Soybean Oil Consumption May Increase Chance of Obesity and Diabetes

Although Soybean oil may not be as bad as Soylent Green (spoiler alert: Soylent Green is people), it’s still not so good. Researchers at UC Riverside just published a FoxnewsSuperCommonOilThatScienceNowShowsIsWorseThanSugarArticleAug3_-NewFindingsPublishedInPLoSOne”>study that showed a high soybean oil (vegetable oil) diet leads to “an increased amount of weight gain and diabetes” in the tested subjects.

The researchers fed a variety of diets, all of which were 40 percent fat in their nutritional makeup (which is the average American’s fat intake), to a group of male rats. UC Riverside’s research yielded data that the mice who were consuming a soybean oil, a mostly polyunsaturated fat, diet gained about 25 percent more weight than mice who consumed a diet laden with coconut oil, a mainly unsaturated fat.

In another part of the study, rats were fed “fructose-enriched” diets, which, in comparison with the oil diets, researchers found that a sugar-filled diet caused less weight gain than the soybean diet and more than the coconut. The soybean rats gained 9 percent more weight than mice devouring the fructose-heavy diet, but the fructose mice gained 12 percent more weight than the mice devouring coconut oil.

Does this mean it’s time to pour out the $50 olive oil your braggart neighbors brought you back from Greece? Not quite. While vegetable oil may not be the ultra-healthy oil it was long advertised to be, researchers did make note that consuming the oil can still be “beneficial for cardiac health.” Also, less weight gain doesn’t equal health: while a high-fructose diet may have resulted in fewer lbs. gained in the study, it caused more detrimental effects to the liver as well as increased symptoms for inflammatory bowel disease. In other words, fructose won’t eclipsing kale’s healthy reign any time soon. Although the research is not conclusive on the matter, the research does seem to indicate that it may be time to hop on the coconut oil bandwagon—if you haven’t already.