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Seed Oils | What Are They & What To Avoid | Myprotein
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Jan 30, 2025
Have you ever wondered why people mention Seed Oils so much and what their importance is? Myprotein investigates... ********************************* š Subscribe to our channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/MyproteinUK?sub_confirmation=1 š² Download the Myprotein app: https://bit.ly/3dhVVUE ********************************* #SeedOils #Myprotein Official YouTube channel for Europe's No. 1 Online Sports Nutrition Brand, Myprotein. Stay tuned for brand new videos every single week that help to inspire and motivate you to keep pushing further on your fitness journey. From challenging workouts to evidence-based nutrition videos ā we've got it all. ********************************* Nutritional Research and Insights Dietary Trends: Despite varying opinions, studies have shown no direct link between saturated fatty acid consumption and non-communicable diseases . Research indicates that oxidized oils contribute to various health issues .
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0:00
are seed oils really the worst thing you
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could possibly eat let's talk about
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[Music]
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that how's it going guys my name is
0:10
Richie Kerwin and today we're going to
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talk about something that has kind of
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taken the nutrition World by storm and
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that's the effects of seed oils on
0:18
health we'll talk about what seed oils
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actually are how we get them in our diet
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and we'll take a sensible look at the
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evidence of what they do to our health
0:27
by looking at population studies and a
0:29
lot of inter vention studies now
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unfortunately I'm just not going to be
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able to deal with everything to do with
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seed oils in this video there are lots
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of different claims about seed oils and
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I don't have enough time to cover
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everything in a short YouTube video so
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I'm going to focus on the most common or
0:45
relevant Health claims I hear about
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online that said we've included the
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titles of all the studies that we've
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referenced Below in the description now
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we've got a lot to cover so buckle up
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because you're probably going to be
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surprised by some of the things you
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learn in this video let's get
1:02
[Music]
1:03
started so it's probably worth
1:05
mentioning what exactly seed oils are
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funnily enough seed oils are not just
1:09
made from seeds while some seed oils are
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made from seeds like sunfl seeds and
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rape seed a huge amount of seed oils are
1:15
made from legumes like soybean oil and
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Grains like corn oil this means that
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seed oils are a very diverse group of
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products with a couple of things in
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common one they're all liquid at room
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temperature unlike coconut oil which is
1:27
a solid and two they're actually very
1:30
high in unsaturated fatty acids
1:33
especially polyunsaturated fatty acids
1:35
commonly called pofus so what you might
1:37
ask well if you spend any time on the
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internet these days you're bound to hear
1:42
that pfas or seed oils are not only the
1:44
most toxic ingredient in the human food
1:46
chain but they're also the cause of all
1:48
the health problems we have today
1:49
including obesity heart disease diabetes
1:52
and metabolic syndrome apparently from
1:55
what I've seen most of the reasons
1:57
people use to label seed oils as bad
1:59
stems from two main research areas the
2:02
first is ecological observations this
2:04
means that people look at very rough
2:06
Trends in seed oil intake see that it
2:07
increased in the last few decades and
2:09
Associate that with increases in obesity
2:11
and related diseases that we see today
2:14
so for example we know that seed oils in
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the American diet have increased
2:17
massively since around the 1960s and
2:19
animal fats like butter lard and Tallow
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have decreased a lot since then some
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people say that this is evidence that
2:25
seed oils are causing the Obesity
2:26
epidemic that started around the
2:28
1970s how however we know that in
2:31
research correlation doesn't necessarily
2:33
mean causation that just means that you
2:36
can't see two trends that occur at the
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same time and assume that one causes the
2:40
other so even though people have been
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eating more seed oils since the 60s and
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the Obesity epidemic started around the'
2:46
60s we can't say that seed oils cause
2:49
obesity interestingly overall calorie
2:52
intake in the' 60s increased massively
2:54
too could those extra calories in a
2:56
world where people are becoming less and
2:58
less active play a role in the world
3:00
gaining weight now besides the
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ecological observations being one of the
3:04
reasons that some people claim seed oils
3:06
are toxic there is another area of
3:08
research that people mention by the way
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if you ever hear someone talking about
3:11
nutrition use the word toxic a lot to
3:14
refer to A Whole Food Group there's a
3:16
really good chance that they're talking
3:17
pure
3:18
BS so to help you understand what effect
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seed oils might have on human health I'm
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going to use some data from properly
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adjusted epidemiological studies and
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intervention trials that focus on seed
3:29
oils
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we're going to look at their effects on
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Obesity diabetes heart disease and some
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other common lifestyle diseases let's
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start with obesity because we've already
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mentioned it now according to some
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people eating a lot of puas or seed oils
3:42
or vegetable oils leads people to gain
3:44
weight regardless of calories now
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considering we know calorie intake to be
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the ultimate driver weight gain that's a
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pretty big statement now in terms of
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dietary trials with different amounts of
3:55
saturated and unsaturated fat the lavat
3:57
study had a population of almost 800 50
4:00
participants in a care home and ran for
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over 8 years the participants were split
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into two groups that both got 40% of
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their calories as fat the control group
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had only 10 G of linolic acid which is
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an Omega 6 pofa and the experimental
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group had just over 40 gr of linolic
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acid per day the researchers saw massive
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increases in the amount of linolic acid
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in the experimental group's body fat but
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do you know how that affected their body
4:23
fat overall well there was no
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significant difference in body weight
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between the controll and experimental
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groups at all either way it looks like
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there isn't any scientific evidence to
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conclusively state that pofus increased
4:36
appetite or weight gain but obviously
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mechanistic data isn't enough for us so
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let's briefly look at the evidence for
4:42
seed oil consumption and two major
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chronic life Cy diseases diabetes and
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insulin resistance and heart disease so
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what does some of the other evidence we
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have available today say about the
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effect of seed oils on the risk of heart
4:55
disease let's start with a little
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mechanistic research a recent review
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looked at the effects of soybean oil
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which makes up over 50% of the oil
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that's used in the United States and its
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effects on cardiovascular risk markers
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it concluded that replacing saturated
5:10
fat in the diet with soyen oil lowers
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LDL cholesterol levels and if you've
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watched some of my other videos you'll
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know that high LDL cholesterol and
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specifically the apolipoprotein B
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particle that holds it all together
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during early and midlife is a major risk
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factor for coronary heart disease and
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keeping LDL cholesterol or apob levels
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low is one of the most effective ways to
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reduce your risk of heart disease
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another argument against seed oils is
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that pffas can be incorporated into LDL
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lipo proteins leading to oxidized LDL
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and oxidized LDL has been shown to
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potentially increase the risk of heart
5:43
disease well there are studies that have
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used pofa enrich diets extracted the LDL
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and then induced oxidation in vitro or
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in test tube studies and they've shown
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that puas caused the LDL to be more
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susceptible to
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oxidation that's definitely interesting
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but it's an invitro study so we need
5:59
need to remember that however in a study
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that measured the level of oxidized LDL
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in Vivo or directly in over 2,000 real
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life humans people who had higher
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intakes of Pua measured by looking at
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the level of pufa in their blood
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actually had lower levels of oxidized
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LDL as well as lower levels of CRP
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remember in nutrition science studies
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that look at actual effects in humans
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are given much more weight than studies
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that just look at results from a test
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tube okay so it seems that puffers
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aren't going to give you heart disease
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well what about other major Global
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health concerns like diabetes and its
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major symptom insulin resistance let's
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look at some cohort studies that follow
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populations over years one metaanalysis
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looked at 20 prospective cohort studies
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from 10 countries with almost 40,000
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adults who didn't have diabetes at
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Baseline it found that higher
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proportions of linolic acid in the blood
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and body fat were associated with a very
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significant lower risk of type 2
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diabetes another metaanalysis looked at
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a total of 31 prospective cohort studies
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with almost 300,000 participants it
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aimed to look at the association between
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dietary intakes of linolic acid and
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blood and body fat levels of linic acid
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with the risk of type 2 diabetes
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compared with the lowest intakes of
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linic acid the highest intakes of linic
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acid were associated with a small but
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significantly lower risk of type 2
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diabetes another major metaanalysis of
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102 trials with over 4,000 participants
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found that replacing saturated fats with
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pufas significantly lowered glucose
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lowered hba1c and even lowered a measure
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of insulin resistance known as H IR a
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sub analysis of 10 trials showed that
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pofa significantly improved insulin
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secretion too so in this analysis not
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only were there no negative effects of
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puas but they seemed to be beneficial so
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there seems to be a pretty decent amount
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of evidence showing that seed oils or
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puffers are probably not directly
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responsible for causing type 2 diabetes
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and in fact are probably a good option
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for reducing your risk so after all this
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evidence showing seed oils themselves
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don't seem to have some of the ne ative
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health effects that you hear about so
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much on social media what about all
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those people that claim that their
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health has improved in Leaps and Bounds
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since they eliminated seed oils from
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their diet they sound pretty convincing
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right well let's think about this
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logically how do most people get seed
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oils in their diets do they walk around
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sipping on a mix of soybean oil and rape
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seed oil from their water bottles are
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they pouring buckets of it over their
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salads no the number one source of seed
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oils in our modern diet is ultr
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processed foods these are foods that are
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usually made up of a combination of
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Highly refined carbohydrates especially
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sugars and refined oils like Palm
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coconut and Seed oils along with lots of
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other additives ultr processed foods or
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upss have been incredibly well studied
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in the last decade and are associated
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with excess calorie intake body fat gain
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and a whole host of negative health
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effects like heart disease diabetes and
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cancer why well ultr processed foods or
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upss are cheap available everywhere very
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energy dense meaning they have a lot of
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calories in a small portion size hyper
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palatable which is a fancy word for
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really freaking delicious and easy to
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eat they're also low and fiber and
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protein which means that they don't make
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you feel full and that means they're
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incredibly easy to overeat combined with
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the fact that ultr processed foods are
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usually low in art nutrients like fiber
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vitamins minerals and phytonutrients and
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a diet high in
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oil from their diet the only way they
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can do it is by eliminating virtually
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all Ultra processed foods and to be
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honest that's most Foods you find in the
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supermarket as well as any commercially
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deep fried foods making so many common
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foods off limits is a form of
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spontaneous calorie restriction and it
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also forces you to focus your diet on
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more Whole Foods so when someone says
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they've eliminated seed oils from their
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diet they've likely also eliminated most
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processed foods from their diet and
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they've likely replaced that with more
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unprocessed food
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so of course that's going to result in
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weight loss and the associated
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improvements in health but it's not just
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because they don't eat seed oils anymore
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and don't forget
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upfsi that people eat in the United
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States and the UK that's a massive chunk
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of calories now what I'm going to say
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from here is the most important part of
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this video how does this all apply to
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your
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diet after all this science am I saying
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that it's absolutely fine to eat as much
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seed oils in your diet as you want and
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it won't be a
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problem absolutely
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not anything in excess is not good for
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you that's literally what excess means
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if you consume too much seed oil you're
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much more likely to gain excess body fat
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and suffer the health consequences you
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see seed oils fall into the category of
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added fats added fats are refined oils
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or fats which have been extracted from
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their whole food source leaving a
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product that is pure fat something that
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humans would never find in nature in
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nature fat will almost always come
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packaged with other nutrients be it
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protein in animal Foods or Fiber in
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plant Foods refining oils extracts and
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concentrates the fat into a product with
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very few other nutrients and this
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includes animal fats like lard and
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Tallow they're just pure fat refined
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fats similarly to refined sugar just add
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more calories to food without providing
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much in the line of other nutrients this
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is why reducing the amount of added fats
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and sugars in our diet is a good idea so
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when I give recommendation for fat
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sources I recommend getting the vast
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majority of your fats from whole food
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sources like oily fish nuts and nut
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Butters seeds and avocados this means
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that your fat will also come with other
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nutrients like protein fiber vitamins
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and minerals or phytonutrients it's a
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much better deal than just adding pure
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fat or oil to your diet if I do
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recommend oils I tend to focus on
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including limited amounts of added fats
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for cooking and to help improve the
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flavor of other Foods in terms of what
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oils are suitable simply based on the
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amount of research proving its health
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benefits olive oil is a great choice
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good quality extraversion olive oil is
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high in polyenals and antioxidants such
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as Vitamin E which help to reduce the
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risk of oxidation too on top of that it
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tastes amazing so my personal choice to
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use olive oil is based on the evidence
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for positive health effects in its favor
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and not because of any evidence of
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negative health effects of seed oils and
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at the end of the day it all comes down
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to personal choice I just want your
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person personal choice to be informed by
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correct information and not some Lies
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made up to create an evil seed oil
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Boogeyman that doesn't actually exist
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now I realize this has been a long video
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but I really hope that now you better
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understand the actual evidence related
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to seed oils and health as always if you
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have any more questions let me know in
12:51
the comments below and remember to like
12:53
And subscribe to the my protein YouTube
12:54
channel for more great evidence-based
12:56
nutrition information
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[Music]
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