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

That, and how much they exercise? Yes, absolutely I believe that. The signs are all there.

That in of itself is not a particularly good argument. What has been the life expectancy for those thousands of years?

Doing something unhealthy for “thousands of years” does not make it healthy.

Drastic increase in quantity of ghee (and sugar since a lot of Indian tests are a lot of ghee and sugar) consumed and reduction in labor (trading strenuous, perspiring work for air conditioned, sitting work) could be relevant factors that make ghee consumption from the previous thousand years not comparable to today.

Edit: you added your edit while I was writing my comment :)

You can mix it in with things like coffee and shakes, easy way to get it.

https://raypeat.com/articles/articles/unsaturated-oils.shtml

The truth is that our stomach has a hard time digesting a sudden influx of MCT. Adding a large amount of MCT to a diet previously free of MCT will cause nausea. And that short term nausea is largely the cause of any "weightloss" seen by MCT. The studies that study MCT and show weightloss are all short term studies, and not the 6-12 month study you really need for weightloss.

In short, you'll feel a difference because coconut oil upsets your stomach. Not because it's a non-animal fat. Hell, we use sesame, peanut, canola, and olive oils all the time. Replace all your dietary fat with canola oil or olive oil and you'll not notice. Will probably have health benefits because of the reduction in saturated fats.

Modern “western” people spend a tremendous amount of time sitting - either in an office or a car - and are almost totally sedentary.

In fact, so sedentary that the mere act of walking is considered “exercise”.

Frankly, I’m surprised the mental and physical outcomes aren’t even worse.

First, I'm not sure there's a strong case that our lifestyles today are any more sedentary than in, say, the 1970s (when obesity rates were around 12% rather than 30%). We had cars, transit, elevators, escalators, school buses, television, keyboards, etc. in the 1970s, while at the same time "going to the gym" was just not something that average people did on a regular basis. Even going jogging was mildly eccentric.

Second, this is looking at resting metabolic rates, not overall calorie expenditure, although there is probably some association between RMR and physical activity.

Which brings me to the third point, which is that you're just shifting the burden of answering question of "why are we fat?" to "why are we sedentary?". If we are in fact increasingly sedentary, it could be that an outside factor is causing both low RMR and sedentary behavior. Anecdotally, I (as a comparatively skinny person) have a lot harder time sitting still than some of my friends and acquaintances that struggle with their weight. They might consider spending a day in bed as a great way to recharge, whereas it is something I would only do if I were pretty miserably ill.

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

I have weaponized my health anxiety, so subscribe if you'd like to know more.

And the omega3s it has is ALA, which your body has to convert to EPA or DHA to use, and the conversion is usually crap. Like 5-10% of ALA actually becomes something usable.

Rapeseed isbetter than canola due to the processing for canola raising the omega6 profile even higher.

But if it were up to me? I'd find another oil.

"The few vegetarian dishes ... are often not nearly as good as yogurt, meat, eggs, or [...] whey protein"

Yogurt, eggs and whey protein are vegetarian (but not vegan). Vegetarian is extremely easy (I eat 95% vegetarian because it's cheaper and easier), vegan is very difficult and requires significant sacrifices.

Or maybe I misunderstood your sentence in some way.

I don't mean to be pedantic, but it seems to me that the discussion is going to be difficult if vegan and vegetarian are getting mixed up.

There's a life-span way and a health-span way. Do you want to live longer? or do you want to feel and potentially look better? When it comes to protein, these two things seem to be at odds with one another.

High protein is correlated with shorter lifespans.

- https://www.nih.gov/news-events/nih-research-matters/protein... - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yC-ej7HbPWg

You'll notice the first link shows higher lifespan when protein intake is increased after a certain age (65). it's assumed this is largely due to the number of deaths from injuries (falls) and complications from injuries that happen to the elderly and that muscle mass at this stage is vital.

But protein tends to active mTor. You want that to not be activated and you want IGF-1 to be low. These are correlated with longer lifespan.

- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6611156/ - https://www.nia.nih.gov/news/understanding-mtor-pathway-and-... - https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31316753/ - https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15501691/

And it looks like studies in humans and animal models seem to reflect correlative data for "Blue Zone diets" (more or less). ( https://www.bluezones.com/2020/07/blue-zones-diet-food-secre... ). Most of the regions in the Blue Zones are high in veggies, low in meat, often with a bit of seafood, and virtually zero processed foods.

How you define a little meat really varies when going by "blue zones". Some might say 4-6oz a day, some might say 1-2x a week. The low amounts of meat and obtaining incomplete proteins with more narrow amino acid profiles is beneficial for health in the long term, largely due to mTor activation being avoided or reduced. The body evolved (it seems) to an extent, to struggle for certain nutrients (but that doesn't mean do without them entirely, but just periods of not having everything at once, constantly). This seems very apparent with studies into proteins. When it comes to other vitamins and minerals (electrolytes, vitamins, etc..) we seems to need those fairly constantly/consistently.

the ultimate way to not activate mTor or stimulate IGF-1, is to fast. Either do time-restricted eating where you eat in a 4-8 hour window every day, or periodically do multiple day fasts..

The timing of your eating, IMHO, is more important than how much meat or veggies you consume. If you ate one meal a day and had meat at that meal, even in large amounts, it'd be more benefitial than say... eating 3 meals a day and being fully vegan or vegetarian. How often you're eating seems to have a more negative effect on lifespan than, to some extent, what you're eating.

I don't avoid meat. I rely on greek yogurt, eggs 1-2x a week, 4-5oz of meat (mostly fish, low-fat chicken breasts without skin, and beef 1x a week), a variety of nuts (i prefer macademia nuts b/c they're low in omega6, low in oxylates and high in monosaturated fats, most other nuts are high in Omega6s and/or oxylates).

I probably eat at a midway point between what i should do for health and lifespan.

If you're more concerned with health span than lifespan then you really want to get about 1G of protein per KG in body weight.

If you're more concerned about lifespan, 0.5G per KG of body weight is more where you want to be.

If you went full carnivore, you'd probably feel absolutely amazing. Eating a lot of meat spurs on testosterone, increases fertility and reproductive capability, and all sorts of great stuff, but the trade off seems to be for lifespan.

You'll notice body builders often don't make it to 100 years old. But look at the Mediterranean, look at japan - fairly thin, active people - often with religious/community connections, who are eating mostly veggies, a little meat, and some seafood once in a while, they're the ones passing the 100 year mark more often.

Doing stuff like fasting, or eating a, lets call it a plant-based diet as opposed to vegetarian, (or both), doesn't feel so great. You can't perform at the gym like you usually would, for example.

The body is best, from a lifespan perspective and to a certain extent, a healthspan perspective, when it's exposed to hormetic stressors. These are little stressors that improve the over-all functioning of your body. Exercise is one. Sauna use is another. Cold exposure (showers, ice baths) is another.

But fasting is too, spurring on autophagy (which is the strongest anti-cancer process we have, internally) and all other great processes like the down regulation of IGF-1.

The body not quite having all the protein it needs, ALL THE TIME, is a beneficial stressor that works to increase lifespan as well. As far as I've read anyways.

Eating many vegetables are also hormetic stressors. Various phytonutrients are built by plants as reactions to when they are stressed, these phytonutrients produced under those conditions are some of the best substances we can eat. Like sulphorafane (from broccoli, broccoli sprouts, kale, cabbage, brussel sprouts, etc.)

- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zz4YVJ4aRfg - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-PNGxNzogOY

IMHO - i'd keep on with (grass fed/finished where applicable) meat, yogurt, nuts, a little whey from time to time, 4-5oz of meat a day, (free range or omega3+) eggs every once in a while. But at 40 years old and experiencing some health problems stemming from a mix of a lifetime of bad habits (drinking, smoking, sodas, fast food) and a bit of anxiety that clobbered me in adulthood.. i lean more towards longevity these days that i do in making sure i can lift at the gym and maximizing my athletic performance.

i don't care about what i look like anymore. I don't care about satisfying my ego at the gym anymore either. I just want to be happy and live to see my grandkids be born and maybe go through some pivotal things in elementary school before kicking the bucket.

I eat 2 meals a day 5 days a week

i fast 2-3 days a month, at the beginning of the month.

I eat "normally" for social purposes on the weekends.

I don't calorie count. I've found that based on WHAT i'm eating, calories don't matter much. I did Keto for 6 months and even eating tons of meat and hitting 3kcals a day, i was still losing weight when my carbs were under 20g a day.

But now I probably don't hit 2k cal a day and sometimes my weight fluctuates up 1-3 pounds or back down, here and there. And i exercise 5-6 days a week.

i know i ramble (ADHD) but i used to pack on 3k a day or more, and drink protein shakes and hit the gym and make sure i was getting lots of protein.

I've long abandoned that mentality. I stopped listening to fitness people and started listening to doctors and scientists.

"Seared" and "sautéed" we do use! It's just we also use "frying" for that, and "frying pan".

Many people under the age of say 25 will never have eaten deep-fried food cooked at home.

There was quite a concerted campaign against it in the early 80s because so many house fires and serious injuries were caused by either unsafe fryers or unsafe technique. Safety campaigns, TV ads, fire brigade campaigns, a campaign to get people to fit extractor hoods and smoke detectors etc. Coincided with a public health campaign aimed at getting us to lower our fat intake, about deep fried food, full fat milk etc.; government "nudge unit" stuff.

Time was, deep fried food was a staple of cheap home cooking; nowadays a deep fat fryer is really an enthusiast cook's appliance, in white British homes at least.

I was aware that "broiling" was a cooking method, but I have no concept of what it involves. After checking a dictionary, I still don't -- wikipedia redirects "broiling" to "grilling", and Merriam-Webster defines "broil" as "to cook by direct exposure to radiant heat: grill", with an example given of "broil the steak in the oven". I would be more likely to use "bake" for heating something in an oven, though I'm uneasy about applying "bake" to a steak; I'd probably just say "cook the steak in the oven".

I would use "fry" for cooking something in oil; I would not personally use "sauté" at all.

I note further that neither Merriam-Webster nor wikipedia seems to be aware of a distinction between grilling and baking, or at least not one they're willing to articulate. I would have said that baking involves being cooked within an oven and grilling involves being cooked on top of a hot surface.

It's kind of like saying sugar isn't bad by bringing up LD50 (13.5g/lb bodyweight). Immediately dying from overdose is probably the last thing people have in mind when discussing what foods are bad for us.

Two, a connection between high PUFA oils in general and poor health outcomes is being postulated by other researchers... and, to be fair, many people who probably have no particular expertise and/or hidden associations, such as diet fads. But that's one of the reasons I asked the question initially; even the sources that would normally be trustworthy on other science (government scientists) have proven to be wildly incorrect and untrustworthy when it comes to dietary issues. I was honestly hoping someone that works in the field would pop up to comment.

The detail about forcing genetic mutation is neat, will have to read up on that.

My understanding of linoleic acid is that it got a ton of good press as a result of the blowback from the discovery that we were basically poisoning ourselves with trans fats. So it wasn't really that we know PUFAs / linoleic acid are good, it's just that we know they're an existing alternative to something very bad.

Example random study link that points out some of the unknowns around linoleic acid: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5492028/

Found the video: https://youtu.be/l_aFHrzSBrM

>In 1985, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recognized rapeseed and canola as two different species, based on their content and uses.

Biology by Bureaucracy.

> Canola are a group of rapeseed cultivars which were bred to have very low levels of erucic acid and are especially prized for use as human and animal food.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rapeseed

They are of course very similar products, but it's not a mere branding difference as the parent comment suggested.