I wish we could get studies without any conflicts of interest to confirm or deny this. This study has a few that we know of:
Conflict of Interest Disclosures: Dr Guasch-Ferré reported grants from the Novo Nordisk Foundation and the International Nut and Dried Fruit Council outside the submitted work. Dr Willett reported grants from the National Institutes of Health during the conduct of the study. Dr Stampfer reported grants from the National Institutes of Health during the conduct of the study. No other disclosures were reported.
The International Nut and Dried Fruit Council may or may not be a conflict of interest about seed oils.
NIH and Novo Nordisk wouldn't be.
> I wish we could get studies without any conflicts of interest
You'd need to have a whole lot more public funding of research than we already do, if we're going to have the entire academic world not do any research for industry.
In this case, they didn't produce new data and made a relatively straightforward analysis. So the opportunities for shenanigans when other people can reproduce and evaluate the results are limited.
I grew up in a period when eggs went from bad for you to healthy to probably fine in moderation. In the same time period there was a huge push toward low fat diets which were supposed to reduce the risk of heart disease. Then it was low carb diets, then healthy fat diets.
It's unfortunate but now I have little faith in health studies related to food.
Why? My understanding of the argument against seed oils is that they have a high omega 6 to omega 3 ratio, which does not align with historical intake and leads to inflammation. While I'm not a nutritionist, this seems like a perfectly reasonable argument
We're deeply wired to avoid and attach to things based on extremely simple heuristics. Avoid the strange man with the pointy stick, attach to the tree that makes tasty fruit, avoid the crocodile pond, attach to the thing that makes women flock to you.
Marketing departments and politicians are very good at using this to their advantage.
The John Birch society was into weird ideas about health since the 1960s, I had a friend in the 1980s whose parents were Amway distributors and selling supplements who were introducing my family to anti-abortion and school voucher activists.
In Ithaca though we have a population of hypochondriacs who are notoriously left wing.
Alternative ideas about the healthiness of fats have circulated a long time
is the first one I saw against ‘seed oils’, certainly alternative ideas about the healthiness of cholesterol and saturated fats have been circulating a long time. What is different is the polarization of the post-COVID environment but the polarization is such that you find people who don’t think we are post COVID.
But since I stopped eating seed oils I haven't been mauled by a lion. Also, I ate seed oils in middle age and gained a bunch of weight, then I got healthy started exercising, spent money on a trainer and a diet, and stopped eating seed oils in fast food and lost weight!
Pick something almost everyone does and then claim that it is the source of the current great social ill... social media... profit! For bonus points use the phrases "cleanse", "detox", "inflammation", "processed", "all-natural" bereft of meaning.
I mean, it's not like the health effects of an oil would depend on what seed, or what quantity, or how you cook, or what other activities you do, is it?
p.s. all the silicon in your computer was inorganically grown!
A lot of the culture war topics seem deeply weird. mRNA vaccines that absolutely do work and are safe somehow get all kinds of things ascribed to them.
Prayer in schools, which has passed out of the Gartner Culture War hype cycle, seems like another one of those head scratchers.
Am I wrong, or do we already know a good diet for the majority of people is? Get a mix of fruits, vegetables, lean meats, grains, and fats in reasonable distribution. That distributions seems to have a pretty flexible range and each person can shift it around a bit. Maybe you skip out of meat and dairy - that works too. Same with taking out a piece of these in any way you want. Oh, and go ahead and break that once and a while and don't think it's a big deal - a day of state fair food won't kill you.
Except for specific cases that are not common (dietary restrictions of all kinds), it seems like you should mostly consume the things you traditionally associate with being "healthy", but also give yourself some wiggle room.
Get your blood work done and see a doctor regularly - if there are no issues, you're probably fine. If you're not, I doubt the reduction of seed oils in your diet would've remedied that.
I wish articles like this would engage in a bit of critical analysis of the studies they are reporting on. It's no wonder people are confused as hell about the latest science about what foods are healthy when there are seemingly new contradicting studies coming out all the time and the news about them just parrots the contents of the study with no critical analysis why this new understanding might be better, or worse, than what we had before.
That said, I hope this is right. As someone who is allergic to dairy it would be nice to know that the substitutes I'm consuming aren't significantly worse for me, and it would be great to see more dairy free options for foods although the trend seems to be going in the opposite direction (for example, the amount of "dark" chocolate with milk in it is astounding, and brands that were reliably true dark chocolates have started adding milk too)
It’s not explicitly seed oil vs not. It’s the more modern processed oils (of which many seed oils you’ll find are) that you can’t create without modern tech. Olive oil, sesame, etc are fine. People have been using these for thousands of years.
Regardless, the science behind this is so political and complex none of us will get a definitive answer in our lifetimes. RFK jr has just as much of an agenda and the large corps profiting from these oils.
Keep an open mind and try things out. I’ve personally benefited from eating simpler. Nothing overly processed and trying to eat the way my ancestors likely did. Chestertons fence applies just as much to diet and nutrition as it does software.
Not surprising. I think the argument against seed oils is they are worse than other vegetable oils, not butter. Not sure there is strong evidence for that claim either though.
There's always a new villain to explain why people are so fat, because people don't want to accept the obvious answer. Previous villain was corn syrup, you hear about that less these days. New villain is seed oils. Similar lack of evidence for either being worse than their "healthy" alternative (normal sugar or other fats). Check back in 5 years and there will be another villain.
I've seen it discussed on Twitter for a while, mostly on the right. As best I can tell it is related to a general trend toward distrust of big agriculture, big pharma, big institutions in general as seed oils are painted as a product of that whereas animal fats are a "retvrn" type of diet (or from another POV, a Michael Pollan diet). Funny to see the political factions shifting around and the horseshoe connecting left and right on nutrition.
Seed oils are part of RFK's agenda, he doesn't like them. I'm not sure that position is informed by facts though. He recently did a publicity stunt with a restaurant that replaced their fry oil with beef tallow.
MAGA is against mRNA, seed oils, and all sorts of random stuff because a random higher up in their movement said so. This is generally without evidence.
It's been building for decades in alternative health circles.
There's legitimate science about them dating back to the late 80s/early 90s.
In 1999 Sally Fallon published a book called Nourishing Traditions which argued for rejecting modern industrial foods. A lot of the arguments you see today about seed oils originate from this book.
These got amplified in 2014 by Nina Teicholz who published a book called The Big Fat Surprise which made it the topic de jure of alternative health influencers.
Then it's been a steady build across social media for about a decade.
I think the source is that years and years ago someone plotted seed oil consumption and heart disease on a graph, probably attempting to show a correlation. And now we've got claims of causation.
This is extremely low quality data, if you can even call it data.
They used survey results from the Nurses Health Study (NHS), which are decades long studies, still running, where participants fill out a food frequency questionnaire once every few on how often they ate various foods.
Not only do these questionnaires rely on memory, they rely on memory of a perception, because people don't actually measure how many cups of broccoli they eat each day. It's the worst quality of data. It's a memory of a guess, there is no measurement involved whatsoever, which is why I hesitate to even call it data.
Not only is the data itself low quality, it is compounded by lifestyle factors that are impossible to fully correct for. As an example, people that eat red meat are more likely to smoke and have diabetes, more likely to eat fast food, more likely to exercise less, etc etc. Eating foods that are perceived as healthy is correlated with healthy lifestyles. Butter has been "unhealthy" for years, so it is almost certainly correlated with an unhealthy lifestyle.
The nurses health study has led to many incorrect conclusions for these very reasons:
- It suggested hormone replacement therapy reduced heart disease risk, but randomized trials later proved it increased it due to confounding factors like healthy user bias.
- It linked vitamin E to lower heart disease risk, but trials found no benefit, showing the association came from health conscious behavior.
- It linked beta carotene to reduced cancer risk, but trials revealed supplements could increase lung cancer risk in smokers, not prevent it.
Many weak associations from the study, like diet and disease, were overstated as causal but didn’t hold up in trials due to confounding and noise.
If you are interested in how often studies like this are wrong, see "Why Most Published Research Findings Are False" by Ioannidis (spoiler: 70%).
The real test is to just test the quantity of trans fats in all oils under various conditions. Like when they are cold and at various temperatures. Why don't just do that and share data.
Probably. But, buyer beware. There have been studies in the US that it is not "uncommon" (whatever quantity that entails) to find ghee sold that contains as much as half vegetable oil, so it's just the usual unchecked food fraud that's rampant in this country. Ghee is trivial to make yourself from butter sourced from a local dairy or from a trusted source. I use it, along with Zero Acres oil made from fermented sugar cane, which is better if seeking a neutral flavor.
[+] [-] alexfromapex|1 year ago|reply
Conflict of Interest Disclosures: Dr Guasch-Ferré reported grants from the Novo Nordisk Foundation and the International Nut and Dried Fruit Council outside the submitted work. Dr Willett reported grants from the National Institutes of Health during the conduct of the study. Dr Stampfer reported grants from the National Institutes of Health during the conduct of the study. No other disclosures were reported.
[+] [-] mlyle|1 year ago|reply
The International Nut and Dried Fruit Council may or may not be a conflict of interest about seed oils.
NIH and Novo Nordisk wouldn't be.
> I wish we could get studies without any conflicts of interest
You'd need to have a whole lot more public funding of research than we already do, if we're going to have the entire academic world not do any research for industry.
In this case, they didn't produce new data and made a relatively straightforward analysis. So the opportunities for shenanigans when other people can reproduce and evaluate the results are limited.
[+] [-] pton_xd|1 year ago|reply
It's unfortunate but now I have little faith in health studies related to food.
[+] [-] CSMastermind|1 year ago|reply
Years later everyone went crazy banning trans fat.
I'll stick with butter and live with the health consequences (if any).
> It's unfortunate but now I have little faith in health studies related to food.
As someone who was taught the "food pyramid" in school, I'm firmly on the side of trust body builders and 'bro science' not the government.
[+] [-] guyzero|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] rce|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] foxyv|1 year ago|reply
Marketing departments and politicians are very good at using this to their advantage.
[+] [-] PaulHoule|1 year ago|reply
In Ithaca though we have a population of hypochondriacs who are notoriously left wing.
Alternative ideas about the healthiness of fats have circulated a long time
https://www.amazon.com/Fats-That-Heal-Kill-Cholesterol/dp/09...
is the first one I saw against ‘seed oils’, certainly alternative ideas about the healthiness of cholesterol and saturated fats have been circulating a long time. What is different is the polarization of the post-COVID environment but the polarization is such that you find people who don’t think we are post COVID.
[+] [-] kurthr|1 year ago|reply
Pick something almost everyone does and then claim that it is the source of the current great social ill... social media... profit! For bonus points use the phrases "cleanse", "detox", "inflammation", "processed", "all-natural" bereft of meaning.
I mean, it's not like the health effects of an oil would depend on what seed, or what quantity, or how you cook, or what other activities you do, is it?
p.s. all the silicon in your computer was inorganically grown!
[+] [-] bediger4000|1 year ago|reply
Prayer in schools, which has passed out of the Gartner Culture War hype cycle, seems like another one of those head scratchers.
[+] [-] sct202|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] tengbretson|1 year ago|reply
I don't have a dog in this fight, but this data is nearly useless.
[+] [-] jjice|1 year ago|reply
Except for specific cases that are not common (dietary restrictions of all kinds), it seems like you should mostly consume the things you traditionally associate with being "healthy", but also give yourself some wiggle room.
Get your blood work done and see a doctor regularly - if there are no issues, you're probably fine. If you're not, I doubt the reduction of seed oils in your diet would've remedied that.
[+] [-] wanderr|1 year ago|reply
That said, I hope this is right. As someone who is allergic to dairy it would be nice to know that the substitutes I'm consuming aren't significantly worse for me, and it would be great to see more dairy free options for foods although the trend seems to be going in the opposite direction (for example, the amount of "dark" chocolate with milk in it is astounding, and brands that were reliably true dark chocolates have started adding milk too)
[+] [-] aaaioididiid|1 year ago|reply
Regardless, the science behind this is so political and complex none of us will get a definitive answer in our lifetimes. RFK jr has just as much of an agenda and the large corps profiting from these oils.
Keep an open mind and try things out. I’ve personally benefited from eating simpler. Nothing overly processed and trying to eat the way my ancestors likely did. Chestertons fence applies just as much to diet and nutrition as it does software.
[+] [-] fkyoureadthedoc|1 year ago|reply
Such as?
The conclusion of the study mentions a few specific oils for what it's worth.
> ...replace animal fats like butter with nonhydrogenated vegetable oils that are high in unsaturated fats, especially olive, soy, and canola oil.
[+] [-] zeroonetwothree|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] azinman2|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] mmastrac|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] streptomycin|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] aggie|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] fkyoureadthedoc|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] JohnTHaller|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] CSMastermind|1 year ago|reply
There's legitimate science about them dating back to the late 80s/early 90s.
In 1999 Sally Fallon published a book called Nourishing Traditions which argued for rejecting modern industrial foods. A lot of the arguments you see today about seed oils originate from this book.
These got amplified in 2014 by Nina Teicholz who published a book called The Big Fat Surprise which made it the topic de jure of alternative health influencers.
Then it's been a steady build across social media for about a decade.
[+] [-] davidmurdoch|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] mmsimanga|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] tritipsocial|1 year ago|reply
They used survey results from the Nurses Health Study (NHS), which are decades long studies, still running, where participants fill out a food frequency questionnaire once every few on how often they ate various foods.
Not only do these questionnaires rely on memory, they rely on memory of a perception, because people don't actually measure how many cups of broccoli they eat each day. It's the worst quality of data. It's a memory of a guess, there is no measurement involved whatsoever, which is why I hesitate to even call it data.
Not only is the data itself low quality, it is compounded by lifestyle factors that are impossible to fully correct for. As an example, people that eat red meat are more likely to smoke and have diabetes, more likely to eat fast food, more likely to exercise less, etc etc. Eating foods that are perceived as healthy is correlated with healthy lifestyles. Butter has been "unhealthy" for years, so it is almost certainly correlated with an unhealthy lifestyle.
The nurses health study has led to many incorrect conclusions for these very reasons:
- It suggested hormone replacement therapy reduced heart disease risk, but randomized trials later proved it increased it due to confounding factors like healthy user bias.
- It linked vitamin E to lower heart disease risk, but trials found no benefit, showing the association came from health conscious behavior.
- It linked beta carotene to reduced cancer risk, but trials revealed supplements could increase lung cancer risk in smokers, not prevent it.
Many weak associations from the study, like diet and disease, were overstated as causal but didn’t hold up in trials due to confounding and noise.
If you are interested in how often studies like this are wrong, see "Why Most Published Research Findings Are False" by Ioannidis (spoiler: 70%).
[+] [-] giardini|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] adamnemecek|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] thumbsup-_-|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] amelius|1 year ago|reply
Ok, I guess soon there will be no buying options then.
[+] [-] jrs235|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] cantrecallmypwd|1 year ago|reply
Cook with: Avocado oil or butter as a secondary alternative
Consume raw: Extra virgin olive, flaxseed, or walnut oil
[+] [-] randomNumber7|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] brcmthrowaway|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] thrill|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] groos|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] cantrecallmypwd|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] mushroomba|1 year ago|reply
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[+] [-] VoodooJuJu|1 year ago|reply
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