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Soybean oil affects hypothalamus, causes genetic changes in mice: study (2020)

universityofcalifornia.edu

151–160 of 464 posts

Re: Soybean oil affects hypothalamus, causes genetic changes in mice: study (2020)

#151

It's worth pointing out that the "genetic changes" in question are changes in gene expression .

Thank you. I have never heard a biologist refer to a change in gene expression as a genetic change. The latter usually refers to a mutation.

And the paper itself makes it clear, it's even in the title- it's the press release that tried to "simplify" it to the point of being confusing.

https://academic.oup.com/endo/advance-article/doi/10.1210/en...

Re: Soybean oil affects hypothalamus, causes genetic changes in mice: study (2020)

#152

My understanding is that most of the oils we use are unhealthy. They are highly processed and inflammatory. The good oils are avocado oil, extra virgin olive oil and coconut oil. Is this correct?

"...highly processed..."

I think this is an important distinction for evaluating oils. For example, you mention avocado oil and coconut oil. Are these processed with heat (and possibly solvents)? Or are they cold-pressed with no other chemicals used to aid extraction?

In the UK, it is very common to find cold-pressed rapeseed oil (canola oil) in supermarkets. The canola oil sold in US supermarkets is highly processed. Is the cold-pressed version still bad?

The problem is that when seed oils are demonised, no distinction is made of the method of extraction. There are hundreds of researchers (and YouTubers) repeating the mantra 'seed oil = bad' without further distinction between heat-pressed and cold-press oil extraction. If extraction methods don't matter, then researchers need to provide evidence to confirm this.

Re: Soybean oil affects hypothalamus, causes genetic changes in mice: study (2020)

#153
post #55

Interestingly enough, soybean oil is virtually non-existent over here in Germany - at least not as oil that you can buy (here the dominant ones are canola, good ol' sunflower and olive - the latter not for frying though), and I also haven't heard of it as an ingredient in industrial foods, but I wouldn't vouch for that.

Yes. As I mentioned above -- soybean doesn't grow well in most of Europe (certainly not in the UK), canola grows very easily. Also soya is one of the 14 notifiable allergens in Europe, which makes it almost unsaleable in its unrefined form. Unusual to find it outside of specialist asian food stores.

In the UK, "vegetable oil" is almost always canola.

Even sunflower oil will be marketed as such because it's more expensive (imported from Germany, Ukraine, Albania I imagine). And I imagine it'll only get more expensive because of the situation.

Re: Soybean oil affects hypothalamus, causes genetic changes in mice: study (2020)

#154

I kinda doubt there's a ton of overlap between "right wing" twitter and HN, but there's been a decent amount of hate on seed oils (especially soybean oil) over there lately. Here's one of the bigger accounts promoting it in case anyone here'd wanna glance at what those people might be saying: https://twitter.com/SeedOilDsrspctr

You mentioned right wing. I suspect it would be owing to the politicization of meat consumption and advocacy for the carnivore diet.

Now that you mention it, I don’t remember ever really hearing about this stuff before the “meat is a treat” thing started going around. So you’re probably correct about that to some degree.

Re: Soybean oil affects hypothalamus, causes genetic changes in mice: study (2020)

#155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Humanity has been using Olive Oil for at least 1000 years. So that seems pretty safe to me.

Yes, but olive oil has a low smoke point and is not used for the same applications. Otherwise I'd happily use it for everything.

You can use low-smoke-point oils for a lot of cooking if you use them right. Pack a pan full of onions, add EVOO, and fry at medium heat. The release of water from the onions keeps the temperature of the oil down. It works because physics (reducing conductive temperature transfer via evaporative cooling).

However, if the pan only has a couple onion slices, or there's more oil than onions, or the heat is way too high, the situation changes. You can also overheat high-smoke-point oils if you're not careful. Careful observation and regulation of environmental factors is necessary in all cases.

Re: Soybean oil affects hypothalamus, causes genetic changes in mice: study (2020)

#156

I used to eat sardines every day trying to get the health benefits of fatty fish. They were packed in soybean oil. I drank the oil too. With time I began to have bizarre mental issues that I finally tracked down to the sardines. Sardines packed in olive oil don’t cause this issue. That’s my anecdata to share.

Care explaining what bizarre mental issues?

I guess it would best be described as enhancement of repetitive, obsessive thoughts and just in general not feeling good and even angry for the rest of the day after eating them. It was a really weird time.

Re: Soybean oil affects hypothalamus, causes genetic changes in mice: study (2020)

#158

This title is pretty click-baity in my opinion. Why doesn't the title contain the words "soybean oil"? It seems bizarre to use the words "most widely consumed cooking oil" without mentioning which one. And referring to changes in gene expression as "genetic changes" kind of fear-mongers, given most things we eat lead to "genetic changes" in our bodies...everything we eat is processed by proteins which are regulated b…

Because it’s clickbait! How can anyone not see that from the title alone? Even a cursory reading of it shows it to be ridiculous fearmongering nonsense.

Re: Soybean oil affects hypothalamus, causes genetic changes in mice: study (2020)

#159
post #55

Interestingly enough, soybean oil is virtually non-existent over here in Germany - at least not as oil that you can buy (here the dominant ones are canola, good ol' sunflower and olive - the latter not for frying though), and I also haven't heard of it as an ingredient in industrial foods, but I wouldn't vouch for that.

> at least not as oil that you can buy

It's not a common oil you find on the shelves of a grocery store, even in the US.

It is, however, a prominent ingredient in a lot of bottled sauces and dressings. You can find it on the ingredients list of most salad dressing and sauces.

Re: Soybean oil affects hypothalamus, causes genetic changes in mice: study (2020)

#160

I used to eat sardines every day trying to get the health benefits of fatty fish. They were packed in soybean oil. I drank the oil too. With time I began to have bizarre mental issues that I finally tracked down to the sardines. Sardines packed in olive oil don’t cause this issue. That’s my anecdata to share.

Care explaining what bizarre mental issues?

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