The Exhaustive List of Seed Oil Sources

Ammo against the food industry's propaganda campaign

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.

…and when they were done they had gained 250lbs each

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.

The Scientific Language of Seed Oils

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:

1. Lipid peroxidation is bad (often mentioned in articles)

2. High fat diet is bad (often mentioned)

3. Lipid peroxidation comes from ingesting PUFAs (sometimes mentioned)

4. PUFAs come from seed oils (rarely mentioned)

5. Seed oils are harmful (almost never mentioned)

An example of seed oil smoke and mirrors

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.

Summary Sources on Seed Oils

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

• Chris Kresser: How Industrial seed oils are making us sick

• Jeff Nobbs: Death By Vegetable Oil

• Nina Teicholz: The Big Fat Surprise

• Cate Shanahan: Deep Nutrition

• The Great Cholesterol Myth

• MEATrition’s study cache

• Fire in a Bottle Blog

Seed Oils by Symptom

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

Obesity

• Soybean Oil Is More Obesogenic and Diabetogenic than Coconut Oil and Fructose in Mouse: Potential Role for the Liver

  • Seed oils make you fatter than than sugar

• Increase in Adipose Tissue Linoleic Acid of US Adults in the Last Half Century

  • “Adipose tissue LA [Linoleic Acid] has increased by 136% over the last half century and that this increase is highly correlated with an increase in dietary LA intake over the same period of time”

  • This is the study that suggests the half life of seed oils in fat tissue is 2 years

• Linoleic acid and the pathogenesis of obesity

  • “This increase in LA [linoleic acid] above what is estimated to be required is hypothesised to be implicated in the increased rates of obesity and other associated non-communicable diseases which occur following a transition to a modern Westernised diet.”

  • This is as strong a caution against seed oils as any mainstream academic has ever published

• Long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acid status in obesity: a systematic review and meta-analysis

  • “Dihomo-γ-linolenic acid (DGLA) values were significantly higher in overweight or obese subjects compared with controls in all the investigated biomarkers”

  • Aka obese people have more PUFAs in their body

• An emerging risk factor for obesity: does disequilibrium of polyunsaturated fatty acid metabolism contribute to excessive adipose tissue development?

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

  • A complex way of saying that eating seed oils makes you fat

• The effects of potatoes and other carbohydrate side dishes consumed with meat on food intake, glycemia and satiety response in children

  • Kids ate 300 fewer calories when their meal consisted of saturated fats + carbs as opposed to PUFAs + carbs

• A New Hypothesis of Obesity

  • Not a study, but the best lecture on how exactly seed oils make you fat

Skin Health, Tanning, and Sunburn

• 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

  • The more obese the mice, the more PUFA in their fat, the more sensitive they were to UV light

Brain Damage

• Alzheimer's linked to unsaturated fatty acids in the brain

• America's most widely consumed oil causes genetic changes in the brain

  • "Soybean oil not only leads to obesity and diabetes, but could also affect neurological conditions like autism, Alzheimer's disease, anxiety, and depression"

• Vegetable oil-derived hydroxynonenal causes Alzheimer’s neuronal death

  • “The causative substance for Alzheimer neuronal death is actually ‘vegetable oils’.”

• Transient Formation of Superoxide Radicals in Polyunsaturated Fatty Acid-Induced Brain Swelling

  • “The involvement of superoxide free radicals and lipid peroxidation in brain swelling induced by free fatty acids has been studied in brain slices and homogenates. The polyunsaturated fatty acids linoleic acid (18:2), linolenic acid (18:3), arachidonic acid (20:4), and docosahexaenoic acid (22:6) caused brain swelling concomitant with increases in superoxide and membrane lipid peroxidation”

• Elevated dietary ω-6 polyunsaturated fatty acids induce reversible peripheral nerve dysfunction that exacerbates comorbid pain conditions

  • “Collectively, these data reveal dietary enrichment with ω-6 PUFAs as a new aetiology of peripheral neuropathy and risk factor for chronic pain”

Microbiome/Digestive Health

• Six-Week High-Fat Diet Alters the Gut Microbiome and Promotes Cecal Inflammation, Endotoxin Production, and Simple Steatosis without Obesity in Male Rats

  • I wonder what kind of fat the “high fat” consists of?

• n-6 High Fat Diet Induces Gut Microbiome Dysbiosis and Colonic Inflammation

  • “An n-6 HFD [high seed oil diet] consumed from weaning to adulthood induces a shift in gut bacterial profile associated with colonic inflammation.”

Heart Disease

• Obesogenic diet in aging mice disrupts gut microbe…leading to inflamed milieu in acute heart failure

• Use of dietary linoleic acid for secondary prevention of coronary heart disease and death

  • This one is ironic because it was a study explicitly designed to show that seed oil consumption lowered the risk of heart disease, but found the opposite.

  • “In this cohort, substituting dietary linoleic acid in place of saturated fats increased the rates of death from all causes, coronary heart disease, and cardiovascular disease.”

• An update on lipid oxidation and inflammation in cardiovascular diseases

  • “Under oxidative stress, polyunsaturated fatty acids…can be readily oxidized through a free radical-induced lipid peroxidation (LPO) process to form a complex mixture of oxidation products. Overwhelming evidence demonstrates that these oxidized lipids are actively involved in the inflammatory responses”

Sexual Health and Hormones

• Fatty acid intake in relation to reproductive hormones and testicular volume among young healthy men

  • “The intake of omega-6 polyunsaturated fatty acids and trans fatty acids was inversely related to testicular volume.”

  • Aka they make your balls smaller

• Effect of Vitamin E and Polyunsaturated Fatty Acids on Cryopreserved Sperm Quality

  • Seed oils lower sperm quality, vitamin E reverses the effect

• Estrogen, statins, and polyunsaturated fatty acids: similarities in their actions and benefits—is there a common link?

  • PUFAs are basically estrogen (so are cholesterol-lowering drugs aka statins)

• Defining the Mechanisms by Which the Reactive Oxygen Species By-Product, 4-Hydroxynonenal, Affects Human Sperm Cell Function

  • “spermatozoa appear to shut down under these conditions [i.e., high lipid peroxidation] before reaching the egg”

• Free fatty acids: a possible regulator of the available oestradiol fractions in plasma

  • “A diet high in fats [which fats 😏] may be related to an elevation in the biologically available oestradiol fractions in plasma…unsaturated free fatty acids can increase the biologically available oestradiol fractions in plasma.”

• Possible relevance of steroid availability and breast cancer

  • “We demonstrated that sex steroid protein binding is decreased by free fatty acids.” (Aka elevated estrogen is a byproduct of free fatty acids (in this case PUFAs))

• The role of free fatty acids in regulating the tissue availability and synthesis of sex steroids

  • Complicated, but it looked at a population in London with higher PUFA consumption and found they had higher estrogen and therefore higher breast cancer risk

• Does high polyunsaturated free fatty acid level at the feto-maternal interface alter steroid hormone message during pregnancy?

  • “Thus PUFA may modulate the steroid hormone message, so that the high C20:4 concentration at the maternal-fetal interface at term may help amplify the estrogen signal and inhibit the progesterone signal.”

  • And that is not a good thing

• Origins and consequences of DNA damage in male germ cells

  • Lipid peroxidation causes DNA damage in sperm cells

Eye Health

• The ‘Displacing Foods of Modern Commerce’ Are the Primary and Proximate Cause of Age-Related Macular Degeneration: A Unifying Singular Hypothesis

  • Lipid peroxidation in the eye causes macular degeneration

Cancer

• Lipid peroxidation: a novel and unifying concept of the etiology of renal cell carcinoma (United States)

  • Seed oils give you kidney cancer

• Oxy radicals, lipid peroxidation and DNA damage

  • “Lipid peroxidation appears to be a major source of endogenous DNA damage in humans that may contribute significantly to cancer and other genetic diseases linked to lifestyle and dietary factors.”

• Oxidative Stress and Lipid Peroxidation Products in Cancer Progression and Therapy

  • “ROS can react with the polyunsaturated fatty acids of lipid membranes and induce lipid peroxidation”

• Potential Benefits of Omega-3 Fatty Acids in Non-Melanoma Skin Cancer

  • “Increasing levels of dietary omega-6 FA [fatty acids] increase UVR carcinogenic expression, with respect to a shorter tumor latent period and increased tumor multiplicity.”

Oxidative Stress

• Determination of Acrolein Evolved from Heated Vegetable Oil by N-Methylhydrazine Conversion

  • “Acrolein has been found in various lipid-rich foods and has been isolated from the headspace of heated vegetable oils”

• Linolenic Acid as the Main Source of Acrolein Formed During Heating of Vegetable Oils

  • “Acrolein in vegetable oils may be formed from polyunsaturated fatty acids, especially linolenic acid but not from glycerol backbone in triacylglycerols.”

• Simultaneous determination of lipophilic aldehydes by high-performance liquid chromatography in vegetable oil

  • “The detection of the toxic 4-hydroxy-2-nonenal, a major compound, and 4-hydroxy-2-hexenal, a minor compound, in heated soybean oil is of particular importance because these toxic compounds have been shown to be absorbed from the diet.”

• Dietary lipids and risk of autoimmune disease

  • “Our ongoing studies reveal that proinflammatory vegetable oil could increase autoimmune disease by increasing the free radical formation by decreasing the antioxidant enzyme mRNA levels”

• Oxidation of Polyunsaturated Fatty Acids and its Impact on Food Quality and Human Health

  • “The free radicals and metabolites generated from PUFA oxidation may adversely affect food quality and shelf life by producing off-lavors and reducing nutritional values.”

Metabolism

• GC-MS based comparative metabolomic analysis of human cancellous bone reveals the critical role of linoleic acid metabolism in femur head necrosis

  • “This study provides a new insight into the pathogenesis of FHN [femur head necrosis] and confirms linoleic acid metabolism as the core.”

Conclusion

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.