PicoBlog

In the past few weeks, it seems that there has been a coordinated campaign against mainstream “health” influencers and legacy media to convince the public that seed oils are, in fact, good for you.

Their primary tactic has been to decry the “lack” of studies on the harmful effects of seed oils. Unfortunately, this tactic has been effective because few people, even those who vehemently avoid seed oils, are well versed in the extensive research on them.

Because I have been too busy building the FritoLay of real food to address every piece of Proctor & Gamble and ABF propaganda personally, I have decided to make my entire archive on seed oil research available to the public to aid in the fight against fake food.

Now you have a resource to refer to whenever a question on “the research” comes up (if you’re looking for more explanation to go along with your studies, check my extensive library of other articles instead).

And if you do the Lord’s work of dispelling seed oil disinformation online, there is plenty of ammo for you in here.

Of course, if you have a piece of research to add, please let me know and I’ll do my best to include it.

The information is out there, just no one knows about it—until now. Enjoy.

Part of the reason why no one knows about this research is because it is written in language that obfuscates its meaning to all but the most scientifically literate.

Thus, you must often read between the lines to find the real conclusions of a given study.

In order to decipher these studies, understand the following:

• Vegetable oils = seed oils. One of the 8 or so common vegetable oils is often named instead (e.g. soybean oil, sunflower oil, etc.), or their chemical terms below.

• Polyunsaturated Fatty Acids = PUFAs = Omega 6 fatty acids = n-6 fats = Linoleic Acid = Seed oils. Seed oils are high in these fatty acids, which are the primary substance of interest in the research

• Lipid peroxidation = oxidative stress = decomposing (oxidizing) seed oils. Many studies don’t even mention the PUFAs or seed oils at all. They simply investigate the presence and effects of “lipid peroxidation”, which occurs when PUFAs break down into hyper-reactive (i.e., destructive) molecules.

  • Acrolein, HNE, and various aldehydes are common peroxidation byproducts aka ROS (Reactive Oxygen Species) that are inflammatory.

• Low cholesterol = low saturated fat = high seed oils. A low cholesterol diet is low in saturated fat, i.e. high in PUFAs. Often, the conclusions about a low cholesterol/SFA diet are equivalent to conclusions about a high seed oil diet.

• High fat = HFD (high fat diet) = high seed oils (most of the time), since most “high fat” diets are high in seed oils, the most widely consumed fat. Studies done in the 80s and 90s are rife with the harmful effects of a high fat diet (in order to promote sugar/fake sugar consumption of course, not reduce seed oil consumption)

• Trans fats = hydrogenated vegetable oil = margarine = saturated fat. This poses a unique challenge to the student of seed oil science since trans fats are unhealthy. Many studies that show that PUFAs are good actually show that trans fats from hydrogenated seed oils are simply worse. They are not comparing seed oils to butter or tallow.

In summary, you will often find research that shows a high seed oil diet is bad, but it will be couched in language as follows:

To give a real-life example of the smoke and mirrors in research language, consider the following sentence from one of the studies below:

Higher linoleate intake raises tissue arachidonic acid, which increases prostacyclin production and, in turn, stimulates signalling pathways implicated in adipogenesis.

Seems vague and unimportant, right? The type of sentence you might skip over if you were so inclined. Allow me to translate, with the important parts in bold:

Higher linoleate intake [eating more seed oils] raises tissue arachidonic acid, which increases prostacyclin production and, in turn, stimulates [increases] signalling pathways implicated in adipogenesis [the growth of fat cells].

This is just a complex way of saying “eating seed oils makes you fat.”

However, if you understand the translations above, with a bit of practice you can read these studies for what they really are.

The following are longform sources that themselves detail many harmful effects of seed oils and how the research has misled us over the decades:

Here are studies categorized by the type of symptoms they investigate, in no particular order:

• Unsaturated Fatty Acids Induce Calcium Influx into Keratinocytes and Cause Abnormal Differentiation of Epidermis

  • “On the other hand, application of unsaturated fatty acids, oleic acid, and palmitoleic acid induced scaly skin, abnormal keratinization, and epidermal hyperplasia [aka skin diseases].” (Vanman will love this one)

• Polyunsaturated fatty acids decrease the apparent affinity of vitamin D metabolites for human vitamin D-binding protein

• Mitigation of Radiation-Induced Dermatitis by Activation of Aldehyde Dehydrogenase 2 Using Topical Alda-1 in Mice

  • “This is the first report of reactive aldehydes playing a role in the intrinsic radiosensitivity of normal and tumor tissues.”

  • They determined that oxidation byproducts are a major driver of skin’s sensitivity to intense light

• Nrf2 deficiency causes lipid oxidation, inflammation, and matrix-protease expression in DHA-supplemented and UVA-irradiated skin fibroblasts

  • “Our data suggest that under ultraviolet stress a functioning Nrf2 system is required to prevent DHA-induced inflammation and matrix degradation in dermal fibroblasts.”

  • Aka PUFAs, particularly fish oil in this case, increase the skins’ sensitivity to sunlight

• Protein oxidative damage in the stratum corneum: evidence for a link between environmental oxidants and the changing prevalence and nature of atopic dermatitis in Japan

  • This study has found an association between AD [eczema] severity and markers of ROS-associated damage, adding weight to the hypothesis that environmentally generated ROS may induce oxidative protein damage in the stratum corneum, leading to the disruption of barrier function and exacerbation of AD.

  • Aka seed oils cause eczema

• Dependence of photocarcinogenesis and photoimmunosuppression in the hairless mouse on dietary polyunsaturated fat

  • “The photocarcinogenic response was of increasing severity as the polyunsaturated content of the mixed dietary fat was increased”

  • Aka the more seed oils you eat, the more skin cancer you get

• Obesity increases the risk of UV radiation-induced oxidative stress and activation of MAPK and NF-κB signaling

Remember, Big Food will come down hard on the anti-seed oil movement because seed oils are the only unhealthy ingredient that they don’t have a good replacement for.

What we’ve seen lately across social media is just the tip of the iceberg.

But the sheer magnitude of researchers who discover—contrary to their own aims—that PUFAs are harmful, cannot be ignored. The only problem is that no one knows about the research that already exists on the topic.

If this is something you care about, the best thing you can do is share this information in an accessible way to the non-scientifically-inclined.

Credit is always appreciated, but what matters is that the info gets out there. So please rip any and all links you want from here, turn them into youtube videos/tiktoks/ig posts/xeets, and promote as widely as possible.

Our collective tan and low-BMI future depends on it.

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