More Evidence Against PUFA Vegetable Oils
Filed under: General Health
Through the course of reading some blogs and articles I came across this reference to the “Israeli-paradox” that I found rather interesting. While many people are familiar with the “French-paradox”, since the French consume rather large amounts of saturated fats yet have an incredibly low heart disease rate for a developed nation. In reality this shouldn’t be considered a paradox at all, but that is another story for another day.
Anyway, this “Israeli-paradox” is that one that I think should be looked at more closely. I was going to rewrite the abstract here in my own words, but it is a beauty, so I will just post it instead:
“Israel has one of the highest dietary polyunsaturated/saturated fat ratios in the world; the consumption of omega-6 polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA) is about 8% higher than in the USA, and 10-12% higher than in most European countries. In fact, Israeli Jews may be regarded as a population-based dietary experiment of the effect of a high omega-6 PUFA diet, a diet that until recently was widely recommended.
Despite such national habits, there is paradoxically a high prevalence of cardiovascular diseases, hypertension, non-insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus and obesity-all diseases that are associated with hyperinsulinemia (HI) and insulin resistance (IR), and grouped together as the insulin resistance syndrome or syndrome X. There is also an increased cancer incidence and mortality rate, especially in women, compared with western countries. Studies suggest that high omega-6 linoleic acid consumption might aggravate HI and IR, in addition to being a substrate for lipid peroxidation and free radical formation. Thus, rather than being beneficial, high omega-6 PUFA diets may have some long-term side effects, within the cluster of hyperinsulinemia, atherosclerosis and tumorigenesis.”
While this is not direct cause-and-effect research, it certainly shows a relationship between their intake and the long-term results. For those of you who don’t speak scientist, what they are essentially saying is that the Israeli population, with their high intake of polyunsaturated fats, have a greater incidence of cardiovascular disease, hypertension, type 2 diabetes, obesity, cancer and mortality!
For a long time on this blog I have been railing against people consuming large amounts of industrial vegetable oils, which are far and away the largest sources of omega-6 polyunsaturated fats. Hopefully researchers in the US begin to recognize that while polyunsaturated fats may “lower” LDL (probably through artificial means, as they probably just make the LDL small and dense, lowering the “measured” amount, which makes them more prone to oxidation and becoming atherogenic, but I digress) and therefore theoretically “decrease” risk of cardiovascular disease, they are not actually decreasing cardiovascular disease! And in the process they might actually be increasing the risks of CVD, along with diabetes, obesity, cancer and overall mortality!
Awesome, keep those industrial PUFA oils coming (corn, cottonseed, safflower, soybean, sunflower)!
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Posted on February 2nd, 2011 by Brian St. Pierre
5 Comments
February 2nd, 2011 at 11:51 am
What kind of oil do you recommend using for cooking/baking? I tend to use Olive Oil, but sometimes it tastes weird!
February 2nd, 2011 at 12:14 pm
Hmmm, maybe butter?
February 2nd, 2011 at 1:07 pm
Great post, Brian.
I cook with lard, butter, or coconut oil.
February 2nd, 2011 at 4:52 pm
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February 3rd, 2011 at 11:30 am
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