Summary
Paul Saladino talks with ophthalmologist Chris Knobbe about the connection between seed oil consumption and macular degeneration. They reference observational research to argue that seed oils may be the number one contributor to chronic illness and vision loss, even more than sugar, and discuss the mechanisms by which polyunsaturated fats damage retinal tissue.
Key Points
- Seed oils as a potential driver of macular degeneration
- Observational research linking seed oils to chronic illness
- Mechanisms of PUFA damage to retinal tissue
- Seed oils vs. sugar as contributors to disease
- Carboxylation and lipid peroxidation pathways
Key Moments
No RCT exists linking seed oils to macular degeneration
No study has directly tested whether seed oils cause macular degeneration, but compelling mechanisms through linoleic acid breakdown products exist.
"No one's ever done a study where they gave people seed oils and looked for macular degeneration. This would be a very difficult study to do."
Eliminate seed oils as the most impactful dietary change
Cutting seed oils from cooking, restaurants, and packaged food is the single most important step. Most restaurant food is cooked in canola or soybean oil.
"So many things in the grocery store labeled as healthy or plant-based are going to have seed oils in them. They are the predominant oil because they're cheap."
Seed oil intake rose 333% while disease rates soared
Between 1960 and 2004, seed oil intake rose from 9g to 39g per day (333%), paralleling massive increases in obesity, diabetes, and macular degeneration.
"And we'll come back to the omega-6 in a minute. All right. So during this time, we see that obesity, male obesity, doubled. It went from 16% in 1978 to 31.2% in 2010. Breast cancer went up about five-fold between just I don't remember exactly what those are. I don't have that handy. Diabetes went up between 1954 and 2007, diabetes went up 345-fold, went from 0.02% in 1954 to 6.9% in 2007. So 345-fold increase in diabetes. Macular degeneration went up 82-fold, went from 0.2% between 1975 and 1999 up to 16.37% in 2013. That's an 82-fold increase. So look at this, ladies and gentlemen. This is that you can see that the omega-6 was 1% of the calories back in 1960, 1961, when the seed oils were only 9 grams a day."
