Comment by aliasxneo
3 hours ago
Seed oils tend to cause severe inflammation in my body like most other ultra-processed foods. This is more than conjecture, due to existing health conditions, I keep a very strict diet with a food journal. I was excluding them long before RFK Jr. came around with the MAHA stuff. Yet another thing thats been politicized I guess.
I keep reading about "inflammation" and think about things like swollen joints, bruises, etc. It must mean something else. What would I notice in my body if the oils that I consume are causing severe inflammation?
I notice that my allergies get worse, and a theory is that systemic low-grade inflammation and histamine response may be due to diet. I don't have a lot of other conditions, but people with autoimmune conditions (e.g. rheumatoid arthritis) might see it get better/worse with dietary changes.
When I'm eating beans+rice and a bit of protein that I cook myself, my allergies are a lot lower.
When I cheat and eat "crap" I tend to start sneezing and rubbing my eyes.
There are a lot of variables, though, and cheat foods tend to be highly processed, high in gluten, with a lot of additives and made with seed oils, and hidden sugars, and are much higher glycemic index with higher glycemic loading, amongst other things. Plus seasonal allergies are just variable day-to-day which is another confounding factor. So I don't really know what the X factor is. I get similar effects on an atkins-style high fat beef, butter and cheese kind of diet, because it also cuts out most of those things.
My theory is that the inflammation simply high-jacks your body's attention. Meaning, it has to spend more time dealing with it as opposed to handling other conditions. I don't strongly believe that chronic inflammation is the direct causal effect of many of my health symptoms, but I do strongly believe that, overall, it makes them significantly worse than they need to be.
There are tons of possible symptoms because systemic inflammation including from dietary causes basically damages the entire body. But here's a list of some common symptoms from one source:
persistent pain, chronic fatigue or insomnia, joint stiffness, skin problems, elevated blood markers (such as C-reactive protein), gastrointestinal issues (constipation, diarrhoea, acid reflux), depression, anxiety and mood disorders, unintended weight gain or loss, frequent colds or flu.
https://stories.uq.edu.au/research/2023/9-signs-you-have-inf...
For myself, when I eat processed food I mostly feel fatigue and low energy and gastrointestinal pain. But it's been extremely rare for me to eat these things in the last 10 years.
Most of the US population are systemically inflamed including from diet basically all the time, and most of the US population are suffering from several of the above symptoms chronically. (Not to claim that it's definitely or only because of food, but I'd bet it's a big part of it.)
That could be a valid observation for n=1. There could be any number of reasons seed oils cause inflammation for you but do not the general populace, or not at numbers large enough to offset recommending them as a general rule.
The politicization is coming directly from the Trump administration, as the article states - making spurious claims and eliding the science that backs up the contrary conclusions. Did you have some other idea of how this is being politicized?
I wouldn't pose it as anything more than n=1. I'm more empathizing with those being caught up in the politicization who may have more nuanced reasons they are being impacted beyond what the media puts out.
> The politicization is coming directly from the Trump administration, as the article states - making spurious claims and eliding the science that backs up the contrary conclusions. Did you have some other idea of how this is being politicized?
I read this a couple of times, but I'm still not really understanding the question. I directly attributed the politicization to RFK Jr. and the MAHA movement. So I'm not sure why you're asking if I had other ideas.
I also think this is an interesting topic of research. I have had lifelong issues with chronic pain and always felt like diet influenced it, but I’ve never been able to isolate a single factor. I’be stopped cooking with low smoke point oils but it’s all guesswork at this point.
Your phrasing about politics was potentially ambiguous, so I asked for clarification. People can mean many different things when they say something is political.