RFK Jr. Claims Seed Oils Cause Inflammation on Fox News! (RESPONSE)

Seed oils and inflammation claims 0:00

Why should people be worried about these kind of products? Zitoils are one of the most unhealthy ingredients that we have in food. They are associated with all kinds of very, very serious illnesses including body-wide inflammation. Right. which affects all of our health. It's one of the worst things you can eat and it's almost impossible to avoid. If you eat any processed food, you're gonna be eating seed oil.

What the research says about health risks 0:31

So he claims that seed oils like sunflower, soybean, and canola cause body-wide inflammation. But what is he basing that on? We have numerous randomized controlled trials where people are fed seed-oils and their inflammatory markers are measured. And they have not identified any rise in inflammation So when somebody claims that seed oils cause inflammation, it's very clear they've never actually looked at the research. And he also states that seat oils are associated with a number of illnesses, and that's technically correct, but not in the way that he meant it.

Higher intake of polyunsaturated fats, primarily from these oils, has been shown to lower the risk of cardiovascular disease in randomized controlled trials compared to saturated fat in things like butter. on specific oils, and replacing butter with canola oil is associated with a lower risk of total cardiovascular, cardiometabolic and respiratory disease mortality.

Processed foods and why context matters 1:19

And we also have research looking at the levels of linoleic acid in the human body, which is the primary polyunsaturated fat found in many of these oils and higher levels are associated better long-term health. including a lower risk of total cardiovascular and cancer mortality. But one more thing, he rightly claims that seed oils are prevalent in processed foods and uses that to suggest that they are the reason or one of the main reasons why some of those foods are not healthy. That would be like saying water is unhealthy because it's the the ingredient in Coca-Cola.

In that case, water's a bystander and it is the rapid consumption of a large dose of sugar and added calories that are a problem. And similarly, when we look at seed oils outside of the context of calorie dense ultra processed foods with all of their added flavourings and salt, if anything, seed oil are beneficial. So if we were to snap our fingers and replace all the seed in processed food with butter, we'd likely be even worse off.