http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25193556

I wonder how much healthier the experimental animals would have been if they had used a saturated fat such as coconut oil in comparison with corn oil? This study seems to suggest even one of the poorer quality fats, corn oil, was healthier for rodents than carbohydrate. I personally avoid corn oil precisely because of its high levels of poly- and mono-unsaturated fatty acids, because those unsaturated bonds are vulnerable to oxidation and make the product go rancid much more easily than natural fully saturated fats. Plus all the nasty processing needed to extract oil from a non-oily seed like corn. But even that was better for critters than carbohydrate. Interesting.

Those were the 2 things that made me quit using corn oil. First a friend whose knowledge of food I respected told me how seed oils are extracted. Then shortly after that I had a bottle of corn oil go rancid just weeks after opening it. I went to olive oil, then added butter. Took me just about forever to find out how good other saturated fats are.

I've gotten an already rancid smell from bottles of supposedly extra virgin olive oil right when first opened. With all the articles around warning a lot of "olive oil" is counterfeit I wonder if it might not be the real stuff, but even if it is it's already rancid when purchased. The really nice bottles that may be better don't fit into my budget, so I've moved to saturated fats, coconut oil and butter that don't go easily rancid. We tried refrigerated trans-fat-free grocery store lard but it too smelled kind of rancid. Lard has lots of mono- and poly-unsaturated fatty acids oxygen can react with. Too bad because lard tastes good and the grocery store stuff was an affordable price.

I've been getting California Olive Ranch evoo from WalMart & so far, it's been great. Somewhere I read that it's one of the more reliable brands (if I'm remembering it right).

Me too Bonnie,
I've been using it for about 6 months now and I love it.
I read an article about Olive oil and it said that some of the olive oil from Italy might not be 100% so when I found this brand which is made in the good old USA I bought it right away and it is great.

I see this all the time. They'll do a study with a high-fat diet, animals will eat more food for all of a week--and then calories end up the same as animals fed chow, but the high-fat fed animals continue to get fatter. So much for calorie density as an explanation for fattening effects of high-fat chow.

Peter at Hyperlipid has posted some stuff where animals who had difficulty storing fat--some form of adipose insulin resistance--had that rescued on a diet high in polyunsaturates. This might be a case where the polyunsaturates actually make the animals more insulin-sensitive. Healthier because they're able to get fatter. Not a cure most people would want to line up for.

Monosaturated fats are quite stable and produce negligible amount of ROS (reactive oxygen species). In addition, in a round-about way, the oleic acid (the primary fatty acid in monosaturated fat) activates a brain circuit that increases feelings of fullness. You're right, however, to be suspicious of the provenence of most so-called olive oils.

Lard is actually the best cooking fat.

Yes. That's one of the brands on a list of recommended olive oils.

I've come across a proof of the full-text of the paper.

Of note, the corn oil used in the experiment isn't what's sitting on grocery store shelves or what most people have sitting in their pantries. They took care to make sure it was fresh, refrigerated, and unexposed to light.



This is misleading. I would very much liked to have seen a comparison of the corn oil that people actually buy which is most likely either oxidized or has used up its antioxidants and is easily oxidized once ingested. Olive oil can sit on a shelf or a pantry for a while without oxidizing. That might be why olive oil has been linked to longevity and reduced disease. Would liked to have seen olive oil and saturated fat compared as well.

The low fat mice had 10% of calories from fat. This is well within the McDougall, Esselstyn, Ornish range. But as a formulated diet, most of the calories came from cornstarch and then sucrose. Walter Kempner allowed his patients unlimited amounts of sugar. He claimed it was the reduction of fat and protein that was responsible for his patients' recovery. I don't doubt that claim but was their longevity ever measured beyond reduction of disease? Were they ever compared to people on a low carb or keto diet?

I gave up corn once I learned that it has all become Frankenfood.

I will never use corn oil.

Mice are corn-eaters, so no wonder they do well on corn oil.

As Jason Fung would say, "It's an animal study. I'd ignore it."

I wonder who funded the study?

There are no conflicts of interest. This next study lends credence to it. O6 extends lifespan in worms via autophagy. It's also been shown to activate autophagy in mammalian cells, including human epithelial cells.

ω-6 Polyunsaturated fatty acids extend life span through the activation of autophagy


There are also countless observational studies linking nuts and peanuts to longevity consistently and strongly. They are high in O6 but are whole foods where the O6 isn't oxidized as in vegetable oils.

Ketones also stimulate autophagy. I wonder whether it'd be additive or redundant on a ketogenic diet.

Checking for adulterated olive oil:
http://essentialstuff.org/index.php...fake-olive-oil/