garden, you are doing something similar to eating a painting. And if you add on to that meal, croutons, chips, mayonnaise, even normal store-bought bread (except for Dave’s Killer Bread), you would be consuming so much of this one ingredient that you might as well drink a cup of 20th century machine lubricant.

This ingredient is seed oils. Specifically (but not limited to) soybean oil, sunflower oil, safflower oil, peanut oil, corn oil, and in my opinion, worst of all? Canola oil.

What makes these seed oils so awful? It isn’t necessarily the refining process or the bleaching process (yes the literally bleach some of these seed oils to make them look more appealing), rather, it is the chemical composition themselves – polyunsaturated fatty acids aka PUFAs (pronounced poof-ah). Linoleic acid, that biomolecule which I was told was an “essential” nutrient in my nutrition courses in college, is the substance in the seed oils which make them so bad.

The one-shot science behind it is that the more double bonds in the fat, the more unstable it is at body temperature and in light and, therefore, the worse it is to consume or put on your body (seed oils are even in beauty products).

I can go more into the history and philosophy of the seed oils but we will save that for The Truth blog. Instead, let me show you the research from our own government’s database on what makes these oils so bad.

Just a head’s up, if you are concerned about the links, because you’ve never seen DOI before, it simply stands for Digital Object Identifier and it is so that, ideally, you can find the articles at the same address every time. I will cite my sources parenthetically using the DOI link.

OXIDATIVE STRESS AND BROKEN FAT CELLS

Breakdown:

Linoleic acid -->

9- and 13-HODE -->

Increased PPAR-g + inflammation + 4-HNE -->

More inflammation + increased energy storage in fat cells -->

Insulin resistance + atherosclerosis + nonalcoholic fatty liver disease + mitochondrial collapse + cancer

You can look up oxidative stress elsewhere because we have a lot to talk about here, but basically (and hyper-simplified) oxidative stress is bad. Don’t have it. And get rid of it. It entails electrons tearing apart your cells by reacting with organelles and causing your body to send inflammation to that part of your body. Think of oxidation of as a fire. Too many fires, or too much fire can lead to fatigue, poor health, and even autoimmune responses.

This study found that linoleic acid increases oxidative stress in vivo, that is, in real life (https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02562321). This occurs when, the body tries to break down linoleic acid into an structural compound or a compound that can fit into the normal physiology of the body like our naturally produced saturated fat.

In fact, “autoxidation” of linoleic acid can occur which means the inflammatory byproducts of linoleic acid form outside of your body's efforts to make it happen. When this occurs, 9- and 13-hydroperoxides (9- and 13-HODE) are formed (https://doi.org/10.1074%2Fjbc.R800001200). 9- and 13-HODE are also called OXLAMs, or bioactive "oxidized linoleic acid metabolites."

This worrisome because 9- and 13-HODE "have been mechanistically linked to pathological conditions ranging from cardiovascular disease to chronic pain." (10.1016/j.plefa.2012.08.004)

Yikes right? Well, that’s not all, the same study says that, at least in rodents, the OXLAMs are esterified (via the infamous reactive oxygen species (ROS)) in the LDL molecules which migrated and embed in your veins and arteries and causes atherosclerotic lesions. No wonder your body wants to decrease LDL when omega fatty acids are consumed.

Another study agrees with the previous that 9- and 13-HODE are “important inflammatory mediators” (https://doi.org/10.1016/j.prostaglandins.2015.09.003). These molecules are markers of oxidative stress, and can arise via autoxidation.

Yet another study shows “In the recent years, increasing evidence accumulated links atherosclerosis with the oxidation of unsaturated fatty acids” and “In this paper we describe the finding that the 9-HODE content is strongly increased in the LDL of young atherosclerotic patients in comparison with healthy volunteers of the same age group (https://doi.org/10.1016/S0009-3084(97)00095-9).”

9- and 13-HODE do not just indicate and cause oxidative stress, they also change the genetic expression of your fat cells. This DOES NOT mean that they change your DNA, it means they change how your cell responds to the coding of a certain gene which in this case is PPAR-gamma aka PPAR-g (https://doi.org/10.1038%2Fsj.onc.1209160):

“Our findings in this study demonstrated that PPAR-b/d suppresses PPAR-g activity in both PPAR-b/d gain and loss of function models and that the oxidative metabolites of polyunsaturated fatty acids, as in the case of 13-S-HODE, modulate this interaction to activate PPAR-g.”

This is a big deal because PPAR-g helps you to store energy which *can* be good… unless you live a mostly sedentary lifestyle. In such a lifestyle, like in America, you have so much expression of PPAR-g that you end up storing too much energy in your fat cells and they become disordered, broken, and too big (https://doi.org/10.1016/S1097-2765(00)80210-5)!

This affectively causes you to become insulin resistant which means you use energy less efficiently. One more thing to top it off is that this study “confirms” that PPAR-g inhibits Fatty Acid Oxidation which is how your body gets energy from fats (https://doi.org/10.1007/s13105-021-00791-3). So you store these awful fats and your body plans to never use them? Yes.

If you think this chain of events can’t get worse you’re wrong. Linoleic acid is also strongly correlated with Non Alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease in “several studies” which logically follows if your body is disorderedly storing fat and your liver is trying to detox (one of its prominent functions) all of the stressful products of linoleic acid breakdown (https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jnutbio.2019.108241).

Hold on, there is one more thing about PUFAs and oxidative stress, peruse this (10.1002/mnfr.200500090 ):

“4-Hydroxynonenal (HNE) is by far the most investigated aldehydic end-product of oxidative breakdown of membrane n-6 polyunsaturated fatty acids. Its potential involvement in the pathogenesis of atherosclerosis has been corroborated by its consistent detection in both oxidized LDL and fibrotic plaque in humans. HNE has been shown to activate both macrophage and smooth muscle cells, i.e. the two key cell types in chronic inflammatory processes characterized by excessive fibrogenesis.... As for HNE, the challenge of cells of the macrophage lineage with a mixture of oxysterols like that detectable in hypercholesterolemic individuals led to a marked overexpression of TGFbeta1 and MCP-1. Both HNE and oxysterols then appear to be candidates for a primary role in the progression of the atherosclerotic process.”

In a nutshell, this means that certain PUFAs breakdown into 4-HNE and oxysterols both of which are a major factor in atherosclerotic disease. And it is true that even “relatively low levels” of 4-HNE are needed to induce oxidative stress, in addition to causing “dysfunction and pathology in a variety of tissues” (https://doi.org/10.3109%2F10715762.2012.733003).

In an interview on the Bare Performance Podcast Dr. Paul Saladino, M.D., leading expert in the anti-seed oil world, expounds that “It is apparently is quite possible through excess overfeeding of linoleic acid to enrich the cardiolipin with linoleic acid which makes it susceptible to breakdown… which then contributes to the structural collapse of mitochondria." Ray Peat, Ph.D. makes a bold claim that cancer cannot occur without PUFAs in the diet citing a paper from 1985 titled, "Requirement of essential fatty acid for mammory tumorigenesis in the rat [C. Ip, et al., Cancer Res. 45, 1985.]"

PUFAS and Bones

This is an interesting one because it isn’t extraordinarily well researched, but the present research gives us a good idea of what is true. One study – done in rats - found that linoleic acid decreases bone formation, and disrupts their immune system (https://doi.org/10.1359/jbmr.1999.14.7.1153). A whole review, supported the same finding, but added on that linoleic acid was inflammatory and “associated with an increase in fracture risk (https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bone.2020.115736).”

MOTHERS EATING PUFAS

“A high Linoleic acid (LA) content associated with a low alpha-linolenic acid (LNA) content in dietary lipids leads during the gestation/suckling period can lead to a dramatic increase in fat mass which is observed after weaning and is maintained at the adult age. These results are striking in that Polyunsaturated Fatty Acids (PUFAs) of n−6 and n−3 series are not equipotent in promoting adipose tissue development. Thus it appears that limiting LA intake to adequate levels, and maintaining a fine balance between LA and LNA intake, promote an acceptable adipose tissue development (https://doi.org/10.1016/j.plipres.2006.01.003).”

It should be a law of nature by now that most things that a mother eats will come out in her breastmilk. After all, breastmilk is designed to slowly introduce babies to the world outside the mother’s womb. One rat study (https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bbr.2021.113538) found that, there were increased instances of depression in the male offspring if a significant amount of PUFAs were in the mother’s diet during pregnancy, lactation, and even the weaning stage. From a study in Scopus, we find that a mother’s diet with an increase in the ratio of certain PUFAs could harm the brain development of child (https://www.scopus.com/record/display.uri?eid=2-s2.0-84883281857&origin=inward&txGid=3f4f1a632ecad0fffa66c2a5a1b74cc6).

Some interesting evidence also indicates that if a mother eats a lot of omega-6 PUFAs during gestation and lactation, their children are more likely to have autistic-like characteristics (https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bbr.2012.10.028).

THE SUM UP

Seed oils obviously are quite harmful to the human mainly because they cause so much oxidative stress and inflammation. The implications of these effects are that the body becomes chronically fatigued on a metabolic level and the immune system is overworked by trying to put out so many fires. This generally explains why all of the forms of injury listed above are possible with a diet high in linoleic acid.

Indeed, linoleic acid is an “essential” nutrient in that our bodies cannot produce it naturally. The catch to that narrative is that nearly every food has some amount of linoleic acid or other PUFAs in it. However, if you read the studies, nearly all agree that the American diet overconsumes PUFAs in a detrimental quantity. This is some pretty bad news, especially since you will find seed oils as ingredients in nearly all store-bought items. What you can do, while it will take time and hard work, is start creating your own seed-oil free foods and products!

You should also spread awareness to stop Americans from decreasing their health-span. Otherwise, you can check out these products below which are good for cooking and generally have much lower concentrations of PUFAs in their chemical make-up. Such types of products are supported by several studies including the following which suggest that a Mediterranean diet is good, but not PUFAs (especially the refined and processed ones) in general (https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.311.7015.1239).

Dave's Killer bread is my personal favorite because it's the only bread at our local store without any seed oils in it!

Chosen Food is highly rated, and olive oil in general has a relatively low amount of linoleic acid compared to the other commercially sold oils.

Why isn't Coconut oil deemed a superfood? I'm not sure, but it is very low in linoleic acid. Originally very popular for cooking in the mid 20th century before the seed oil pandering.