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one of the most common vegetable oil Contaminants found in processed foods may contribute to weight gain Because of the way it is processed in the body, a new Study Suggested.
While soybeans are not commonly used as a base in cooking Oil It is often found in processed foods such as salad dressings, margarine and crisps. Previous research linked soybean oil To gain weight, but it is not clear why it causes some people to gain weight.
New research from scientists at the University of California at Riverside shows that may not be the case. Oil Rather, the way it is processed inside the body leads to weight gain when eaten in excess.
“Soybean oil is not inherently bad,” said Francis Sladek, a professor of cell biology at the university. “But the amounts we consume are triggering pathways that our bodies haven’t evolved to handle.”
Researchers fed a diet rich in soybean oil to two groups of rats to understand why it was more likely to promote obesity than other oils. The first group had no genetic modification, while the second group produced a slightly different form of a liver protein that affects fat metabolism in the body.
They found that the first group gained significantly more weight, but the second group did not, suggesting that genetics and modern diet play an important role in obesity.
“This could be a first step toward understanding why some people gain weight more easily than others when consuming a diet high in soybean oil,” said Sonia Deol, a biomedical scientist at the university and corresponding author of the study.
The study builds on earlier work by researchers linking soybean oil to weight gain. “We know from our 2015 study that soybean oil is more obesogenic than coconut oil,” Professor Sladek said. “But now we have the clearest evidence yet that it’s not the oil itself, or even the linoleic acid. It’s what the fat turns into inside the body.”
Linoleic acid is a major fatty acid in soybean oil, which the body converts into molecules called oxylipins. Excessive consumption of linoleic acid may increase the amount of oxylipins, which are associated with inflammation and fat accumulation.
The genetically engineered mice in the study had significantly less oxylipins and had healthy livers despite eating the same high-fat soybean oil diet as regular mice. They also showed signs of increased mitochondrial function, which may help explain their resistance to weight gain.
The analysis also revealed that the genetically modified mice had much lower levels of two key enzyme families responsible for converting linoleic acid into oxylipins.
Although no human trials are planned, the team hopes these findings will help guide future research and inform nutrition policy.
“It took 100 years for the first observed link between tobacco chewing and cancer to get warning labels on cigarettes,” Professor Sladek said. “We hope it will not take so long for society to recognize the connection between excessive soybean oil consumption and negative health effects.”