Tuesday, May 28, 2013

Is Canola Oil Better than Olive Oil for Cardiovascular Health?

Canola oil has less oleic (omega-9) and more ALA (omega-3) than olive oil and been shown to:

• improve lipid measurements greater than olive oil in human subjects in a randomized, double-blinded trial: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8399091

• improve cardiovascular health more than olive oil in a rat model: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7722678

2 comments:

J.R. Lagoni said...

This is very interesting and controversial. I believe some Canola Oil is processed in a way that is considered deleterious, but I have noticed that the fatty acid profile in Olive Oil is not optimal. From an evolutionary diet perspective, we need to try to get our Omega6/Omega3 down to 3/1 or lower. All free roaming mammals and current hunter gatherers have such a ratio - and none have our plague of metabolic and chronic diseases! Key tissues are overloaded with Omega 6 fatty acid.

Neil E. Levin, CCN, DANLA said...

Thanks for the comment. You are correct about the fatty acid ratio. Also that some canola oil is GMO and definitely not a good oil choice. However, olive oil based diets have shown to be quite healthy, as in the Mediterranean diet.

Also, the paleolithic diet is not for everyone. We are not all cavemen. Apparently, evolution (actually adaptation) is an ongoing process. For example, we have new blood types that have developed in the past few thousand years that allow/require different diets. Here is an article that documents this:
http://www.modernhcp.com/epigenetics-the-death-of-the-paleolithic-human/