3 Myths of Consuming "Healthy" Oils

Olive oil is heart healthy. Coconut oil performs miracles. Flaxseed oil is a healthy source of omega-3s. These are the health claims purported in internet articles and scientific articles across the globe with these oils and others.

Are they true? Do these oils actually come through as the end-all, cure-all for all our aches and pains? Can heart disease really be cured by simply consuming large amounts of olive oil in the diet? Does coconut oil reverse Alzheimer’s disease?

The health claims associated with oils are tempting, but don’t believe the hype. Today you are going to learn the answers to these questions and more as I break down three common myths purported as truths when it comes to “healthy” oils. You will also learn about fat in the human diet and how much is actually needed in order to maintain a finely-tuned human machine.

3 Myths of “Healthy” Oils Broken Down

1) Olive oil is heart healthy

The Mediterranean Diet has popularized the consumption of olive oil. Many studies can be found boasting of a decreased risk of cardiovascular disease with this diet rich in olive oil. [1,2]

However, contrary to what has been claimed (and promoted through clever marketing techniques), olive oil is not heart healthy. It does not promote heart health. Why, you say?

It turns out that studies promoting the “heart healthy” effects of olive oil compare groups of people once eating a really unhealthy diet with significant amounts of saturated fat (butter, cream, animal fats, lard, and so forth) to people eating a diet with more monounsaturated fats (the fat found in higher quantities in olive oil). Therefore, the monounsaturated group consumes less of the health-robbing saturated fats. In other words, these studies compare mostly Western-style diets to slightly-improved versions of these unhealthy diets (i.e. Mediterranean Diet).

So do people get better? Yes. Anytime you go from worse to bad you see improvements, but less risk of heart disease does not equal no risk of heart disease. What we should really be testing is people already on a healthy diet (like the traditional Asian low-fat, plant-based diet) to those on a Mediterranean Diet.

To put it in a different way, does adding olive oil to a healthy plant-based diet that already has a very low risk of cardiovascular disease lower risk even more?

The answer is – No. One illustrative point can be seen through intervention studies where changes in diet and components of a diet are directly monitored.

One animal study tested rabbits on a normal diet and then added in olive oil. [3] This would be an intervention study. Tests were done to investigate for fatty streak formation (initial formations of artery-clogging plaques) in coronary arteries surrounding the heart. The stated results from study investigators: “Normal diet plus olive oil significantly enhanced fatty streak formation in left coronary arteries and aorta.”

Results of intervention studies in humans on the Mediterranean Diet and cardiovascular disease risk were published in another study. The results: “While numerous epidemiological studies have supported the concept that adherence to the traditional Mediterranean diet is beneficial for health and particularly protects against cardiovascular disease, the limited number of intervention studies in this field have not yet provided major support.” [4] No love here for the addition of olive oil to one’s diet in hopes of promoting heart health. Remember, promotion of hearth health and a reduced risk of heart health are two completely different things. Promotion is superior to reduced risk.

What about those traditional Asian diets consisting mostly of plant-based foods with little to no olive oil to speak of? Are they really better than the Mediterranean Diet or Standard American Diet (SAD)? It turns out that males on a SAD diet have almost five times the rate of ischemic heart disease as their Japanese counterparts living on a traditional plant-based diet of rice and vegetables. [10] And the Mediterranean Diet in comparison? Men eating a Mediterranean Diet rich in olive oil had nearly three times the ischemic heart disease as the Japanese men. It doesn’t look good for the olive oil crowd.

No study has ever been published where investigators took a group of people on a predominantly whole foods, plant-based diet proven to halt and reverse heart disease [5] and added olive oil to the diet, only to see additional benefits for improving heart health. It’s never been done.

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