Seed oils enhance weight loss! - Debunking Benjamin Bikman
A lot of misinformation is promoted about seed oils on social media. In a recent post, Benjamin Bikman, a professor, claims that seed oils cause weight gain. He lists several mechanisms and links them together in a story that expresses the reasons why this should be the case. However, he does not provide any evidence for his story; he just provides the story. Science requires evidence for a story to be true. This is known as testing the hypothesis. Bikman provides no indication that the hypothesis he is presenting has been tested. Only thing, it has been tested. And studies overwhelmingly and consistently show that the opposite is true: seed oils actually promote fat loss and a higher metabolic rate. This was found in one comprehensive review looking at dozens of studies published in 2014 [1], a long-term clinical trial of 83 subjects looking at the impact of soybean oil (versus cocoa butter and palm oil) on liver and body fat in 2021 [2], and a meta-analysis of 25 randomized controlled trials comparing canola oil-containing diets to other diets, including saturated fat-containing diets [3]. All of these studies are remarkably consistent. Not only do diets containing seed oils outperform other diets in terms of metrics like fat oxidation, diet-induced thermogenesis, and energy expenditure—increasing all of these relative to diets high in saturated fat—they also outperform these diets in the ways that matter: fat and weight loss. That’s right, replacing butter with seed oils produces not only better blood lipids and cardiovascular disease risk [4], but lower body weight and body fat. It is critical for us to actually test our hypotheses and not promote misinformation at odds with the available evidence. PMIDs [1] 24363161 [2] 33381795 [3] 30809634 [4] 33853582