What CANOLA OIL does to your LIVER (*Influencers won't show you this*)

Summary

In a recent study examined by 'Nutrition Made Simple!', the effects of consuming canola oil versus ghee on liver health were explored. Participants with fatty liver were divided into two groups; one continued using ghee, while the other replaced it with canola oil. After three months, the canola oil group saw significant improvements in liver metrics including liver enzymes and cholesterol levels, unlike the ghee group. They also experienced weight loss despite no significant change in calorie intake, challenging the notion that seed oils inherently cause weight gain. While the weight loss contributed to some health improvements, the study's duration limits long-term conclusions. This analysis encourages reconsidering misconceptions about canola oil's effects on health.

Highlights

• Participants consuming canola oil showed a substantial improvement in liver health. 🌟
• The canola group experienced weight loss without cutting calories, questioning seed oil stereotypes. 🤔
• Canola oil led to improved cholesterol and triglyceride levels, boosting overall health metrics. 💖
• Despite three-month trial limitations, the findings support potential benefits of dietary fat changes. 📊
• Switching to canola oil aligns with positive heart health trends and contradicts some social media opinions. 🌱

Key Takeaways

• Canola oil consumption led to significant improvements in liver health compared to ghee. 🌿
• Participants using canola oil showed reduced liver fat and better liver enzyme levels. 🧐
• Despite no calorie reduction, the canola group lost weight, challenging negative perceptions of seed oils. 🏋️
• The study highlights the potential health benefits of switching from saturated to unsaturated fats like canola. 💪
• Misconceptions abound regarding seed oils, partially due to associations with junk food. 🍔

Overview

A fascinating new study compared canola oil and ghee in terms of their impact on liver health. Participants diagnosed with fatty liver swapped ghee for canola oil over three months. The canola oil group saw significant reductions in liver fat and improved enzyme levels, suggesting potential liver benefits from unsaturated fats. 🌿

Interestingly, even without a noticeable difference in reported caloric intake, the canola oil group lost weight, raising questions about diets rich in seed oils and their effects on health. This aspect challenges the prevalent belief that seed oils are inherently fattening. 🤔

Despite the study's limitation of a three-month duration, its implications are noteworthy. The findings suggest a positive shift in health metrics with canola oil, aligning with broader research on unsaturated fats. However, long-term effects remain to be seen. Meanwhile, social media narratives often overlook these benefits, perpetuating misconceptions. 📊

Chapters

• 00:00 - 00:30: Introduction to Canola and Ghee The chapter introduces the topic of canola oil and ghee, highlighting a study that examines their effects on the liver when consumed daily. It discusses the differences between the two oils: canola oil is low in saturated fat and high in unsaturated fats, while ghee, a popular option in India, is high in saturated fat. The comparison is noted as significant due to the contrasting fat compositions of the two foods.
• 00:30 - 01:00: Cooking with Ghee and Canola The chapter 'Cooking with Ghee and Canola' discusses the use of ghee and canola oil in cooking, emphasizing their smoke points. Ghee, unlike regular butter, has a high smoke point, making it suitable for cooking at higher temperatures. The chapter also highlights the health-related questions that arise from using different types of fats, both saturated and unsaturated, in cooking.
• 01:00 - 01:30: Study on Ghee vs Canola The study involved 110 participants who regularly consumed ghee and little to no canola oil. Participants were randomly divided into two groups: one continued their regular ghee diet, and the other swapped ghee with canola oil. The focus of the research was on liver health, specifically in participants diagnosed with fatty liver, to observe the effects of these two different types of fat. Participants maintained food diaries throughout the trial.
• 01:30 - 02:00: Trial Observations In this chapter titled 'Trial Observations,' the study being discussed compares two groups: one consuming ghee and the other consuming canola oil. Over a period of three months, significant improvements in fatty liver conditions were observed among participants in the canola group, with 84% experiencing a reduction in their fatty liver grade compared to only 25% in the ghee group. These results are consistent with findings from another randomized trial involving olive oil and canola oil.
• 02:00 - 02:30: Effects on Cholesterol and Liver Enzymes This chapter discusses the effects of diet, specifically canola intake, on cholesterol and liver enzymes. Participants consuming canola showed improvement in liver health, marked by lower liver enzymes, enhanced liver conditions, reduced total cholesterol, and decreased LDL cholesterol levels. These changes align with the low saturated fat content in canola. Additionally, those on the canola diet also experienced lower triglycerides, fasting glucose and insulin levels, and reduced insulin resistance, suggesting compliance with the dietary regimen and the positive impact of canola on metabolic health.
• 02:30 - 03:00: Weight Loss Insights The chapter discusses the impact of weight loss on various health metrics, including triglycerides and glucose levels. It highlights a study's findings where a group consuming canola oil lost approximately 4 kilograms, resulting in improved body composition metrics such as BMI, waist-to-hip ratio, and waist circumference. Interestingly, the total caloric intake between the canola group and the ghee group showed no significant difference, suggesting factors other than calorie count could influence weight loss and associated health metrics.
• 03:00 - 03:30: Debunking Myths About Seed Oils The chapter focuses on addressing the misconception that seed oils lead to weight gain. It is discussed that individuals consuming canola oil may seem to lose weight without cutting calories, but this could be due to miscalculation of their calorie intake. The prevalent idea that seed oils cause obesity is linked to their association with processed foods, such as cookies or chips. Despite this connection, the chapter explains that the true reason for weight gain is the consumption of these ultra-processed foods as a whole, rather than seed oils specifically.
• 03:30 - 04:00: Canola Oil and Weight Loss This chapter challenges the common belief that seed oils, like canola oil, contribute to weight gain and health problems. It highlights that one of the biggest contributors to weight gain, soda, doesn't even contain seed oils. The chapter refers to studies where oils like canola used in meals, not in ultra-processed foods, do not show negative health effects. Instead, these studies, including a meta-analysis of 25 randomized trials, suggest that canola oil may even aid in slight weight loss.
• 04:00 - 04:30: Limitations of the Study This chapter discusses the limitations of the study on the impact of different types of fats in junk food. While the evidence strongly suggests that junk food is harmful due to its taste and high-caloric content, leading to overconsumption, it also questions whether substituting seed oils with other fats like ghee might lead to worse outcomes. Furthermore, it probes the results from a canola oil group, which displayed weight loss, and examines whether this could account for the differences observed in various metrics in the study. The discussion highlights the complexity and limitations inherent in drawing conclusions from such nutritional studies.
• 04:30 - 05:00: Potential Variations with Different Diets The chapter titled 'Potential Variations with Different Diets' discusses the outcome of different diets on various health metrics. It highlights that while weight loss appears to lead to non-significant changes in liver enzyme levels, improvements in other areas such as cholesterol, triglycerides, and fasting glucose remain significant independent of weight loss. This suggests that factors other than weight loss might influence these health metrics. The chapter further acknowledges a limitation in the study due to its short duration of three months, pointing out that longer-term effects over three or thirty years are unknown.
• 05:00 - 05:30: Consistency of Canola Oil Benefits The chapter discusses the limitations of a dietary study on canola oil, highlighting the 'new diet effect,' where participants who change their diet might pay more attention to their food intake, potentially affecting study outcomes. Additionally, it mentions that different fats might alter the consumption of other foods, though researchers accounted for factors such as dairy, cereals, sugar, and fruit intake.
• 05:30 - 06:00: Conclusion and Additional Resources The chapter discusses a study comparing two groups in terms of their dietary fat intake and physical activity levels. Statistical analysis shows no significant differences between the groups, despite participants' reports. However, the reported calorie intake's accuracy is questioned. A theoretical consideration is mentioned, questioning whether a food can impact health differently depending on the individual's overall diet.

What CANOLA OIL does to your LIVER (*Influencers won't show you this*) Transcription

• 00:00 - 00:30 What would happen to your liver if  you ate canola oil every single day?  A brand new study just came out  asking exactly this question.  And they compared canola oil to ghee,  which is a form of clarified butter  that's really popular in places like India. This comparison is very interesting because   there are two very different fats. Ghee is very high in saturated fat,   canola is low in saturated fat and high in unsaturated fats,   especially monounsaturated fat and to some extent polyunsaturated fat.
• 00:30 - 01:00 Also, ghee is often used to cook. Regular butter has a low smoke point,   so it burns at fairly low temperatures so it's not a great choice to cook.  But ghee has a much higher smoke  point, so it's often used in cooking.  So it's likely that people replacing all  the ghee in their diet with canola oil  are going to use these respective fats to cook.  Which gets at an interesting  question that people often ask,  which is the effect of  heating different types of fat,  saturated or unsaturated  fats, respectively, on health.
• 01:00 - 01:30 So the study recruited 110 participants  who regularly consumed ghee in their life,  roughly 100 to 400 calories a day,  ballpark, and little to no canola.  It split the participants randomly,  half continued on their normal diet,  the other half swapped all the ghee in their  diet with the same amount of canola oil.  The researchers were especially  interested in liver health  so they chose participants  with fatty liver diagnosed  to see what effect these two  different fats would have.  The participants kept food diaries  on different days of the trial
• 01:30 - 02:00 which confirmed that the control  group kept eating their ghee as normal  while the canola group stopped eating ghee  and upped their canola intake instead.  After three months of the trial,  the folks on the canola group  had a substantial improvement  in their fatty liver.  The percentage of participants seeing  a reduction of their fatty liver grade  was 25% in the ghee group and 84% on canola. This matches the findings   of another randomized trial we looked at previously where both olive oil and canola oil
• 02:00 - 02:30 improved fatty liver. Liver  enzymes also improved more  in the folks on the canola group. They also  had lower total cholesterol and LDL cholesterol  on canola, which is expected because  it's much lower in saturated fat,  and this helps confirm that in fact the groups  are complying with their respective fats.  The folks on canola also had lower  triglycerides, fasting glucose,  fasting insulin and insulin resistance. Now, if I see a reduction in liver fat,
• 02:30 - 03:00 triglycerides, glucose, the first thing I think is weight loss.  It's the most consistent trigger  of an improvement in these metrics.  And in fact, they lost weight, about  4 kilos lost in the canola group,  and no weight loss on the ghee group; and other  metrics of body weight or body composition  like BMI, waist to hip ratio, waist  circumference, were all reduced on canola.  Now, there is something a little strange, the  researchers estimated total caloric intake  in both groups and they didn't  find a significant difference.
• 03:00 - 03:30 So either the folks on canola are  losing weight without cutting calories  or they miscounted their calories  and they are in fact eating fewer.  My guess would be the latter. Either way this is interesting   because there's a common idea online that seed oils make people fat.  And I think this is because  people associate seed oils  with these junky packaged ultra-processed  foods like cookies or chips.  And there is a nugget of truth there,  because many of these foods add seed oils  together with all the other ingredients. But I think it's pretty straightforward
• 03:30 - 04:00 to see that seed oils are not the problem. One of the most egregious junk foods when it   comes to weight gain and health in general is soda, which has no seed oils.  Plus, when we look at studies that give the  actual oils to people to use with their meals,  not in the context of these  packaged ultra-processed junky foods,  we don't see these negative effects. If anything we tend to see benefits.  In fact we've looked before at a large  meta-analysis of 25 randomized trials  where they found that canola oil, if  anything, led to a slight weight loss.
• 04:00 - 04:30 So we have a lot of evidence that  junk food is bad in spite of the fact  that it includes seed oils, probably  because it's very tasty and hypercaloric  and leads to caloric overconsumption. But if instead of seed oil it contained   a different type of fat, like ghee for example, the evidence is telling us the junk food would   actually be worse. Okay, so the   participants on the canola group lost weight. Does the weight loss explain all the observations   with the different metrics that we looked at? The authors carried out an adjustment of
• 04:30 - 05:00 their results for the weight loss, and the numbers for most of the liver   enzymes became non-significant. So that suggests that indeed   these improvements in liver enzymes might be explained by the weight loss.  Although all of the other metrics,  the cholesterol, the triglycerides,   the fasting glucose etc. remained significant.  So there may be something else  going on besides the weight loss.  Now let's talk limitations, this study has a few. One is duration, three months is interesting  but doesn't tell us what happens  after three years or 30 years.
• 05:00 - 05:30 Another limitation is what we  might call the new diet effect.  In this trial half the participants  continued on their normal diet  while the other half changed their  diet and started eating canola oil.  And when we change our diet we start  paying more attention to what we eat  and that in itself can have some effects. It's also possible that by eating different fats  the participants might have changed other  foods that they eat with those fats.  Although the researchers did think of this and intake of dairy, cereals, sugar, fruit,
• 05:30 - 06:00 total fat, other oils, vegetables and meat were not significantly   different between the two groups, at least as reported by the participants,  although as we saw the calories reported  are a little sus, so grain of salt.  And they also estimated physical activity and it wasn't significantly   different between the two groups. Now here's a question people often ask,  is it possible that a food can perform  differently if the background diet is different?  Always a theoretical possibility with any food or any risk factor.
• 06:00 - 06:30 Maybe canola oil would perform worse in a  low-fat diet or a vegan diet or a low-carb diet.  Or maybe it would perform even  better. Both possible with any food.  If you're not a regular viewer, the results  shared in this video might surprise you,  you might have even already typed an angry comment, but the reality is this mirrors a lot of the   existing evidence on canola oil. In fact we've looked at this   systematically in a previous video, all the published evidence for canola oil on heart
• 06:30 - 07:00 health, glucose metabolism, cancer, mortality, inflammation, oxidation, a lot of other topics.  After going through all those data, not only is  the effect consistent but it's pretty impressive,  I've actually decided to add some  canola oil to my diet, just mix it up,  Sometimes I use olive oil,  sometimes I use canola oil.  Doesn't mean it's the right strategy for everyone. You don't need any canola oil or any oil of any   kind in your diet, personal preference, but based on the data that I've seen,   makes sense to me. That video where we go over all
• 07:00 - 07:30 the human evidence on health effects of canola oil, you will have a hard time finding people on social   media sharing this type of information, I'll link that right here.  And here's one on seed oils and inflammation. Another common question with surprising answers.  Check those out. I'll see  you over there. Take care.