Breaking news: vegetable oils and Blindness

[MichaelG]

I posted a similar message on the Paleo / Neanderthin forum and realise that this would be of interest to this current forum.

Apparently in Australia (and possibly other western nations) the sight disorder known as Macular Degeneration (loss of vision starting in the centre of the field of view) was once rare but has increased ten-fold over the last couple of decades, and is now almost an epidemic.

It has now been linked to the consumption of vegetable oils and margarines.

The theory is that optic nerves (nervous tissue is mostly fat) is getting a build up of trans fats and other heat damaged veg oils instead of the natural animal fats they need. These unnatural oils are building up and causing nerve damage in the eyes.

This has been suppressed by the major oil industries but recently a major Australian author, Colleen McCullough has become affected and is kicking up a major stink which has hit the Aus press and will soon be world wide.

To read more, go to:
http://seven.com.au/todaytonight/story/macular2

It will take you a few minutes to load as there are hundreds of thousands of Poeple trying to get on at the moment.

Michael
Australia

[bike2work]

Thanks for posting, Michael. I had heard only that Collen McCullough had been diagnosed with macular degeneration. The link to vegetable oils hasn't been in the press here, I don't think.

My grandmother has macular degeneration and it's hereditary. She's completely blind in one eye and nearly blind in the other.

I wonder if vegetable oils include all non-animal fats. Would they include nut oils or coconut oil? I'll have to look into it further.

[ProfGumby]

huh, I can see that all making sense...trans fats are worse for you than almost anything, IMHO....

[Justin_UGR]

Time to eat some animal fat!

[Zuleikaa]

This has been linked to transfats and soy oils. Just about all fats in Australia have been replaced with soy. It's also been linked with thyroid malfunction in children as young as 6.