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> The same UC Riverside research team found in 2015 that soybean oil induces obesity, diabetes, insulin resistance, and fatty liver in mice. Then in a 2017 stud

> The same UC Riverside research team found in 2015 that soybean oil induces obesity, diabetes, insulin resistance, and fatty liver in mice. Then in a 2017 study, the same group learned that if soybean oil is engineered to be low in linoleic acid, it induces less obesity and insulin resistance. > “The hypothalamus regulates body weight via your metabolism, maintains body temperature, is critical for reproduction and physical growth as well as your response to stress,” Italics mine. Linoleic acid is what induces torpor (hibernation) in mammals. We are mammals. People in the modern world are possibly something like half hibernating, inclusive of mental effects and of course the effect on difficult-to-remove-weight. The rise in Soybean oil consumption is an enormous change in the human diet over the last 50 years. The scale of it replacing so many fats, especially formerly animal fats, is just huge. See: Humans and Hibernating Mammals React to The Same Amount of Dietary Linoleic Acid in the Same Way. By Becoming Torpid. https://fireinabottle.net/humans-and-hibernating-mammals-react-to-the-same-amount-of-dietary-linoleic-acid-in-the-same-way-by-becoming-torpid/ https://fireinabottle.net/humans-and-hibernating-mammals-rea... (I submitted that article because I think its worth its own discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30456454 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30456454)

hinkley 5y ago
We are also feeding those beans to cows, pigs, and I think chickens? People have been complaining about lineolic acid rising in these meats too. In a way I think this gives some ammo to the vegetarian philosophy, but I'd like to know the lineolic acid content of tofu, since bean curd is not exactly equivalent to whole beans.
softwarebeware 5y ago
It's interesting to try and square the multiple conflicting findings about the effect of the modern diet on the brain and other observed phenomena such as The Flynn Effect (https://ourworldindata.org/intelligence https://ourworldindata.org/intelligence) that mean IQ is increasing over time.
- stakkur 5y ago
  Maybe 'IQ', a somewhat suspect measure, isn't very useful.
- iratewizard 5y ago
  There was a good article I read years ago (and can't find again with how useless Google has become) which talked about IQs rising but people getting dumber. The main theory it had was adapting to the tests and teaching skills that help answer questions on IQ tests.
- whoisburbansky 5y ago
  Especially interesting to put all of that in the context of recent reports of plateaus and reversals in the Flynn Effect, at least in certain European countries: (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6042097/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6042097/), contrasted with wider meta-analyses that still show an increase, although less than previously thought, and dependent on age group and country development status. (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0160289614001718?via%3Dihub https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S01602...)
- somenameforme 5y ago
  The Flynn effect has been observed to have reversed in a number of nations in Scandinavia and elsewhere. [1] Scandinavia is the typical test bed because of have compulsory military enlistment paired with IQ testing. And the declines are quite substantial with Norway seeing a 5 point decline between individuals born in 1991 compared to those born in 1975, and a 3 point decline compared to those born in 1962. Big meta studies may miss this because its a relatively new trend, and IQ is full of a million biases that can just generate noise when combined. When people are young, their IQ is significantly influenced by environmental factors, but as they age genetic factors become dominant. And in countries without some form of compulsory testing, sample biases abounds. As for the past gains, look at height! Height is reasonable proxy for nutrition and globally it's just skyrocketed [2]. Japan is one of the more extreme examples, with their average height increasing by about half a foot since 1896! [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flynn_effect#Possible_end_of_progression https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flynn_effect#Possible_end_of_p... [2] - https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/average-height-of-men?tab=table&time=earliest..1996 https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/average-height-of-men?tab...
sinyug 5y ago
> Soybean oil I saw this video about seed oils a few months back.[1] Some of the information there tracked stuff I have been reading for a while. Decided to switch over completely to coconut oil and ghee (clarified butter). A comment on the video that matches my view on the subject: > If you want to be healthy just do the exact opposite of everything we were told about nutrition by mainstream experts for decades [1] The $100 Billion Dollar Ingredient making your Food Toxic (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rQmqVVmMB3k https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rQmqVVmMB3k)
- blindmute 5y ago
  Yep, it's weird how the "boomer" types who said to eat butter, steak and potatoes, ended up having healthier diets than almost anyone does today. Personally I just eat like an ancient Greek and leave it at that. They didn't have Doritos, so I can do without them too.
- mrob 5y ago
  >ghee Cholesterol oxides in Indian ghee: possible cause of unexplained high risk of atherosclerosis in Indian immigrant populations: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/2887943/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/2887943/ "Substantial amounts of cholesterol oxides were found in ghee (12.3% of sterols), but not in fresh butter"
  - sinyug 5y ago
    > Indian ghee We have been using ghee in India for thousands of years. If immigrant Indians are having problems, they should look into what changed in their diet and lifestyle after they immigrated.
    - namdnay 5y ago
      > We have been using ghee in India for thousands of years That in of itself is not a particularly good argument. What has been the life expectancy for those thousands of years?
    - kortilla 5y ago
zhte415 5y ago
The article specifically mentions, following that cited part, on Linoleic acid: > the research team has not yet isolated which chemicals in the oil are responsible for the changes they found in the hypothalamus. But they have ruled out two candidates. It is not linoleic acid, since the modified oil also produced genetic disruptions; nor is it stigmasterol, a cholesterol-like chemical found naturally in soybean oil.
- forgetfulness 5y ago
  It explains why they chose coconut oil for the comparison, it has one of the least amounts of linoleic acid in its composition in any fat. Ironically, lineseed oil is also low in linoleic acid. https://www.news-medical.net/health/Oils-Rich-in-Linoleic-Acid.aspx https://www.news-medical.net/health/Oils-Rich-in-Linoleic-Ac...
- simonsarris 5y ago
  But the team DID note that "the SO + CO diet caused more weight gain over the 16-week study than the other HFD" (As opposed to the modified soybean diet). This is a quote from the paper, not the article. According to the paper the Linoleic acid composition of the oils in question are: soybean: %52.90 modified SO: %7.42 (aka plenish) coconut: %0.06 So while some of the genetic expressions may exist in both, both have LA, and the higher LA = higher obesity according to the paper authors (they did not give a graphic for the obesity differences, unfortunately)
rgrieselhuber 5y ago
Yup. One of the best books on this topic of toxic oils is Deep Nutrition: https://www.amazon.com/Deep-Nutrition-Your-Genes-Traditional/dp/1250113822 https://www.amazon.com/Deep-Nutrition-Your-Genes-Traditional...
crowbahr 5y ago
From the study: > One additional note on this study — the research team has not yet isolated which chemicals in the oil are responsible for the changes they found in the hypothalamus. But they have ruled out two candidates. It is not linoleic acid, since the modified oil also produced genetic disruptions; nor is it stigmasterol, a cholesterol-like chemical found naturally in soybean oil. 1. We're not mammals that experience torpor. That doesn't even remotely apply to us. 2. The study explicitly states this isn't lineolic acid. 3. The site you linked is a snake oils salesman who has a vested interest in you buying their products and living the lifestyle they espouse.
- pigeonhole123 5y ago
  1. We have common genes going back to mammals who did experience torpor. 2. A study doesn't "own" their data and have exclusive right to interpret this data 3. Someone selling something that they think is beneficial to their customer, does not mean it is not beneficial. I would say most people who sell things honestly think their customers will benefit from their product.
  - clevergadget 5y ago
    tell me you've never worked in sales without telling me you've never worked in sales
    - pigeonhole123 5y ago
      Can we apply this argument to everything that's for sale? Seed oils are for sale too...
      - thfuran 5y ago
        Yes, you absolutely should look to sources other than walnut oil salesmen for information regarding the benefits and drawbacks of walnut oil.
    - jazzyjackson 5y ago
xhrpost 5y ago
> Linoleic acid is what induces torpor Is this the same as ALA in flax-seed oil that is supposedly good for us?
- Pxtl 5y ago
  It's every high-heat unsaturated cooking oil. Basically every cooking oil except olive oil and full-fat stuff like coconut, butter, and lard contain a decent amount of linoleic acid.
  - loopdoend 5y ago
    Butter and lard contain Neu5Gc which is another nutrition rabbit hole.
- primroot 5y ago
  ALA is alpha-linolenic acid (the essential omega-3 fatty acid). LA is linoleic acid (the essential omega-6 fatty acid). They are the "raw materials" of the Arachidonic Acid Cascade.
  - stjohnswarts 5y ago
    So does this mean they should have similar effects on the body or that they are different enough to be essentially just two different fats that are significantly different enough not to draw conclusions that ALA causes the same (potential) effects as LA as brought forth in the article?
    - pigeonhole123 5y ago
      ALA is one type of Omega 3 fat. LA is Omega 6.
    - loudtieblahblah 5y ago
      They're both polyunsaturated fats. While an over-simplification Omega3s (which ALA is) tend to be anti-inflammatory and have tons of positive effects of cardiovascular health (up to a point - more on this later) while Omega6s, which are necessary for our survival, do tend to have an inflammatory effect. The goal is to be high-ish in Omega3s without getting mercury poisoning and low in Omega6s. The modern diet - so if you go out to eat at all, if you cook with corn/canola/soybean/cottonseed oils or shortenings like Criso, if you use 90% of most modern pre-made marinades, salad dressings, cereals, chips, crackers, cookies, and even most bread (not including some brands of butter bread), they all load up on "seed oils" (Meaning LA). When people say a good diet is rich in whole foods and low in processed foods - this is what is at the heart of it. Processed foods tend to be high in omega6s, high in sugar, and high in sodium,. The latter 2 are largely for taste, or in salt's case taste and preservation. Omega6s are used b/c the oils are super cheap. These are oils that couldn't exist without modern industry, in the bulk in which we produce them. (unlike say..beef tallow, coconut oil, butter, olive oil, ghee, duck fat, etc.) And initially they were sold by non-food industries as a way to maximize profits on byproducts from other industrial processes. They have incredibly high smoke points and they don't go rancid or spoil, so if you want to make say... Cheeze-Its or Pringles, it's a perfect choice for production - it's cheap, it's stable, it doesn't burn easily, it doesn't spoil, etc.. What's worse is we've radically changed what we feed animals too - chickens, pigs, cows, and now all of the meat we eat also has a much higher omega6 profile than it ever did before these seedoils came along or "corn" became the staple of our lives from ethanol to chicken feed. Foods high in Omega3s tend to be fatty fish, the low mercury types would be salmon and sardines, mostly. Tuna is good too but higher in mercury. and you'll want to eat the wild versions of these b/c at least in Salmon's case it also contains an antioxidant called Astaxanthin, which is an amazing anti-oxidant. Salmon get this from eating Krill (Krill get it from eating algae - and it's why krill and salmon are red/pink). Unlike most anti-oxidants, Astaxanthin doesn't flip to being pro-oxidant under any circumstances and it, particularly, prevents Poly-Unsaturated Fats from Oxidizing. Which is really important since they oxidize so easily ( this is why Omega3 based oils, for example, aren't good cooking oils). Fish are high in EPA and DHA, which are forms of Omega3. ALA is the type found in flax or papaya or some other sources. I'd mention chia seeds but being as they're higher in oxylates than spinach, i reject them as a health food. ALA is a poor Omega3. Your body can't use it directly and it must be converted into EPA and DHA and it's done so at a really poor conversion rate. Something like only 5-10% of the Omega3s in ALA form ever get converted to a form that your body can use. And while there's 1000s of blogs and videos going on about the benefits of Omega3s, which there are many, let me also give warning that high doses of EPA (pure EPA at 4-7g) given to patients in a clinical trial, for years, gave them heart arrhythmias. While no fun, the main cause of death from heart arrhythmias is stroke, and funny enough, Omega3s lessen the risk of death from stroke. So you'd get a heart arrhythmias but still be less likely to die from it. The lesson here, though, is the poison is in the dose. The more you read Fire in a Bottle (blog linked in first comment), you'll notice that the human body really isn't meant to process mass amounts of PUFAs at all. This is a fantastic talk on Omega3s: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-f-CFQxaUY4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-f-CFQxaUY4 I have weaponized my health anxiety, so subscribe if you'd like to know more.
Pxtl 5y ago
Fixating on lineolic acid is kind of hard when basically all high-heat vegetable oils contain a lot of it. If lineolic acid is the problem then basically every unsaturated cooking oil other than olive oil is now unusable. Maybe canola, depending on how much lineolic acid is safe.
- burke 5y ago
  Avocado sits somewhere between olive and canola in terms of linoleic acid content (one reference said 13%; another said 7–20%), and has one of the highest smoke points of all cooking oils at 271°C. It's also pretty flavour neutral. It's a fantastic choice for high-heat cooking.
  - Pxtl 5y ago
    Yeah, I tend to use avocado oil when it's available or refined high-heat olive oil when it's not. The heavy processing of high heat olive oil is concerning but it does mean low linoleic acid.
- loudtieblahblah 5y ago
  canola is probably the best out of the bunch but it's still too high in omega6s. PUFAs - as cooking oils - should be totally and utterly avoided. People should be using butter, ghee, beef tallow, coconut oil, avocado oil (which is a little higher in omega6s that i'd like but it's mostly a monosaturated fat), duck fat, emu oil. Macademia nut oil is higher in monosaturated fats than olive oil and has a higher smoke point, but it's expensive. Tallow, butter and coconut is where it's at for high heat cookiing. Most seed, nut, corn, and vegetable oils are trash. Cottonseed, soybean, corn, canola, grapeseed, peanut, etc..
  - depressedpanda 5y ago
    As I understand it, canola is the same as rapeseed oil, or is a refined version of it. For what I think are obvious reasons, I stay away from refined oils. However, where I live I can get locally produced cold pressed "extra virgin" rapeseed oil. How would you say that compares to canola oil regarding how healthy (or trashy) it is?
Salgat 5y ago
To note, even eggs and lard have large amounts of Linoleic acid, and I'm pretty sure lard and eggs have existed in the human diet for as long as chickens and pigs as livestock have existed.
- mpalczewski 5y ago
  I somewhat agree that the fear of linloeic acid doesn't always match facts. I do tend to avoid seed oils as they are relatively new and their health effects are rather suspect. However, in this case, the eggs and lard that existed in the human diet for a long time, are not the same. The chickens and pigs are eating a different diet and this does effect the composition of the fatty acids present in the flesh/eggs.
  - gruez 5y ago
    >I do tend to avoid seed oils as they are relatively new compared to what? various foods contain oil (eg. peanuts, cashews, soybeans, sunflower seeds). Are they different, or "suspect" as well?
    - nomel 5y ago
      All of these are extremely seasonal, and relatively rare, in terms of total caloric intake in an archaic diet.
- loudtieblahblah 5y ago
  the rates of linoleic acid in eggs, large, chicken, beef, pork have all changed drastically in the last 100 years because what we feed the animals has changed drastically. a grass fed cow has a lower omega6 profile than one in a factory farm. farmers have gotten tricky with it, raising "grass fed cows" but then for a couple months before slaughter, fattening them up with industry "feed". So now when you're at the store you have to find not only "grass fed" but "grass finished" beef. Chickens that are allowed to eat at will (chickens eat a really wide range of shit, not just "feed" that's mostly corn - they eat grass, bugs, they'll even eat rodents if they can catch one). Chickens in farms usually don't eat like that. If your eggs say "organic", they're certainly not eating like that. There's absolutely no way to get low PUFA pork these days. At all. Fire in the Bottle blog has partnered with a farm that's raising low PUFA pigs and you can have $100 of pork shipped to you, but that's the only place i'm aware of it. But yeah, the fat profile of our animals havve radically changed. Because of what we feed them. And then we eat them and the problems goes on up the food chain. I'm not a vegetarian and i'm not a globalist and there becomes a point where there's a lot of politics in what you eat. I'm not into diets to be kind to animals or even because of the environment. If healthy food hurt the environment, i'm eating healthy food. Ya know? But at this juncture - you're better off being low meat (wild caught, mercury tested, salmon 1-2x a week, some skinless chicken, grassfed beef 1x a month or something), and eating a mostly vegetarian diet, roughly 1-2 meals a day, lots and lots and lots of veggies. It's simply too hard to account for all the garbage done to meat, from a health perspective.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
loudtieblahblah 5y ago
this is the 2nd time in a week I've seen Fire In A Bottle linked on HN. It's good to see it. This guy is so ahead of the curve.
- zaphar 5y ago
  Anecdotally when someone is believed to be "Ahead of the curve" in nutrition science they are more likelty to be shown to have shot entirely off the road in a few years.
robwwilliams 5y ago
Happy to see it in HN, if only as a canonical example of the current “rage” of reductionist n-of-1 science funded by you and others through NIH and many other research funders. This is the very opposite of robust and translatable research. It is science to “get a paper out” with a snappy press release. Would you trust n-of-1 clinical trial? One monozygotic twin gets diet X, the other is control. A study of C57BL/6N mice, no matter how many are used is an n-of-1 study. And these mice all completely inbred. At least the human MZ twins are not inbred! There is just no excuse for style of reductionist science. Gives mouse models a terrible, but perhaps deservedly bad reputation for translational ir-relevance. Yet you see these n-of-1 studies in many of the top tier journals. The NIH BRAIN initiative mouse studies make the same error. Do we really want just ONE connectome? How do we compute our way to causal models with n-of-1?
- robwwilliams 5y ago
  And I should add — I do these kinds of studies, and have since 1996. I love using mouse genetic models. They can be great. I always try to study many genomes of mice and whenever possible both sexes. Does it make it harder and more expensive? You bet. But the data are much more robust and translationally relevant. See almost any paper by RW Williams at UTHSC.
maxerickson 5y ago
What body temperature are all these torpid people maintaining then?

hinkley 5y ago

We are also feeding those beans to cows, pigs, and I think chickens? People have been complaining about lineolic acid rising in these meats too. In a way I think this gives some ammo to the vegetarian philosophy, but I'd like to know the lineolic acid content of tofu, since bean curd is not exactly equivalent to whole beans.

softwarebeware 5y ago

It's interesting to try and square the multiple conflicting findings about the effect of the modern diet on the brain and other observed phenomena such as The Flynn Effect (https://ourworldindata.org/intelligence https://ourworldindata.org/intelligence) that mean IQ is increasing over time.

stakkur 5y ago
Maybe 'IQ', a somewhat suspect measure, isn't very useful.
iratewizard 5y ago
There was a good article I read years ago (and can't find again with how useless Google has become) which talked about IQs rising but people getting dumber. The main theory it had was adapting to the tests and teaching skills that help answer questions on IQ tests.
whoisburbansky 5y ago
Especially interesting to put all of that in the context of recent reports of plateaus and reversals in the Flynn Effect, at least in certain European countries: (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6042097/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6042097/), contrasted with wider meta-analyses that still show an increase, although less than previously thought, and dependent on age group and country development status. (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0160289614001718?via%3Dihub https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S01602...)
somenameforme 5y ago
The Flynn effect has been observed to have reversed in a number of nations in Scandinavia and elsewhere. [1] Scandinavia is the typical test bed because of have compulsory military enlistment paired with IQ testing. And the declines are quite substantial with Norway seeing a 5 point decline between individuals born in 1991 compared to those born in 1975, and a 3 point decline compared to those born in 1962. Big meta studies may miss this because its a relatively new trend, and IQ is full of a million biases that can just generate noise when combined. When people are young, their IQ is significantly influenced by environmental factors, but as they age genetic factors become dominant. And in countries without some form of compulsory testing, sample biases abounds. As for the past gains, look at height! Height is reasonable proxy for nutrition and globally it's just skyrocketed [2]. Japan is one of the more extreme examples, with their average height increasing by about half a foot since 1896! [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flynn_effect#Possible_end_of_progression https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flynn_effect#Possible_end_of_p... [2] - https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/average-height-of-men?tab=table&time=earliest..1996 https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/average-height-of-men?tab...

sinyug 5y ago

> Soybean oil I saw this video about seed oils a few months back.[1] Some of the information there tracked stuff I have been reading for a while. Decided to switch over completely to coconut oil and ghee (clarified butter). A comment on the video that matches my view on the subject: > If you want to be healthy just do the exact opposite of everything we were told about nutrition by mainstream experts for decades [1] The $100 Billion Dollar Ingredient making your Food Toxic (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rQmqVVmMB3k https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rQmqVVmMB3k)

blindmute 5y ago
Yep, it's weird how the "boomer" types who said to eat butter, steak and potatoes, ended up having healthier diets than almost anyone does today. Personally I just eat like an ancient Greek and leave it at that. They didn't have Doritos, so I can do without them too.
mrob 5y ago
>ghee Cholesterol oxides in Indian ghee: possible cause of unexplained high risk of atherosclerosis in Indian immigrant populations: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/2887943/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/2887943/ "Substantial amounts of cholesterol oxides were found in ghee (12.3% of sterols), but not in fresh butter"
- sinyug 5y ago
  > Indian ghee We have been using ghee in India for thousands of years. If immigrant Indians are having problems, they should look into what changed in their diet and lifestyle after they immigrated.
  - namdnay 5y ago
    > We have been using ghee in India for thousands of years That in of itself is not a particularly good argument. What has been the life expectancy for those thousands of years?
  - kortilla 5y ago

zhte415 5y ago

The article specifically mentions, following that cited part, on Linoleic acid: > the research team has not yet isolated which chemicals in the oil are responsible for the changes they found in the hypothalamus. But they have ruled out two candidates. It is not linoleic acid, since the modified oil also produced genetic disruptions; nor is it stigmasterol, a cholesterol-like chemical found naturally in soybean oil.

forgetfulness 5y ago
It explains why they chose coconut oil for the comparison, it has one of the least amounts of linoleic acid in its composition in any fat. Ironically, lineseed oil is also low in linoleic acid. https://www.news-medical.net/health/Oils-Rich-in-Linoleic-Acid.aspx https://www.news-medical.net/health/Oils-Rich-in-Linoleic-Ac...
simonsarris 5y ago
But the team DID note that "the SO + CO diet caused more weight gain over the 16-week study than the other HFD" (As opposed to the modified soybean diet). This is a quote from the paper, not the article. According to the paper the Linoleic acid composition of the oils in question are: soybean: %52.90 modified SO: %7.42 (aka plenish) coconut: %0.06 So while some of the genetic expressions may exist in both, both have LA, and the higher LA = higher obesity according to the paper authors (they did not give a graphic for the obesity differences, unfortunately)

rgrieselhuber 5y ago

Yup. One of the best books on this topic of toxic oils is Deep Nutrition: https://www.amazon.com/Deep-Nutrition-Your-Genes-Traditional/dp/1250113822 https://www.amazon.com/Deep-Nutrition-Your-Genes-Traditional...

crowbahr 5y ago

From the study: > One additional note on this study — the research team has not yet isolated which chemicals in the oil are responsible for the changes they found in the hypothalamus. But they have ruled out two candidates. It is not linoleic acid, since the modified oil also produced genetic disruptions; nor is it stigmasterol, a cholesterol-like chemical found naturally in soybean oil. 1. We're not mammals that experience torpor. That doesn't even remotely apply to us. 2. The study explicitly states this isn't lineolic acid. 3. The site you linked is a snake oils salesman who has a vested interest in you buying their products and living the lifestyle they espouse.

pigeonhole123 5y ago
1. We have common genes going back to mammals who did experience torpor. 2. A study doesn't "own" their data and have exclusive right to interpret this data 3. Someone selling something that they think is beneficial to their customer, does not mean it is not beneficial. I would say most people who sell things honestly think their customers will benefit from their product.
- clevergadget 5y ago
  tell me you've never worked in sales without telling me you've never worked in sales
  - pigeonhole123 5y ago
    Can we apply this argument to everything that's for sale? Seed oils are for sale too...
    - thfuran 5y ago
      Yes, you absolutely should look to sources other than walnut oil salesmen for information regarding the benefits and drawbacks of walnut oil.
  - jazzyjackson 5y ago

xhrpost 5y ago

> Linoleic acid is what induces torpor Is this the same as ALA in flax-seed oil that is supposedly good for us?

Pxtl 5y ago
It's every high-heat unsaturated cooking oil. Basically every cooking oil except olive oil and full-fat stuff like coconut, butter, and lard contain a decent amount of linoleic acid.
- loopdoend 5y ago
  Butter and lard contain Neu5Gc which is another nutrition rabbit hole.
primroot 5y ago
ALA is alpha-linolenic acid (the essential omega-3 fatty acid). LA is linoleic acid (the essential omega-6 fatty acid). They are the "raw materials" of the Arachidonic Acid Cascade.
- stjohnswarts 5y ago
  So does this mean they should have similar effects on the body or that they are different enough to be essentially just two different fats that are significantly different enough not to draw conclusions that ALA causes the same (potential) effects as LA as brought forth in the article?
  - pigeonhole123 5y ago
    ALA is one type of Omega 3 fat. LA is Omega 6.
  - loudtieblahblah 5y ago
    They're both polyunsaturated fats. While an over-simplification Omega3s (which ALA is) tend to be anti-inflammatory and have tons of positive effects of cardiovascular health (up to a point - more on this later) while Omega6s, which are necessary for our survival, do tend to have an inflammatory effect. The goal is to be high-ish in Omega3s without getting mercury poisoning and low in Omega6s. The modern diet - so if you go out to eat at all, if you cook with corn/canola/soybean/cottonseed oils or shortenings like Criso, if you use 90% of most modern pre-made marinades, salad dressings, cereals, chips, crackers, cookies, and even most bread (not including some brands of butter bread), they all load up on "seed oils" (Meaning LA). When people say a good diet is rich in whole foods and low in processed foods - this is what is at the heart of it. Processed foods tend to be high in omega6s, high in sugar, and high in sodium,. The latter 2 are largely for taste, or in salt's case taste and preservation. Omega6s are used b/c the oils are super cheap. These are oils that couldn't exist without modern industry, in the bulk in which we produce them. (unlike say..beef tallow, coconut oil, butter, olive oil, ghee, duck fat, etc.) And initially they were sold by non-food industries as a way to maximize profits on byproducts from other industrial processes. They have incredibly high smoke points and they don't go rancid or spoil, so if you want to make say... Cheeze-Its or Pringles, it's a perfect choice for production - it's cheap, it's stable, it doesn't burn easily, it doesn't spoil, etc.. What's worse is we've radically changed what we feed animals too - chickens, pigs, cows, and now all of the meat we eat also has a much higher omega6 profile than it ever did before these seedoils came along or "corn" became the staple of our lives from ethanol to chicken feed. Foods high in Omega3s tend to be fatty fish, the low mercury types would be salmon and sardines, mostly. Tuna is good too but higher in mercury. and you'll want to eat the wild versions of these b/c at least in Salmon's case it also contains an antioxidant called Astaxanthin, which is an amazing anti-oxidant. Salmon get this from eating Krill (Krill get it from eating algae - and it's why krill and salmon are red/pink). Unlike most anti-oxidants, Astaxanthin doesn't flip to being pro-oxidant under any circumstances and it, particularly, prevents Poly-Unsaturated Fats from Oxidizing. Which is really important since they oxidize so easily ( this is why Omega3 based oils, for example, aren't good cooking oils). Fish are high in EPA and DHA, which are forms of Omega3. ALA is the type found in flax or papaya or some other sources. I'd mention chia seeds but being as they're higher in oxylates than spinach, i reject them as a health food. ALA is a poor Omega3. Your body can't use it directly and it must be converted into EPA and DHA and it's done so at a really poor conversion rate. Something like only 5-10% of the Omega3s in ALA form ever get converted to a form that your body can use. And while there's 1000s of blogs and videos going on about the benefits of Omega3s, which there are many, let me also give warning that high doses of EPA (pure EPA at 4-7g) given to patients in a clinical trial, for years, gave them heart arrhythmias. While no fun, the main cause of death from heart arrhythmias is stroke, and funny enough, Omega3s lessen the risk of death from stroke. So you'd get a heart arrhythmias but still be less likely to die from it. The lesson here, though, is the poison is in the dose. The more you read Fire in a Bottle (blog linked in first comment), you'll notice that the human body really isn't meant to process mass amounts of PUFAs at all. This is a fantastic talk on Omega3s: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-f-CFQxaUY4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-f-CFQxaUY4 I have weaponized my health anxiety, so subscribe if you'd like to know more.

Pxtl 5y ago

Fixating on lineolic acid is kind of hard when basically all high-heat vegetable oils contain a lot of it. If lineolic acid is the problem then basically every unsaturated cooking oil other than olive oil is now unusable. Maybe canola, depending on how much lineolic acid is safe.

burke 5y ago
Avocado sits somewhere between olive and canola in terms of linoleic acid content (one reference said 13%; another said 7–20%), and has one of the highest smoke points of all cooking oils at 271°C. It's also pretty flavour neutral. It's a fantastic choice for high-heat cooking.
- Pxtl 5y ago
  Yeah, I tend to use avocado oil when it's available or refined high-heat olive oil when it's not. The heavy processing of high heat olive oil is concerning but it does mean low linoleic acid.
loudtieblahblah 5y ago
canola is probably the best out of the bunch but it's still too high in omega6s. PUFAs - as cooking oils - should be totally and utterly avoided. People should be using butter, ghee, beef tallow, coconut oil, avocado oil (which is a little higher in omega6s that i'd like but it's mostly a monosaturated fat), duck fat, emu oil. Macademia nut oil is higher in monosaturated fats than olive oil and has a higher smoke point, but it's expensive. Tallow, butter and coconut is where it's at for high heat cookiing. Most seed, nut, corn, and vegetable oils are trash. Cottonseed, soybean, corn, canola, grapeseed, peanut, etc..
- depressedpanda 5y ago
  As I understand it, canola is the same as rapeseed oil, or is a refined version of it. For what I think are obvious reasons, I stay away from refined oils. However, where I live I can get locally produced cold pressed "extra virgin" rapeseed oil. How would you say that compares to canola oil regarding how healthy (or trashy) it is?

Salgat 5y ago

To note, even eggs and lard have large amounts of Linoleic acid, and I'm pretty sure lard and eggs have existed in the human diet for as long as chickens and pigs as livestock have existed.

mpalczewski 5y ago
I somewhat agree that the fear of linloeic acid doesn't always match facts. I do tend to avoid seed oils as they are relatively new and their health effects are rather suspect. However, in this case, the eggs and lard that existed in the human diet for a long time, are not the same. The chickens and pigs are eating a different diet and this does effect the composition of the fatty acids present in the flesh/eggs.
- gruez 5y ago
  >I do tend to avoid seed oils as they are relatively new compared to what? various foods contain oil (eg. peanuts, cashews, soybeans, sunflower seeds). Are they different, or "suspect" as well?
  - nomel 5y ago
    All of these are extremely seasonal, and relatively rare, in terms of total caloric intake in an archaic diet.
loudtieblahblah 5y ago
the rates of linoleic acid in eggs, large, chicken, beef, pork have all changed drastically in the last 100 years because what we feed the animals has changed drastically. a grass fed cow has a lower omega6 profile than one in a factory farm. farmers have gotten tricky with it, raising "grass fed cows" but then for a couple months before slaughter, fattening them up with industry "feed". So now when you're at the store you have to find not only "grass fed" but "grass finished" beef. Chickens that are allowed to eat at will (chickens eat a really wide range of shit, not just "feed" that's mostly corn - they eat grass, bugs, they'll even eat rodents if they can catch one). Chickens in farms usually don't eat like that. If your eggs say "organic", they're certainly not eating like that. There's absolutely no way to get low PUFA pork these days. At all. Fire in the Bottle blog has partnered with a farm that's raising low PUFA pigs and you can have $100 of pork shipped to you, but that's the only place i'm aware of it. But yeah, the fat profile of our animals havve radically changed. Because of what we feed them. And then we eat them and the problems goes on up the food chain. I'm not a vegetarian and i'm not a globalist and there becomes a point where there's a lot of politics in what you eat. I'm not into diets to be kind to animals or even because of the environment. If healthy food hurt the environment, i'm eating healthy food. Ya know? But at this juncture - you're better off being low meat (wild caught, mercury tested, salmon 1-2x a week, some skinless chicken, grassfed beef 1x a month or something), and eating a mostly vegetarian diet, roughly 1-2 meals a day, lots and lots and lots of veggies. It's simply too hard to account for all the garbage done to meat, from a health perspective.

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loudtieblahblah 5y ago

this is the 2nd time in a week I've seen Fire In A Bottle linked on HN. It's good to see it. This guy is so ahead of the curve.

zaphar 5y ago
Anecdotally when someone is believed to be "Ahead of the curve" in nutrition science they are more likelty to be shown to have shot entirely off the road in a few years.

robwwilliams 5y ago

Happy to see it in HN, if only as a canonical example of the current “rage” of reductionist n-of-1 science funded by you and others through NIH and many other research funders. This is the very opposite of robust and translatable research. It is science to “get a paper out” with a snappy press release. Would you trust n-of-1 clinical trial? One monozygotic twin gets diet X, the other is control. A study of C57BL/6N mice, no matter how many are used is an n-of-1 study. And these mice all completely inbred. At least the human MZ twins are not inbred! There is just no excuse for style of reductionist science. Gives mouse models a terrible, but perhaps deservedly bad reputation for translational ir-relevance. Yet you see these n-of-1 studies in many of the top tier journals. The NIH BRAIN initiative mouse studies make the same error. Do we really want just ONE connectome? How do we compute our way to causal models with n-of-1?

robwwilliams 5y ago
And I should add — I do these kinds of studies, and have since 1996. I love using mouse genetic models. They can be great. I always try to study many genomes of mice and whenever possible both sexes. Does it make it harder and more expensive? You bet. But the data are much more robust and translationally relevant. See almost any paper by RW Williams at UTHSC.

maxerickson 5y ago

What body temperature are all these torpid people maintaining then?