This article was previously published on December 2, 2020 and has been updated with new information.
Evidence continues to accumulate that avoiding toxic industrially processed seed oils, often referred to as “vegetable oils,” is essential to protecting your health, and recent research adds. Adding iron in the diet increases health risks, especially for people with Type 2 diabetes.first
Examples of seed oils that are high in omega-6 polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) include soybean, cottonseed, sunflower, canola, corn, and safflower.2 Omega-6s are considered pro-inflammatory because the most common, linoleic acid, will completely increase oxidative free radicals and cause mitochondrial dysfunction.3
But all seed oils have linoleic acid, even “healthy” ones like avocado and olive oil, both of which are largely adulterated with other nut oils in high concentrations. higher linoleic acid. So only buy trusted and tested brands and after you have refrigerated the oil. Linoleic acid will remain liquid. Simply dump that oil in the trash and your olive or avocado oil will be healthier.
Consuming omega-6 seed oils may also promote inflammation through arachidonic acid by increasing the production of pro-inflammatory compounds. Furthermore, as the researchers noted in the journal Nutrients, “In addition, some studies suggest that omega-6 PUFAs are associated with chronic inflammatory diseases such as obesity, non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease.” and cardiovascular disease.”4
Meanwhile, iron, while essential for oxygen delivery, mitochondrial electron transport, DNA synthesis and more, can induce oxidative stress that leads to tissue damage and previous research has shown found that dietary iron intake may be associated with diabetes risk. Now, researchers have demonstrated a link between iron intake and PUFAs with diabetic peripheral neuropathy (DPN) in people with type 2 diabetes.5
Link found between PUFA, iron intake and DPN
Diabetic peripheral neuropathy is a form of nerve damage that can occur in people with diabetes. Lesions occur, most often, in your legs and feet and are an important cause of falls and fractures in this population. In addition to long-term diabetes, other risk factors for DPN including insulin resistance, high blood pressure, obesity and high blood sugar, and oxidative stress are thought to be major contributing factors.6
For the striking study, Korean researchers looked at the association between iron intake and the ratio of iron intake and PUFA (iron/PUFA) to DPN in 147 people with type 2 diabetes. 2. Both high dietary iron intake and high iron/PUFA ratios are associated with DPN, indicating “the importance of dietary patterns of iron and PUFA intake in individuals with diabetes type 2.”7
Iron overload has previously been found to worsen oxidative stress damage in neurons in the presence of high sugar levels, and the researchers suggest that insulin resistance and cellular dysfunction pancreatic beta cells, induced by oxidative stress, may be responsible for the association between iron and DPN.8
However, the study has limitations, particularly for PUFAs, as it does not interpret research findings regarding omega-6 and omega-3 separately. Omega-3s have antioxidant and anti-inflammatory roles that have been linked to many health benefits.
Most people get too much omega-6 and too little omega-3, so end up with a disparity and this ratio is what affects health. Ideally, this would be close to 1-1. However, the key is not necessarily increasing omega-3 but reducing omega-6 to improve the ratio. The prominent study evaluated the omega-6 and omega-3 supply of PUFAs together, but noted that the iron/omega-6 ratio showed a significant association with DPN:9
“Considering the PUFA-related antioxidant effect observed in a pro-oxidative, iron-related environment, we calculated the iron/PUFA ratio and found that a higher iron/PUFA ratio had associated with a higher OR (odds ratio) DPN This results suggest that the iron-to-PUFA ratio may be an important marker of DPN and can be used as an indicator for screening or prevent DPN in people with type 2 diabetes.
In addition, although the iron/omega-6 PUFA ratio, but not the iron/omega-3 PUFA ratio, showed a statistically significant association with DPN after adjusting for confounding factors, we Care should be taken when interpreting these data. Relatively small amounts of omega-3 PUFAs compared with omega-6 PUFAs may yield negligible results. “
Importance of Carnosine, especially if you are a vegetarian
One way to help prevent oxidative damage caused by too much iron in the body with omega-6s is to take carnosine or its main precursor, beta-alanine. Carnosine is a dipeptide consisting of two amino acids: beta-alanin and histidine. It’s a potent antioxidant, the highest concentrations found in your muscles and brain.
If you are a vegetarian or vegan, you will have lower levels of carnosine in your muscles. This is one of the reasons why many strict vegetarians don’t properly compensate for this and other nutritional deficiencies that tend to have a hard time building muscle. Carnosine on its own is not very useful as a supplement because it is quickly broken down into its constituent amino acids by certain enzymes. Your body then converts those amino acids back into carnosine in your muscles.
A more effective alternative is the addition of beta-alanine, which appears to be the rate-limiting amino acid for carnosine formation. Eating beef is known to effectively increase carnosine levels in the muscles,ten That’s why if you’re a vegetarian or vegan, this supplement can be especially important.
Chronic disease stemming from long-term consumption of seed oil
Many chronic diseases appear to be the result of a series of serious health impairments caused by long-term consumption of nut oil (omega-6). For example, Dr. Chris Knobbe, an ophthalmologist and founder and president of the Cure AMD Foundation, a non-profit dedicated to the prevention of age-related macular degeneration (AMD), believes that age-related macular degeneration (AMD) should be called diet-related macular degeneration instead.
Knobbe studied aldehyde toxins produced by omega-6 fats. When you consume omega-6 fats, it first reacts with a hydroxyl radical or a peroxide radical, producing lipid hydroperoxide.
This lipid hydroperoxide is then rapidly degraded to toxic aldehydes, of which there are hundreds, leading to cytotoxic, genotoxic, mutagenic and more, along with Allergic reactions at very low doses. Knobbe explained the complex process in his presentation at ALLDOCS’s 2020 annual meeting:11
“This is what an excess of omega-6s does in a Western diet: causes nutrient deficiencies, causes a catastrophic lipid peroxidation cascade, which causes… This does damaged… a phospholipid called cardiac lipid in the mitochondrial membrane, and this leads to electron transport chain failure… Causes mitochondrial deterioration and dysfunction.
And this first leads to reactive oxygen species, which turn back into this peroxidation cascade. So you’re filling your fat cells and mitochondrial membranes with omega-6s, and these are peroxidizing because of the fact that they’re polyunsaturated.
Okay, the next thing that happens is insulin resistance, which leads to metabolic syndrome, type 2 diabetes, non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. When mitochondria are damaged, you experience a reduction in fatty acids, beta oxidation, which means you can’t burn these fats for fuel.
So now you are… carb dependent and you are heading towards obesity. So you are feeling tired. You are gaining weight. Your mitochondria cannot burn fat for fuel… this is a powerful mechanism that causes obesity.
So, energy depletion at the cellular level leads to mutations in nuclear mitochondrial DNA, and this leads to cancer. Three weeks with a high-PUFA diet induces heart failure in rats – three weeks. And this also leads to apoptosis and necrosis. And of course, that’s how you get disorders like AMD, Alzheimer’s. “
The problem with linoleic acid
The root of the harmful biochemical reactions caused by seed oils is linoleic acid, which is an 18-carbon omega-6 fat. As mentioned, linoleic acid is the main fatty acid found in PUFAs and makes up about 80% of the fatty acid composition of vegetable oils. Omega-6 fats must be balanced with omega-3 fats to not cause harm, but this is not the case for most Americans.
Even worse, most of the omega-6s that people eat have been damaged and oxidized during processing. “Much of this linoleic acid, when oxidized, it forms lipid hydroperoxides, which are then rapidly degraded to… oxidized linoleic acid metabolites,” Knobbe said.twelfth
OXLAMs (oxidized linoleic acid metabolites) make the perfect storm, as they are cytotoxic, genotoxic, mutagenic, carcinogenic, atherogenic and thrombogenic, according to Knobbe. Their atherosclerotic and thrombogenic activities are of particular interest because they can induce strokes and blood clots, but metabolic dysfunction can also occur.
During the lipid peroxidation cascade caused by overconsumption of omega-6 seed oils, PUFAs build up in your cell membranes, leading to a peroxidation reaction. As mentioned, too much reactive oxygen species leads to the development of insulin resistance at the cellular level.
Dr. Paul Saladino, a physician journalist, in a podcast, also explains that linoleic acid “disrupts insulin sensitivity at the level of your fat cells”.13 essentially making them more sensitive to insulin – and since your fat cells control the rest of your body’s insulin sensitivity by releasing free fatty acids, you’ll develop insulin resistance.
Unfortunately, even eating conventionally raised chicken, which is fed corn, is problematic, as the meat becomes high in omega-6 linoleic acid.14 As Saladino pointed out, eating more chicken will increase your vegetable oil consumption and further reduce your omega-6 to omega-3 ratio.
Avoiding processed seed oil will protect your health
To protect your health, it’s important to reduce your intake of industrially processed seed oils as much as possible. This means removing all of the following oils:
|
Soy bean |
Corn |
|
Canola oil |
Safflower |
|
sunflower |
Peanuts |
Even too much organic, bio-based olive oil can shift your ratio in the wrong direction, as olive oil is also a good source of omega-6 linoleic acid, so make sure you use the tip I give you. described above to reduce the LA content of olive oil. It’s important to avoid nearly all processed and fast foods, as almost all of them contain these toxic oils. The easiest way to do this is to prepare most of your food at home so you know what you’re eating.
If you want to know how much linoleic acid you’re eating, just go to cronometer.com and enter your food, making sure it’s weighed correctly. For optimal health, aim for less than 10 grams per day.
