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Title should be changed

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No consensus to change title Veg Historian (talk) 19:11, 26 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The title is not neutral. "Misinformation" implies that criticism of the health effects of seed oils is objectively false. "Health effects of seed oils" or "Seed oil controversy" would be more neutral, while the article could still give greater weight to the majority view that they are not harmful. 73.40.102.35 (talk) 02:15, 2 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The title is correct. It is misinformation that seed oils are causing chronic disease. Psychologist Guy (talk) 03:14, 2 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
"Wikipedia never endorses the expert understanding of a subject; it just pays the most attention to it. Articles in Wikipedia maintain a neutral, dispassionate tone with regards to the subject, never indicating a preference for or against the perspective being examined." The use of "misinformation" to refer to a minority view on the health effects of seed oils is not neutral. In addition, "Alternative theoretical formulations from within the scientific community are not pseudoscience, but part of the scientific process. They should not be classified as pseudoscience but should still be put into context with respect to the mainstream perspective."
The language and title throughout this article is consistently biased, and there is also no need for this separate article rather than covering this issue as a subpoint under the main article on vegetable oils. 73.40.102.35 (talk) 05:21, 2 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Please re-read the neutrality policy, specifically the sections on undue weight and false balance. WP:MEDRS also applies. Sumanuil. (talk to me) 05:38, 2 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27071971/
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6196963/
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41538-019-0061-9
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6121943/
Here are four peer-reviewed journal articles which question the health benefits of seed oils. The loaded language and irrelevant political references in the original article still needs to be changed - and the article probably doesn't even need to be separate from the main article on vegetable oils. 73.40.102.35 (talk) 05:51, 2 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
You haven't read WP:MEDRS. We are not going to cite weak opinion pieces or WP:Fringe papers written by conspiracy theorists like James DiNicolantonio. Nothing you have cited is new or original. I have been on Wikipedia for years and 3 of those exact same papers you cited have been cited over and over by low-carb editors coming to Wikipedia every year citing them on the carnivore diet or saturated fat article. One of those does not even mention seed oils and this [1] is not an anti-seed oil paper. It found "Unsaturated fatty rich oils like safflower, sunflower, rapeseed, flaxseed, corn, olive, soybean, palm, and coconut oil were more effective in reducing LDL-C (−0.42 to −0.20 mmol/l) as compared with SFA-rich food like butter or lard". How is that questioning the health benefits of seed oils?! Have you even read these papers? Psychologist Guy (talk) 11:15, 2 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Better image?

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The image at the lead only shows flaxseed products which is not widely discussed (relatively). Perhaps there could be a photo include the more commonly discussed seed oils such as sunflower, corn, soy, and (g)rapeseed? 2601:586:4600:4A90:FD0D:C999:3659:5127 (talk) 00:55, 23 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with that, something like this might be better [2] Veg Historian (talk) 01:03, 23 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

History section?

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This article misstates that the origin of concern about seed oil and linoleic acid is recent. It has long been a topic of debate in veterinary science and agriculture(see feed efficiently), Paleo health forums, Ray Peat related communities, and many scientists studying chronic disease. The tone of this article, much like other political topics with a heavy bias held by wikipedia reditors, suffers from many logical issues and dishonesty. 2A02:14F:4A7:454A:2142:24EA:10F5:FFFB (talk) 15:30, 24 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Source(s)? Remember they need to be about misinformation. Bon courage (talk) 15:39, 24 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It is my pleasure to inform you that reality does not divide neatly into information and misinformation, but is rather more complicated than that. The mere existence of studies pointing the finger directly at Linoleic Acid in any so called diseases of affluence, means that a weaker case of seed oils being involved in a large number/all of them is plausible.
Triple negative Breast Cancer: https://doi.org/10.1126/science.adm9805
Age related macular degeneration: https://doi.org/10.1001/archopht.119.8.1191
Additionally, arguments blankly stating that seed oils are of no concern in Consumer Reports(considered a good source around here) interview folks like Dariush Mozaffarian, who's own research demonstrated a link between potatoes cooked with seed oils, but not without seed oils, with weight gain. They omit the clear misconduct, which I've added to Mozaffarian's wikipedia page, citing the offending paper.
https://www.consumerreports.org/health/healthy-eating/do-seed-oils-make-you-sick-a1363483895/
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dariush_Mozaffarian#Research
Mozaffarian is one example of "seed oil misinformation" that doesn't fit the narrative pushed in this rather poorly thought out article, but many more exist.
To fix this page, one would have to convert it to "Seed Oil controversy" and mention that the main stream view is that Seed Oils and linoleic acid aren't a concern, but that many dispute that, and online/political groups have pushed different sides of the argument, often with varying levels of scientific literacy. 2A02:14F:1ED:4B3:BCF1:663A:E3A:5913 (talk) 17:00, 25 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
This article is about the misinformation though. Bon courage (talk) 17:09, 25 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Just a note about this breast cancer study [3] which made rounds on social media from the anti-seed oil and carnivore diet crowd. This is not human clinical trial data or long-term epidemiological data. This wasn't even a case control study. If you read that study, it says "Notably, we demonstrated the relevance of this FABP5-mTORC1 signaling pathway in vivo by feeding animals a diet enriched for safflower oil that promoted TNBC tumor growth". This is another animal-model study. It has no relevance to humans. You can feed a rat anything in excess and they will develop tumor growth. These anti-seed oil people are obsessed with talking about what is "natural" in the diet, well I can tell you there is nothing "natural" about feeding rats loads of a safflower oil. That obviously isn't their natural diet. So why cite this nonsense?
The anti-seed oil crowd have no clinical data for their claims, so all they can cite is very weak studies done on rodents. Check the linoleic acid talk-page, this study has already been discussed before and discredited. It fails WP:MEDRS and we are not going to cite that per WP:MEDANIMAL. If we look at the human data, for example this meta-analysis we see that LA intake is not associated with increased breast cancer risk [4] and that is also what we see in case control studies [5]. This is why you shouldn't cherry pick the literature for a weak study done on rodents.
Lastly, it was good that cancer was brought up because we do have a reliable source that covers linoleic acid and cancer [6]. The review paper can be read in full here [7] (page 3 for cancer data). As you can see there is only a decreased risk of cancer from LA intake. There is not a shred of human outcome data showing the opposite. Veg Historian (talk) 19:59, 25 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Also handy, new article from World Cancer Research Fund [8] Veg Historian (talk) 20:43, 25 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The animal data is NOT weak. Anyone who says this is an obvious hack, and doesn't understand animal data. The animal data on linoleic acid being necessary for the development of NASH and Alcoholic fatty liver disease has many implications for modern disease, especially metabolic syndrome, which is often initiated by liver failure. Studies in humans generally compare extreme modern levels, with slightly lower(still extremely high) levels, and are then parroted by other hacks(often Vegan), who pretend these results are somehow more relevant than the animal models. Using Epidemiology and clinical trials comparing levels you would never expect to show a signal(barring p-hacking by advocates), and preferring them over large amounts of animal data is foolish. 132.73.214.25 (talk) 07:35, 26 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
So address the misinformation by Consumer Reports and Mozaffarian.
My larger point is that the entire framing of this topic is misinformation, especially the claim that there is no legitimate scientific reason to suspect large amounts of Seed Oils are involved in modern chronic illness. 132.73.214.25 (talk) 07:50, 26 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
You misunderstand how evidence-based nutrition works. Randomized controlled trials, long-term epidemiological studies and mendelian randomization are what is needed to make a judgemental call about food intake and health effects. Animal models are the weakest type of evidence, they cannot be used to show disease effects in humans or causality. Rodent studies are done to speculate upon mechanistic pathways. As stated you can feed a rat anything in excess and the rat will get sick. You are literally doing the reverse of how science works. You are building your entire hypothesis around animal models and ignoring all clinical data. This is a classic sign of the anti-science crowd operate. Please see Hierarchy of evidence and read WP:MEDASSESS and WP:MEDANIMAL. This talk-page is about suggestions for the article, not to promote misinformation. Veg Historian (talk) 15:36, 26 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I say this as the person who AfD'd Ray Peat's article: the IP is correct on one count, in that this is much older than the article suggests, but there is not much we can do about it because this is recently notable and a lot of sources haven't gotten into its roots.
What really caused the resurgence is that a bunch of alt health influencers e.g. Bronze Age Pervert adopted / were influenced by Ray Peat's (insane) worldview, which due to their popularity spread outwards. Peat thought seed oils are poison amongst a bunch of other very odd claims. (I am not kidding on insane he thought his diet gave him the ability to psychically communicate with ants.) He is basically the ground zero for this.
Frustratingly, despite Peat being one of the most influential drivers of the health denialist community online, he is mentioned in no basically no academic works (except a few that mention him briefly as an influence on BAP) This is one of those situations where the RS haven't covered this ground yet, I bet they will eventually. We can't add out WP:Original research into articles, and modern medicine is resoundingly against Peat's... everything. PARAKANYAA (talk) 07:33, 26 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The concepts are still older than Peat, who's probably most wrong about Fructose, melatonin, and that's about it. The case against high consumption of LA is pretty good, even by mainstream metrics of omega 3:6 ratios, population/ecological data, and animal data(piss poor epidemeology and extremely weak trials aside).
"Health Denialism" is another not even wrong way of framing this. The "health" institutions you mention, especially that citation from the World Cancer Research Fund, often bring up the pseudoscientific concepts like "Ultra Processed Foods", which when you look into it are just foods that combine Sugar and seed oils(both problematic), with some other irrelevant stuff(like antioxidants/preservatives). The thing that makes these foods a problem IS seed oil+sugar. 132.73.214.25 (talk) 07:46, 26 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The base idea is older than him but all high profile promoters of the idea trace their conception of it to him. And whether these things are true or not (I do not know, though I have significant doubts about the evidence presented by you here, and I do not care) Wikipedia operates by extremely, extremely rigid rules on "biomedical information", including health, see WP:MEDRS.
Unless it is widely accepted by the medical and scientific establishment and is supported by very high quality research you are not going to be able to add it. These ideas are very WP:FRINGE PARAKANYAA (talk) 07:59, 26 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I did not suggest presenting the strong claim about LA or seed oils as mainstream. I am specifically mentioning that even in the papers aligning with the main stream view(such as (https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jand.2012.03.029) the first meta analysis cited by the linked Cancer Research Fund article, investigating "normal" inflammation while excluding every chronic inflammatory disease known to man) mention that many scientists have raised concern about excess Ω6, with varying hypotheses about their relevance to so called diseases of affluence. Presenting the entire argument against seed oils(weak though it might be) as FRINGE because they're associated with Ray Peat online is dishonest. This article is bad, and would benefit from a history section that is a bit less narrow and "the science is settled™" tinted. 5.29.17.164 (talk) 14:03, 26 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
This is what PMID: 22889633 [9] says "We conclude that virtually no evidence is available from randomized, controlled intervention studies among healthy, noninfant human beings to show that addition of LA to the diet increases the concentration of inflammatory markers." Linoleic acid has no effect on inflammation. Case closed. Consuming vegetable oils does not cause inflammation in the body. You have not provided any reliable sources for your claims. All of the best sourcing on this topic disagrees with you. This talk-page is not about your personal beliefs, it is about suggestions on how to improve this article. None of the reliable systematic reviews support your pseudoscientific ideas that linoleic acid is harmful to humans. We are not going to cite rat studies so there is not much else that can be done here. This section should be closed if you have no realistic suggestions on how to improve the article. BTW I also suggest cutting out the personal attacks - calling people hacks, dishonest etc on this talk-page is not helping. Veg Historian (talk) 15:44, 26 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
PARAKANYAA, the first to make anti-seed oils claims were Barry Groves and Mary G. Enig between 2004 and 2005. Ray Peat's anti-seed oil essays were written around 2006. I have not been able to find any writers predating 2004. So this anti-seed oil thing is only around 20 years at most. As you said though there is no sourcing we can use on this so we can't cite Enig/Groves or Peat on the history of promoting seed oil misinformation. It would be nice to expand the history but nothing can be done until good WP:RS turn up. As some point I expect a food historian to cover the history in an academic book but we may have to wait a few years until that happens. Veg Historian (talk) 16:05, 26 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

What a badly written article...

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Regardless of the validity of the information it tries to convey, I got a feeling that I should not trust the person who wrote this article. 82.131.211.178 (talk) 13:47, 27 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The article has had 80 editors. Wikipedia cannot control your feelings. Bon courage (talk) 13:59, 27 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Still, in its current state this article has a bad un-wikipedia-like vibe. It is my feeling and it is valid. 151.0.88.218 (talk) 08:35, 1 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
If you're not able or don't want to use a confirmed account to edit the article to improve this, perhaps you could provide detail/examples so other editors can help? Audrey Woolf (talk) 11:55, 1 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The IP 82.131.211.178 who started this section is using a blacklisted VPN. This IP is also the same IP who has been using other abusive VPNS on this talk-page. For example, 132.73.214.25 was also their VPN. This is bad-faith editing. I suggest they register a legit account if they want to be taken seriously but this is probably a banned user. When someone resorts to using multiple VPN they are obviously up to no good. We have had a similar issue in the past at the carnivore diet talk-page. Veg Historian (talk) 12:06, 1 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

new article

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Article by exercise scientist Nick Tiller: The Seed Oil Gambit ScienceFlyer (talk) 23:16, 30 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Paul Saladino

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Paul Saladino currently redirects to this article. Now that he is in the news, should he have an article of his own? [Pinging Veg Historian who correctly reverted by linking of his name.] BobFromBrockley (talk) 13:16, 1 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that there is enough WP:RS so he would qualify for an article on Wikipedia. A very good source is this book review [10]. If nobody else creates it I could create it. Also, his pseudoscientific claims have been documented on another Wiki. He doesn't just promote anti-seed oil, he is also anti-sun screen etc. Veg Historian (talk) 13:29, 1 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks! I've started a draft. Please chip in! BobFromBrockley (talk) 13:58, 1 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Actually I've gone ahead and turned the draft into an article: Paul Saladino - please review! BobFromBrockley (talk) 15:00, 1 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
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