Vegetable Oils Are They Dangerous to Your Health?

What we eat (and what we avoid) can have a profound effect on our health.

The problem is that there are so many confusing, conflicting ideas about what to eat and what not to eat.

We’ve previously discussed some of the problems with foods that really bump up your blood sugar and some very common problems that many people experience with grains and gluten.

Excessive inflammation is associated with the majority of health problems.

Let’s look at another source of inflammation in the diet…

SPOILER ALERT!

I’ll skip to the chase… ‘Vegetable‘ oils are bad for your health and specifically can drive inflammatory responses in the body as we will soon discover below.

Vegetable Oils. Vegetables Are Healthy (Right?), So Why Are These Oils A Problem?

Whoever named these oils vegetable oils had to have been a marketing genius.

Vegetable oils aren’t made from vegetables.

Shocking, I know!

I’ve never seen spinach oil or broccoli oil.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t want to see these things!

Back to vegetable oils (aka seed oils)…

These oils that have been extracted from various types of seeds.

The most common vegetable oils are rapeseed (aka canola oil, from seeds), soybean (a legume seed), corn (a grain which is a seed), sunflower (from seeds), safflower (seed), peanut (a legume seed), …

These oils are generally extracted using very high heat that damages the oil followed by using various oil based chemicals to get the oil out of the seeds.

The manufacturers also generally want to remove stronger tastes that might not be as palatable to most people.

The processing does cause some damage to the oils and removes protective substances.

What’s left is a highly processed oil that really does not really represent it’s original form in any meaningful way.

The ‘vegetable‘ oils also are generally very high in omega 6 fats.

These polyunsaturated fats are highly reactive. This is part of the problem with the oils.

The reactivity leads to potentially very harmful substances, even more so when they are heated ie cooking.

Another problem with consuming higher levels of omega 6 fats leads to breaking the fats down into an omega 6 fat, arachadonic acid.

Arachadonic acid serves as the precursor to chemicals of pain and inflammation (prostaglandin E2) in our body.

This is where things get really interesting!

The breakdown into arachadonic acid is ‘turned off’ by omega 3 fats (which are found in fish oil for example).

This is why the balance between omega 3 and omega 6 fats is important and in part dictates pain and inflammation.

Wait, there’s more!

The breakdown of the 6’s into arachadonic acid is ‘turned on‘ by insulin!

This is one reason why it’s important to keep your insulin levels lower in general. Higher insulin means higher levels of the chemicals of pain and inflammation.

Check this out though!

The breakdown of arachadonic acid into prostaglandin E2 is through an enzyme called the COX enzyme.

The COX enzymes do other things as well including protecting the gastrointestinal tract, etc.

Did you know that many pain relievers are COX enzyme inhibitors?

These pain relievers include medications like ibuprofen / motrin, naproxen, celebrex, vioxx (taken off the market), and bextra (taken off the market).

These pain relievers are commonly called NSAIDs (non-steroidal anti-inflammatories).

Let me ask you a question based on what we talked about in this blog post…

Could it be that we are flooding our bodies with dietary inflammatory omega 6 fats in industrial seed oils while often being deficient in omega 3 fats while at the same time eating a high carb diet (leading to high insulin levels) then experiencing greater pain which causes many people to take NSAIDs / COX inhibitor medications to block the breakdown of these fats and reduce pain?? 

Maybe it would make sense to reduce omega 6 fat consumption, possibly add omega 3 fats, and reduce carbs / insulin levels instead?

Of course, every person is different… but it really makes you wonder if given the well established biochemical pathways that we might be able to make a change and reduce our pain (and the inflammation in our bodies that might lead to other very serious health problems!).

Still if you experience pain, there is often more to it than this.

We see so many different neuro-musculoskeletal problems and pain syndromes in our office that often respond remarkably well to chiropractic care in our Texarkana Chiropractic Clinic.

If you need help and live in the Texarkana area, call our Chiropractic Clinic. Give Us A Call, we’re here to help!