5 reasons why removing pufas from your diet may help improve your health
You may have seen Oatly being deemed as the new Coca Cola lately, but what really makes it that bad? This circulating topic has re-initiated the conversation surrounding PUFAs. What if I told you that there’s a common ingredient hidden in several of your favorite foods that could be attributing to inflammation, a fatty liver, and metabolic disorder? Cold hands and feet? Thyroid problems? Stubborn body fat? Numerous “healthy” foods may even contain these oils that are actually harming you more than they are helping you. You’re most likely consuming way more of these than you’re aware of as they’re often hidden within foods at restaurants,many of your favorite pantry items, and yes even your “healthy” protein bars and powders. Let me elaborate on why you might want to avoid these oils.
What are PUFAs?
PUFAs- polyunsaturated fats are a type of fatty acid that are typically liquid at room temperature but turn solid when chilled. Fats we consume through food generally fall into one of two categories: unsaturated and saturated fat. Examples of polyunsaturated fats include: corn oil, soybean oil, canola oil, safflower oil, walnuts, sunflower seeds, fish oil, flax seeds. You may see “heart healthy” labels on several cooking oils, but I will challenge you to think critically about what you’ve been told about fat in the past. Polyunsaturated fats are long chains with multiple double bonds that don't contain as many hydrogen atoms as saturated fats. When a molecule is missing some of its hydrogen atoms, it becomes susceptible to free radicals. Because PUFAs have these double bonds, oxygen is much more likely to bind to these molecules & react.
Why should you avoid them?
The primary issue with polyunsaturated fats is that they are highly unstable meaning that they easily go rancid, becoming toxic to our bodies. This happens through heat, at which the fat begins to oxidize and for PUFAs, that temperature threshold is quite low. These oils can be exposed to high heat through cooking or even before that when they’re going through production, which is why you’ll see these items being transported in darker containers and often labeled with “store in a cool place”. Oxidation leads to free radicals, which wreaks havoc on the body, leading to cellular damage expressing itself internally and externally through liver spots or “sun spots' ', but we’ll get into that later. Because PUFAs are more prone to oxidation, when they get inside a body full of heat, oxygen, and iron, lipid peroxidation (oxidative damage) begins to take place. This creates the perfect opportunity for disease within the body to take place such as cancer, diabetes, heart disease, heart attacks, non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, aging, depression, anxiety, Alzheimer's disease, dementia, and autoimmune disorders.
How consuming PUFA’s affects your health
Blood sugar: For starters, PUFAs can damage the cells in your pancreas that produce insulin, causing damage to the very system that you want running optimally. Keeping your blood sugar stable will aid in losing body fat and achieving optimal levels of health. When our body is under stress- our blood sugar isn’t stable, when we skip a meal over exercise, under sleep, expose ourselves to toxins, and endure stressful situations, cortisol begins to breakdown our tissues for energy and PUFAs are released into the bloodstream.
Skin health: You know those liver spots? Or some call them sun spots? Yeah, those are caused by what's called lipofuscin. This happens when material waste builds up in our cells as we age, creating the perfect recipe for skin damage to appear. Estrogen + excessive Iron + PUFAs= lipofuscin. Estrogen levels can be raised through birth control, plastics, endocrine disruptors, and toxins. So let’s link this together: the PUFAs we consume become rancid or oxidized, added with excessive iron, + estrogen results in brown, fatty waste collecting in our cells as we age. This then shows up as we expose ourselves to sunlight and the unsaturated fatty acid molecules begin to produce free radicals. See the correlation in this? PUFAs + heat =oxidation.
Metabolism: Keeping your metabolism in check helps regulate thyroid function and hormone balance. PUFAs will throw this system out of place due to the various stressors they may cause to your system. They wreak havoc on digestion and block the ability of normal cellular metabolism. Once in the blood, they circulate for many hours, suppressing our metabolism. Take cold water fish like wild alaskan salmon, their tissues are made of high levels of unsaturated fats to be able to move through frigid temperatures. We however as humans, are meant to thrive at a maintained temperature of 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit.
Digestion/immune system: Over 70% of your immune system is linked back to your gut health, so in order to support our immunity we need to be conscious of what is impacting our digestive system. PUFAs can impair protein digestion, so beware.
Detoxification & hormone imbalance: That lovely liver of yours plays a big role in detoxification and one way to overburden it is by pumping polyunsaturated fats through your system. They also will have an affect on your hormones by interfering with the function of the thyroid gland. Unsaturated oils block thyroid hormone secretion, its movement in the circulatory system, and the response of tissues to the hormone. When the thyroid hormone is deficient, the body is generally exposed to increased levels of estrogen. The thyroid hormone is essential for making the “protective hormones” progesterone and pregnenolone, so these hormones are lowered when anything interferes with the function of the thyroid. Common things that lower thyroid function: fasting, zero carbs, excess working out, gut irritants, not eating enough protein, low salt diet, low vitamin d and sun exposure, and stress.
*Hot tip: When out to eat consume a high quality vitamin E (mitolife) as it is a very powerful antioxidant that may help offset damage from polyunsaturated fats. Vitamin E may help improve these effects.
Where are PUFAs present?
So where do we find these and how do we avoid them? Start with reading your food labels. I always highly encourage my clients to do this as it allows them to think for themselves by gaining a better understanding of what's in their food to equip them to make better decisions going forward. As previously mentioned, many of your favorite bars, granola, or other snacks contain PUFAs. Commercially raised beef, pork, & poultry fed a corn or soy diet will often have high levels of PUFAs in their tissues. Look out for the following
Canola oil
Grapeseed oil
Rapeseed oil
Soybean oil
Safflower oil
Vegetable oil
Margarine
Flaxseed oil
Fish oil
What to do about it?
Instead, look to consume nutrient dense sources of saturated fat such as grass fed butter, coconut oil, avocados. When cooking, look to utilize ghee, butter, or tallow as these are stable fats. Avocado oil & olive oil (mono-saturated fats). Vitamin E increases the conversion of linoleic acid into saturated fat. It also protects the skin from ultraviolet light which increases lipid peroxidation when it reacts with PUFAs. It also protects against many of the damaging effects of excess iron and calcium.
Thorne and Mito Life are my two go to brands for Vitamin E supplementation when consuming PUFAs such as when out to eat.
Sources: https://www.functionalps.com/blog/2012/04/23/unsaturated-fats-and-age-pigment/
https://www.absolutelypure.com/how-pufa-causes-liver-and-age-spots.html
