How Linoleic Acid and Vegetable Oils Wreck Your Health (2025)

Introduction

The majority of Americans might be misled by official health recommendations to eat “healthy” vegetable oils. Even the term “vegetable oil” is misleading because it gives you the impression that you are receiving vegetable micronutrients when these oils are actually highly toxic, industrially-processed seed oils. Seed oils are some of the most dangerous items you could eat. Everyone should be informed about seed oils and linoleic acid.

Tucker Goodrich and Dr Mercola discussed what will be the topic of Dr Mercola's next book, namely linoleic acid (LA), which he believed is likely the leading contributing cause of virtually all chronic diseases we've encountered over the last century. Unfortunately, this is a topic that most clinicians and health care practitioners who focus on natural medicine have only a superficial understanding of.

In a 2025 mechanistic review, published in Advances in Redox Research, Dr Mercola broke down exactly how Linoleic Acid disrupts your mitochondria — the energy engines inside every one of your cells. What the research revealed might change how you look at metabolic disease entirely.
 

 

Tucker Goodrich has a business background as a stockbroker and asset manager, and developed an IT risk management system used by two of the largest hedge funds in the world. A string of health crises in his late 30s and early 40s prompted him to apply his research and troubleshooting skills to medical research.

Linoleic acid chemical structure

As noted by Goodrich, "It was a very upsetting time in my life and medical professionals really weren't any help at all in trying to figure out what caused things." After a lot of reading and researching, he decided to cut out seed oils from his diet, and in just two days, his 16-year-long bout with irritable bowel disease started to dramatically improve.

"I started immediately feeling better," he says. He also lost a significant amount of weight over the next two months. After that, he stopped eating carbs and realized he must have had a severe case of gluten intolerance. 

"Being an engineer by trade, I did a lot of experimenting. What can I eat? What brings back the symptoms? What do I have to avoid to keep the symptoms away? And it was a transformation that made everybody I worked with comment on what a difference they saw in me. It was a very quick change," he says.

Related: Best anti inflammatory supplements

Hazards of linoleic acid (LA), an omega-6 polyunsaturated fat (PUFA)

Fats — which are water-insoluble biological molecules also known as lipids — are the primary building block of your cell membranes. This is one of the reasons why eating the right types of fat is so important for your health and longevity.

Dr Mercola's paper on the hazards of linoleic acid (LA), an omega-6 polyunsaturated fat (PUFA), is now published in the high impact Nutrition journal Nutrients and available for free download, here.

Lowering your Linoleic Acid is the single most important strategy you can take to not only lower reductive stress in your mitochondria, but improve your overall health. It took me over six months to create the video above and I would strongly encourage each of you to watch is several times so you embed in your brain how important avoiding LA is for your long-term health so you can develop unconscious reflex behaviors to avoid this pernicious fat.

Fatty Acid Basics

What distinguishes one fat from another is the specific combination of fatty acids it’s composed of, and the properties of fats and fatty acids depend on their hydrogen saturation and the length of their molecules, also referred to as "chain length."

There are two basic types of fatty acids, based on how many of their carbon bonds are paired with hydrogen: (3)

• Saturated fats are fully loaded with hydrogen atoms forming straight chains, and are typically solid at room temperature (examples include butter and coconut oil)
• Unsaturated fats have lost at least one of the pairs of hydrogen atoms from their carbon chain and come in two varieties:
• Monounsaturated fats, which are missing one pair of hydrogen atoms.
• Polyunsaturated Fats (PUFAs), which are missing more than one pair of hydrogen atoms, hence the name “poly”.

The loss of hydrogen results in molecules that kink or bend at each double bond. The more hydrogen pairs that are missing, the more bent the molecules, which causes the molecules to occupy more space. This is what makes the fat a liquid oil at room temperature.

In addition to varying levels of hydrogen saturation, fats also vary in the length of their carbon chains, leading to another classification scheme based on their number of carbon atoms: (4)

• Short-chain fatty acids (SCFAs) — Two to four carbon atoms
• Medium-chain fatty acids (MCFAs) — Six to 10 carbon atoms
• Long-chain fatty acids (LCFAs) — 12 to 26 carbon atoms
• Very-long-chain fatty acids5 (VLCFAs) — 26 to 30 carbon atoms

The chain length and hydrogen saturation level control a fat’s melting point. As chain length increases, melting point increases. Likewise, fats that are solid at room temperature (butter, coconut oil) have longer chain lengths than fats that are liquid at room temperature (fish oil, olive oil). With chain lengths being equal, the polyunsaturated fats found in seeds oils have lower melting points than saturated fats.

Omega-3 and Omega-6 Basics

PUFAs can also be subdivided into omega-3 and omega-6 fats. The end of the fatty acid chain that is opposite the acid end is the "omega end." The location of the first double bond from the omega end dictates whether a fatty acid is an omega-3, omega-6, omega-9 (oleic acid) or another member of the omega family.

The most pernicious toxin in the modern diet, and the fat you need to minimize consumption of, is the omega-6 fat linoleic acid (LA). LA makes up 60% to 80% of omega-6 fats and is the primary contributor to chronic disease.

To be clear, it’s only toxic when consumed in excessive quantities, but the vast majority of people nowadays consuming far more than the ideal amounts. The history of how seed oils ended up replacing far healthier animal fats is detailed in the video above.

Many still believe that if you have a distorted omega-3 to omega-6 ratio, the solution is simply to consume more omega-3, but that’s a serious mistake. While you certainly need a certain amount of omega-3s for good health, adding excessive omega-3s is a prescription for disaster, as omega-3 is also a PUFA.

So, when consumed in excessive quantities, omega-3 will cause metabolic damage similar to that of LA, as it breaks down into dangerous metabolites known as ALEs (advanced lipoxidation end products).

Commonly Confused Fats

It is also important to highlight a primarily plant-based omega-3 fat called alpha linolenic acid (ALA). ALA should not be confused with LA, as they are quite different from a biological standpoint. LA is an omega-6 fat and ALA is an omega-3 fat.

Also, do not confuse LA with CLA (conjugated linoleic acid). Although CLA is an omega-6 fat and most think CLA and LA are interchangeable, they're not. CLA has many potent health benefits and will not cause the problems that LA does.

The Case for Seed Oils As a Heart-Healthy Alternative?

For decades, scientists have debated the role of different fats in heart health. Research suggests that replacing saturated fats—found in butter and red meat—with polyunsaturated fats (PUFAs) from seed oils may offer cardiovascular benefits. Advocates argue that the science is well-established.

“The research on seed oils is consistently positive,” Matthew Nagra, a naturopathic doctor, told The Epoch Times. “Numerous meta-analyses of randomized controlled trials have demonstrated that replacing saturated fat with seed oils rich in polyunsaturated fats can lower the risk of cardiovascular disease, America’s top killer, without any clear detriment.”

Large-scale studies support this claim. A 2021 study of more than 500,000 people found that those who replaced saturated fats with oils like canola, corn, and olive oil had a lower risk of heart disease and early death.

“Our findings support shifting the intake from solid fats to non-hydrogenated vegetable oils for cardiometabolic health and longevity,” the authors wrote. Examples of solid fats include butter and lard.

A 2025 JAMA Internal Medicine study reinforced these findings, showing that people who ate more plant-based oils—such as olive, soybean, and canola—lived longer and had lower heart disease and cancer rates. Meanwhile, those who ate more butter had a higher risk of early death. The researchers estimated that swapping butter for plant oils could reduce overall mortality risk by 17 percent, including a 17 percent drop in cancer-related deaths.

Because of this growing evidence, the American Heart Association (AHA) continues to recommend seed oils as part of a heart-healthy diet.

The Case Against Seed Oils: Oxidation and Inflammation

Not everyone agrees with the AHA’s endorsement of seed oils, and some experts question the research behind it.

“This study is of low quality,” Dr. Vinay Prasad, a hematologist-oncologist and professor of epidemiology and biostatistics at the University of California, San Francisco, told The Epoch Times in an email. “It lumps extra virgin olive oil with soybean and safflower oil, which is ridiculous.” He also criticized the study’s methodology, arguing that it fails to accurately measure butter consumption and instead relies on an imprecise estimation method. “This kind of nutritional epidemiology fuels dogma rather than providing clarity,” he said.

Beyond concerns about research methods, critics argue that the real issue with seed oil is oxidation.

Refining makes seed oils more resistant to spoilage, allowing them to last longer on store shelves. However, once exposed to heat, air, or light—especially during cooking—their chemical structure begins to break down.

Unlike traditional oils such as olive or sesame, which naturally contain antioxidants that help prevent degradation, industrial seed oils lose these stabilizing compounds during processing. As a result, they are more vulnerable to oxidation, a process that creates byproducts like aldehydes and free radicals. These compounds can damage cells, promote inflammation, and contribute to chronic disease.

Heat accelerates this process. Studies show that repeatedly heating vegetable oils—such as those used in restaurant fryers—can generate oxidative byproducts linked to tissue damage and increased cholesterol levels in lab animals. Some research has also found oxidized linoleic acid, a degraded form of omega-6 fat, accumulating in human fat tissue and artery plaques, raising concerns about long-term health effects.

Not all experts agree that oxidation is a major threat.

“These processes have pros and cons,” says Christopher Gardner, a nutrition professor at Stanford. “They help prevent oils from breaking down but also strip away some beneficial components.”

A 2022 review in The Scientific World Journal found that while refining removes antioxidants like vitamin E and polyphenols (compounds that help protect cells), it also eliminates impurities, making the oils more stable and less likely to spoil.

Still, oxidation happens faster in seed oils than in other fats. Research shows that PUFAs degrade more quickly when exposed to heat, light, and air, whereas monounsaturated fats (found in olive oil) and saturated fats (found in butter and beef tallow) remain more stable.

The Processed Food Connection

If there’s one thing both critics and defenders of seed oils agree on, "they’re everywhere". And that’s no accident.

Cheap, abundant, and heavily subsidized seed oils are a pillar of the modern food industry. The U.S. government pours billions into supporting crops like soybeans, corn, and cottonseed, making their oils far more affordable than alternatives like olive or avocado.

Soybeans dominate the market, accounting for about 90 percent of U.S. oilseed production. In 2016, the soybean industry alone received $1.6 billion in subsidies—helping to keep production high and costs low.

Government support doesn’t just make seed oils cheap for home cooks—it makes them the backbone of ultra-processed foods (UPFs), which now make up nearly 60 percent of the American diet. Along with refined grains and added sugars, seed oils form the foundation of modern processed foods, used to enhance texture, extend shelf life, and boost flavor at a low cost. These ingredients appear in everything from breakfast cereals to frozen dinners, making them nearly impossible to avoid in a typical supermarket.

A 32-ounce bottle of canola oil costs about $5.79, while the same amount of extra virgin olive oil can cost $13.99 or more. For food manufacturers trying to keep costs down, the choice is obvious. Because they’re inexpensive, neutral in flavor, and relatively shelf-stable, seed oils are a food manufacturer’s dream—allowing processed foods to last longer, taste better, and remain profitable.

Shanahan estimates that seed oils account for 20–30 percent of the average American’s daily calorie intake. This figure wasn’t easy to calculate, as seed oils aren’t tracked as a category. Shanahan analyzed decades of production data from crops like soybeans and canola, using government and industry reports to uncover the extent of seed oils’ presence in modern diets.

“Humans have never consumed polyunsaturates at this level before,” she warns. “Historically, diets relied mainly on animal fats, not oils rich in PUFAs. If you don’t know to avoid them, you’re eating vast quantities.”

Gardner agrees—but says the issue isn’t just seed oils. The rise in seed oil consumption isn’t because more people are making homemade salad dressings, he said. It’s because ultra-processed foods—where these oils are used heavily—now dominate the American diet.

Gardner argues that even if seed oils were removed from the food supply tomorrow, ultra-processed foods wouldn’t disappear—they’d just be reformulated.

“If the same UPFs were made with another oil like butter, beef tallow, lard, or coconut fat, those foods would not suddenly become health foods.”

At its core, the debate over seed oils is about more than just the oils themselves. It’s about the processed foods they’re in—and whether we should be eating so many of them in the first place.

Avoiding Omega-6 Fats Is Key for Good Health

While considered an essential fat, when consumed in excessive amounts, which over 99% of people do, LA (an omega-6 polyunsaturated fat or PUFA) acts as a metabolic poison.

Most clinicians who value nutritional interventions to optimize health understand that vegetable oils, which are loaded with omega-6 PUFA, are something to be avoided. What most fail to appreciate is that even if you eliminate the vegetable oils and avoid them like the plague, you may still be missing the mark.

Chances are you're still getting too much of this dangerous fat from supposedly healthy food sources such as olive oil and chicken (which are fed LA-rich grains).

Another common mistake is to simply increase the amount of omega-3 that you eat. Many are now aware that the omega-3 to omega-6 ratio is very important, and should be about equal, but simply increasing omega-3 can be a dangerous strategy. You really need to minimize the omega-6. As explained by Goodrich: 

"The ratio is not really what's important. What's important is avoiding the omega-6 fats. There are disease models, like age-related macular degeneration (AMD), where that's starting to be clearly understood, and you can find papers saying explicitly that the important intervention that prevents AMD from progressing is reduction of omega-6 fats, and you can't prevent it by increasing your omega-3 fats.

I've got papers that show, in animal models, very nasty outcomes, such as liver failure, with a lower omega-6 to omega-3 ratio, but high absolute levels of both fats still allows pathology to progress."

Linoleic Acid Is a Primary Contributor to Chronic Disease

When we talk about omega-6, we're really referring to LA. They're largely synonymous, as LA makes up the bulk — about 60% to 80% — of omega-6 and is the primary contributor to disease. Broadly speaking, there are three types of fats:

• Saturated fats, which have a full complement of hydrogen atoms
• Monounsaturated fats, which are missing a single hydrogen atom
• PUFAs, which are missing multiple hydrogen atoms

The missing hydrogen atoms make PUFAs highly susceptible to oxidation, which means the fat breaks down into harmful metabolites. OXLAMS (oxidized LA metabolites) are what have a profoundly negative impact on human health. While excess sugar is certainly bad for your health and should be limited to 25 grams per day or less, it doesn't oxidize like LA does so it's nowhere near as damaging.

Over the last century, thanks to fatally flawed research suggesting saturated animal fat caused heart disease, the LA in the human diet has dramatically increased, from about 2 to 3 grams a day 150 years ago, to 30 or 40 grams a day. Goodrich cites research showing LA used to make up 1% to 3% of the energy in the human diet and now it makes up 15% to 20%.

In my mind, this radical change has had the most catastrophic impact on human health in the history of the human race, as it is the complete opposite of what you need for optimal health. This dietary change has undoubtedly killed millions, probably hundreds of millions, prematurely and still continues to do so because people don't understand this. 

"I'm a speed reader and I love reading medical journals … but what nobody's really done is connect all the dots. There are a lot of people who understand little sections of [the science], but they haven't gone on to coalesce everything into a common explanation for these pathologies across different disease states.

I think that's what I've been able to do, and I think that's the key insight that makes this message really compelling," Goodrich says.

How Excess Linoleic Acid Consumption Damages Your Health

At a molecular level, excess LA consumption damages your metabolism and impedes your body's ability to generate energy in your mitochondria. There is a particular fat only located in your mitochondria — most of it is found in the inner mitochondrial membrane — called cardiolipin.

Cardiolipin is made up of four fatty acids, unlike triglycerides which have three, but the individual fats can vary. Examples include LA, palmitic acid and the fatty acids found in fish oil, DHA and EPA. Each of these have a different effect on mitochondrial function, and depending on the organ, the mitochondria work better with particular kinds of fatty acids.

For example, your heart preferentially builds cardiolipin with LA, while your brain dislikes LA and preferentially builds cardiolipin in the mitochondria with fats like DHA. Goodrich further explains:

"To give you an idea of how important this is, 20% of the fat in your entire body is contained in cardiolipin. So, for anybody who doesn't understand mitochondria, mitochondria are what distinguish us from bacteria. It's what allows us to be a multi-cellular creature. They are what produce the energy in your body, what's known as ATP, which is a chemical carrier of energy.

To give you an example of how important it is, cyanide, which we all know is highly toxic, breaks your mitochondria, and that's why it kills you so fast. It prevents mitochondrial respiration and therefore your entire body shuts down almost instantly.

So, [mitochondria are] something we want to take good care of because they're everywhere, in almost every tissue except for red blood cells … There are studies showing that cardiolipin is directly controlled by dietary intake of fats. That is, to an extent, true. Obviously, different tissues build cardiolipin in the mitochondria out of different fats.

But they can vary that composition in fairly short order through changing the diet in rat models, like in the order of weeks. So, you can see changes pretty quickly. I notice things happening in days. What's unique about LA is that it is very susceptible to oxidation when it is in the cardiolipin molecule.

Two LAs that are adjacent to each other can oxidize each other. They're also attached to proteins in the mitochondria that contain iron, and that iron can catalyze the oxidation of cardiolipin. This is a pretty fundamental process in the body."

Omega-6 Fatty Acids Linked to Breast Cancer Growth: 2025 Study

Researchers discovered that high linoleic acid consumption activated a critical growth pathway in cancer cells.

The authors of the 2025 study, which was published in Science, say that their findings may provide new insights into personalized nutrition approaches for cancer prevention.

“This discovery helps clarify the relationship between dietary fats and cancer, and sheds light on how to define which patients might benefit the most from specific nutritional recommendations in a personalized manner,” said John Blenis, a cancer researcher at Weill Cornell Medicine and senior study author, in a press statement.

While the overall incidence of breast cancer is declining, triple-negative breast cancer, a more aggressive subtype, is becoming more prevalent, particularly in younger women and black women, and accounts for about 10 percent to 15 percent of all breast cancer cases.

Seed Oil-Driven Inflammation Linked to Human Colon Cancer: 2024 Study

A 2024 study (published in BMJ) by a group of researchers investigating the origins of colon cancer found evidence that excessive omega-6 plays a role.

After years of the American Heart Association and others claiming seed oils have a protective effect against cancer, this study represents a smoking gun providing solid evidence to the contrary.

This suggests avoiding seed oils will help prevent colon cancer, and likely also help people previously treated for colon cancer to prevent recurrence. It was made possible due to advances in toxicology that enable us to identify myriad short-lived molecules that develop during the oxidation of polyunsaturated fatty acids. These toxic PUFA oxidation products provide a constant signal to turn on the cellular inflammatory response system.

Oxidation of Cardiolipin Controls Autophagy 

Oxidation of cardiolipin is one of the things that controls autophagy. In other words, it's one of the signals that your body uses when there's something wrong with a cell, triggering the destruction and rebuilding of that cell. Your cells know that they're broken when they have too many damaged mitochondria, and the process that controls this is largely the oxidation of omega-6 fats contained within cardiolipin. 

Animals typically develop cancer once the LA in their diet reaches 4% to 10% of their energy intake, depending on the cancer.

So, by altering the composition of cardiolipin in your mitochondria to one that's richer in omega-6 fats, you make it far more susceptible to oxidative damage. Goodrich cites research showing that when the LA in cardiolipin is replaced with oleic acid, another fat found in olive oil, the cardiolipin molecules become highly resistant to oxidative damage. 

"That is basically what I think we need to go back to," he says. "We evolved with low levels of LA in our diet and therefore in our cardiolipin. One of the neatest papers I've ever seen looking at this, something that encapsulated this whole model that I'm talking about, fed rats either a regular high carbohydrate diet, or they added PUFAs to their diet.

Just adding the omega-6 fats to the diet caused the mice to become diabetic. They became insulin resistant, leptin resistant, obese, and the differences are pretty stark between the fat mice and the skinny mice on the high carbohydrate rat diet …

The high-PUFA diet caused a breakdown in the cardiolipin content in the mitochondria in their hearts. So just adding seed oils caused heart damage through a change in the cardiolipin composition."

As mentioned, the primary problem is the OXLAMS, the oxidized byproducts. One of them is 4HNE (4 Hydroxy-2-NonEnal), which is relatively easy to measure. AGEs is another name for HNE (Hydroxy NonEnal) and all the other reactive oxygen species generated from oxidizing LA.

Studies have shown there's a definite correlation between elevated levels of 4HNE and heart failure. LA is broken down into 4HNE even faster when the oil is heated, which is why cardiologists recommend avoiding fried foods. 

OXLAMS Trigger Cancer

Heart disease isn't the only condition triggered by excessive LA intake and the subsequent OXLAMS produced. It also plays a significant role in cancer. As noted by Goodrich, to induce cancer in animal models, you actually have to feed them seed oils. "So, this is a really fundamental process that we're talking about here," he says.

As I mentioned above, animals typically develop cancer once the LA in their diet reaches 4% to 10% of their energy intake, depending on the cancer. In the breast cancer model, cancer incidents increase once 4% of calories are in the form of seed oils.

Disturbingly, most Americans get approximately 8% of their calories from seed oils. "So, we're way over what these thresholds in the lab would suggest is a safe level of these fats based on the laboratory work in animals," Goodrich says, adding:

"We've got this huge disconnect between what the lab science tells us we should be doing and what our dietary guidelines tell us we should be doing. The scientists are saying, 'Oh, look, it's poison. It causes all the chronic diseases,' and the government's saying, 'Eat lots of it.' That's not a good thing."

4HNE is a mutagen, in other words, a toxin that causes DNA damage. One of the primary genes it damages is the P53 anticancer gene. Mutations in the P53 gene are found in 15% of cancers, making it one of the most common. As noted by Goodrich, "P53 is literally a cancer prevention gene. It's how your body regulates cancer. You can all draw your own conclusions about the wisdom of eating something that can cause that to break."

On a side note, one of the major jobs of glutathione is to detoxify 4HNE. You can often tell that you have excess 4HNE if your glutathione levels are low, as this means it's being used up detoxifying 4HNE.

Related: What Can You Do to Prevent Cancer (2025 Edition)

Linoleic Acid and Obesity 

High-LA diets also cause obesity. "If you feed mice lots of saturated fat, they don't get fat and they don't get sick. It's only when you increase the LA in the diet from 1% to 8% that they become obese," Goodrich says. Now, mice and rats are not exactly like humans, so how do we know all of this applies to us? Goodrich explains: 

"What Alheim and Ramston observed is that, back in 2006, there was a drug introduced called Rimonabant, which was an anti-obesity drug. It was a bit of a miracle drug. I want to quote this exactly because it's so important to understand the effects that this drug had on humans.

'Large randomized trials with Rimonabant have demonstrated efficacy in treatment of overweight and obese individuals with weight loss significantly greater than a reduced calorie diet alone.

In addition, multiple other cardiometabolic parameters were improved in the treatment groups, including increased levels of HDL, reduced triglycerides, reduced weight circumference, improved insulin sensitivity, decreased insulin levels. And in diabetic patients, improvements in HBA1C.'

This paper was released in 2007. Unfortunately, Rimonabant had a side effect that it caused people to want to kill themselves. So, it was withdrawn from the market and it largely killed research for several years into that area.

But what Alheim did in 2012 was demonstrate that the mechanism behind Rimonabant is to block the metabolism of seed oils into the chemicals in your body and the endocannabinoid system that cause overeating. My experience when I stopped eating seed oils was that I forgot to eat carbohydrates.

The effect of Rimonabant in these mouse models is to make them crave carbohydrates and to stimulate them to eat sweet foods and carbohydrates. Everybody's familiar with this effect. It's called the munchies. And it's what you get after you smoke pot, because the endocannabinoid system is the system that marijuana affects and the chemical that Rimonabant blocks is your body's homologue to the THC in marijuana.

So essentially what we've done to ourselves is given ourselves a chronic case of the munchies, which is blocked by this unfortunately very harmful drug. This is as open and closed a case for causation as you're going to find in the medical literature.

We have a human drug that treats this, and as I just read, it treats all these different aspects of this disease. And it works through this one pathway that we have a clear demonstration of in animal models. In this case, the drug is completely pointless because the dietary fix is well known and is simple."

Increased Linoleic Acid Also Increases Your Risk of Sunburn

So, to summarize, the dramatic increase in LA — and the oxidative end products that cause the damage — is the primary cause behind the increase in chronic diseases such as obesity, diabetes, heart disease and cancer.

Simply lowering your LA intake to what your great-great grandparents used to eat, you can essentially eliminate almost every single one of the diseases that are now prematurely killing us.

Interestingly enough, there's even evidence showing eliminating seed oils from your diet will dramatically reduce your risk of sunburn, which is something Goodrich experienced first-hand. "Susceptibility to UV radiation damage is controlled by how much PUFAs are in your diet," he says. "It's like a dial. They can control how fast it happens, and how fast you get skin cancer."

Seed Oils Are the Root of All Chronic Diseases

Before 1866, the Western world for the most part only consumed animal fats. Tallow, suet, lard and butter are examples of these fats. Eastern societies used cold-pressed fats like coconut and palm oil. Vegetable oils like we know them today simply did not exist.

The single-greatest change to the human diet in all of history was the introduction of industrially processed seed oils around 1866 (8). At that time Procter & Gamble used a newly invented hydrogenation process to convert surplus unusable cotton seeds into a synthetic seed oil, sold to this day under the name Crisco.

Shortly after that, margarine, which is made from seed oils, was introduced. In recent years the company has largely converted to using palm, soy and canola oil for its Crisco, but cottonseed oil is still very much in use for cooking, especially in restaurants for their fryers. (9)

Historically, we can see that seed oil use increased from approximately 2 grams per day in 1865, to 5 grams per day in 1909, to 18 grams a day in 1999. As of 2008, the average consumption was 29 grams a day. In terms of percentages, seed oils accounted for approximately 1/100th of total calories in 1865 and increased to more than 1/4th of total calories by 2010 — a 25-fold increase!

Seed Oils Are Far Worse Than Sugar

While most nutritional experts blame the epidemic of chronic disease on the increase in sugar consumption, the role of sugar is relatively minor when compared to the impact of seed oils.

In 1822 the average U.S. sugar consumption was 6 pounds per person per year. This rose to a high of 108 pounds per person per year by 1999 (10). This is a 17-fold increase, but seed oils went up 25-fold during that same time period.

In the 1960s and ‘70s (11), cardiologist Dr. Robert Atkins was largely responsible for creating the interest in low-carb (low-sugar) diets that seemed to work for many. However, eliminating foods like french fries, potato chips, breads, pasta, pizza and donuts not only eliminates sugar-based carbs, but also seed oils. It is not intuitively obvious, but the carb-loaded foods his diet eliminated are also loaded with dangerous refined seed oils.

Processed foods typically contain about 21% sugar. However, up to 50% or more of the overall calories contained in most processed foods come from seed oils (12,13). The connection is further confirmed by looking at the U.S. carb consumption. It’s been declining since 1997, yet obesity and Type 2 diabetes have steadily increased. Interestingly, this continued rise coincides with the surge of seed oil consumption.

Another major reason why seed oils are exponentially more pernicious to your health than sugar is that they last much longer in your body. The half-life of LA is around 600 to 680 days, or approximately two years. This means it will take you about six years to replace 95% of the LA in your body with healthy fats. This is the primary reason for keeping your LA intake low as possible.

Meanwhile, your glycogen stores will be exhausted in about one to two days. So if you go on a sugar binge, that sugar doesn’t stick around for years destroying your health like the LA in seed oils does.

Seed Oils Raise Risk of ARDS and COVID-19

Considering the metabolic and mitochondrial damage caused by LA (Linoleic Acid), there's reason to suspect LA may also play a role in COVID-19, as some white blood cells convert LA into leukotoxin. Essentially, LA contributes to the inflammation domino effect that eventually kills. Goodrich explains:

"Yes. That's certainly what the conclusion that I drew. I did an enormous post on this, looking at the effects of LA in SARS COV-2 and SARS in general. SARS is a severe acute respiratory syndrome. SARS kills you by giving you acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS).

ARDS can be caused by lots of different things, not just these viruses. You can get it from influenza. You can get it from inhaling acid into your lungs. What's fascinating is the human literature is quite clear that you can induce ARDS through feeding seed oils.

Very sick people who can't eat are fed intravenously. It's called total parenteral nutrition (TPN). Generally, this is used through a product called Intralipid, which is made out of soybean oil and sugar. When you start to understand all this stuff, it's just mind boggling. Doctors did an experiment after they noticed that a lot of their patients who came into the ICU and got TPN then subsequently got ARDS.

So, they started playing with what they were feeding them, and what they discovered was this soybean oil formula increased the patient's rate of getting ARDS. The fatality rate from ARDS is 30% to 60%. Feeding seed oils increased the rate of ARDS by seven times."

As explained by Goodrich, the key toxin that produces the symptoms of ARDS is called leukotoxin, and leukotoxin is made from LA by white blood cells to kill pathogens. It's toxic enough to where if you inject high-enough amounts of it into animals, it kills them in minutes. Leukocytes incubated with LA convert all of the LA into this toxin until there's none left, so, a major part of the disease process in ARDS is the conversion of LA into leukotoxin. That is what ends up killing patients. 

"It is often noted in the popular press that what kills people is this cytokine storm. What I'm describing is the mechanism of the cytokine storm. Leukotoxin is uniquely what causes the symptoms of ARDS, as has been clearly demonstrated in the animal models," Goodrich says. "So, it seems to me that a sensible thing to do would be [to] change your diet. Why wouldn't you want to do that?" 

Related: How to Detox Spike Protein from Body

Melanoma Linked to Linoleic Acid

A study from 1987, during which samples of fat tissue were taken from 100 melanoma patients and 100 people without melanoma and analyzed for fatty acids.

Not only is there an increase in linoleic acid in the tissue of all the subjects, but the percentage of polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) is significantly higher in the melanoma patients’ tissue. “The suggestion is made that increased consumption of dietary polyunsaturates may have a contributory effect in the etiology of melanoma,” the researchers concluded.

Linoleic acid is the primary fat found in omega-6 polyunsaturated fats, including vegetable/seed oils, and accounts for about 80% of the fat composition of vegetable oils. Omega-6 fats must be balanced with omega-3 fats in order to not be harmful, but most Americans don’t eat that way.

Most of the omega-6 people eat, including seed oils, has been damaged and oxidized through processing. Once oxidized, it generates oxidized linoleic acid metabolites, which are mutagenic, carcinogenic, cytotoxic and atherogenic. (R) 

How Linoleic Acid Triggers Heart Disease

Goodrich also explains how high LA levels cause heart disease. One of the first things that happens in atherosclerosis is your macrophages, another type of leukocyte, turns into a foam cell, essentially a macrophage stuffed with fat and cholesterol. Atherosclerotic plaque is basically dead macrophages and other types of cells loaded with cholesterol and fat. This is why heart disease is blamed on dietary cholesterol and fat.

However, researchers have found that in order for foam cells to form, the LDL must be modified through oxidation, and seed oils do just this. Seed oils cause the LDL to oxidize, thereby forming foam cells. LDL in and of itself does not initiate atherosclerosis. LDL's susceptibility to this oxidative process is controlled by the LA content of your diet.

"That's a result that's been repeated several times, so subsequently, the definition of an atherogenic lipid in your blood is one that contains oxidized omega-6 fats. That's the definition," Goodrich says.

"The standard explanation of why you get heart disease and why it progresses the way it does is because the omega-6 fats in your blood get oxidized and become toxic, and progress you all the way through atherosclerosis until it finally kills you.

That's the standard explanation for what causes heart disease. I can't tell you how many cardiologists I have talked to who don't understand that that's what the medical literature says is causing this disease.

Now, it's worse if you're also on a high carbohydrate diet. A ketogenic diet is somewhat protective against the negative effects of this, but I can't stress enough that this is the standard explanation for cardiovascular disease in the medical literature — that seed oils oxidize and that's what causes the pathology."

Dr Paul Saladino also argues that insulin resistance is the primary root cause for atherosclerosis — not elevated LDL or total cholesterol — and the primary driver of insulin resistance is excessive LA intake from seed oils. Lowering your LA intake is the foundational strategy to embrace. (R)

Low levels of high-density lipoprotein (HDL) is a proxy for insulin resistance, and if you have low HDL, then LDL tracks well with cardiovascular disease. But if you have normal HDL (65 to 85 mg/dL), then you typically have good insulin sensitivity and the correlation with LDL and atherosclerosis vanishes.

Linoleic Acid Is a Primary Driver of Macular Degeneration 

Many chronic metabolic and degenerative diseases, including age-related macular degeneration, are caused by a preponderance of industrial vegetable oils in the diet. Vegetable oils are a concentrated source of omega-6 linoleic acid (LA), which can lead to a severe imbalance between the omega-6 to omega-3 ratio in your diet, a condition that can’t be easily corrected by simply taking more omega-3.

The reason for this is because these oils trigger mitochondrial dysfunction that then drives the disease process, and several studies (R, R) have demonstrated the truth of this. Seed oils and other foods high in LA, like chicken and pork, destroy mitochondrial signaling in the adipocyte and disrupt your metabolic functioning. 

Eating a high-fat diet, when the fats are primarily LA from processed vegetable and seed oils, is far worse than eating a chronic high-carb diet. The type of fat is of crucial importance, as it impacts your mitochondrial, cellular and metabolic functioning. Fats like LA can persist in your cell membranes for months to years, continuing to wreak havoc with your metabolism the entire time, while the sugar is quickly metabolized. Unfortunately, many health authorities have insisted — and still insist — omega-6-rich oils like soybean, corn and canola oil are healthier than saturated animal fats such as butter and lard, and this myth has been a tough one to dismantle, despite the evidence against it. 

The good news is that simply replacing dangerous seed and vegetable oils with healthy saturated fats can go a long way toward boosting your health and reducing your risk of chronic disease and AMD.

Understanding Olive Oil

As mentioned, olive oil also contains LA, but it also has other healthy fats. This makes olive oil a bit tricky. The main fat in olive oil is oleic acid, which is one of your body's favorite fats. Your body actually makes it, which is why it's not considered an essential fat. Oleic acid is much more resistant to oxidation than LA, which is why olive oil is a pretty decent cooking oil.

According to Goodrich, oleic acid is protective against both cardiolipin oxidation and LDL oxidation. Interestingly, oleic acid can also replace LA in LDL. Other fats, such as palmitic acid, cannot do that. The problem with olive oil is that it also has a fair amount of LA.

"The percentages that I've seen quoted in literature range from 2%, which is awesome, to 22%, which is not good," Goodrich says. The other problem is the olive oil market is hugely corrupt and fraught with fraud. Many olive oils are cut with cheaper seed oils, which raises the LA content.

So, in summary, if you're using olive oil, I strongly recommend keeping close track of your total LA intake. Anything over 10 grams a day is likely to be problematic (although the exact cutoff is still unknown, so this is merely an educated guess).

If you really want to be on the safe side, consider cutting LA down to 2 or 3 grams per day, to match what our ancestors used to get before all of these chronic health conditions became widespread. If olive oil puts you over the limit, consider cooking with tallow or lard instead. Beef tallow is 46% oleic acid and lard is 36% oleic acid.

Related: Is Your Olive Oil Fake?

What Foods contain Linoleic Acid

As Goodrich suggests, if you want to protect your health, you'd be wise to avoid all concentrated sources of LA.

Top sources include chicken, pork, chips fried in vegetable oil, commercial salad dressings, virtually all processed foods and any fried fast food, such as french fries.

According to the National Cancer Institute, the top sources of dietary linoleic acid in America include chicken and chicken dishes, grain-based desserts, salad dressing, potato and corn chips, pizza, bread, french fries and pasta dishes. Mayonnaise, eggs, popcorn and processed meats are also significant sources.

"What amazes me is people who go to all these measures and I'll hold up my girlfriend as an example. She was a vegan when we got together, had a farm and grew organic food and went to extremes to avoid toxins in food and then went home and cooked with seed oils," Goodrich says.

"There are so many people who are like this, who are genuinely trying to do their best to have a healthy diet and then they're chugging down LA that turns into a metabolic toxin in your body, and they wonder why they can't lose weight.

By the way, after I told her, what I just said here: Avoid seed oils, avoid refined carbohydrates, eat animal food and animal fats, she lost 56 pounds in two and a half months and her autoimmune disease, fibromyalgia, went into complete remission."

Related: Foods high in Linoleic Acid

The Importance of Carnosine

Beef, even conventional grain-finished beef, has low Linoleic Acid. Grass fed beef has higher DHA and CLA, which makes it a healthier option. Beef is also the primary source of carnosine (a peptide supplement), which has been shown to be anti-atherogenic.

Carnosine is found in meats, and eating animal protein is known to efficiently raise carnosine levels. It’s not found in any plant foods. Alternatively, you could use a supplement. In this case, beta-alanine is a superior choice, as it’s the rate limiting amino acid in the formation of carnosine and raises carnosine levels more efficiently. It’s also far less expensive than carnosine.

While your body will slowly eliminate stored LA over time, provided you reduce your intake, carnosine can help reduce the oxidative damage caused by LA while your body is cleaning itself out.

Carnosine is also a mitochondrial stimulant, a sacrificial scavenger of advanced lipooxidation end products (ALEs), which is very similar to advanced glycation end products (AGEs). AGEs is another name for HNE and all the other reactive oxygen species generated from oxidizing Linoleic Acid.

Carnosine is the most effective scavenger for HNE. Carbonylation of proteins is basically the process through which proteins in your body get damaged and become ineffective. HNE damages 24% of the proteins in your cells, so carnosine can go a long way toward warding off this cellular damage. As explained by Goodrich:

"In heart failure, Alzheimer's and in AMD, one of the things they see is an inability of the cell to produce enough energy. The mitochondria are getting damaged. HNE does that damage. It damages 24% of the proteins in the cell, primarily around energy production.

One of the worst cancers is glioblastoma, a brain cancer. A researcher up in Boston, [Thomas Seyfried], decided to try and figure out why the mitochondria are getting damaged in glioblastoma, and found they all have oxidized cardiolipin. Every single cancer cell he looked at had damaged cardiolipin in it.

One of the ways your cells produce energy is they basically ferment glucose into pyruvate outside of the mitochondria This is a perfectly normal part of metabolism and they produce something called pyruvate. A molecule called pyruvate dehydrogenase takes pyruvate into the mitochondria and converts it to acetyl-CoA so the mitochondria can burn it very efficiently for fuel.

Well, one of the things HNE does is it breaks pyruvate dehydrogenase, and they see this in Alzheimer's where their cells are no longer able to produce enough energy. This is why your cells are dying in Alzheimer's. The beta amyloid plaques in Alzheimer's disease are induced by HNE. There's a great model that came out of Harvard a couple of years ago showing that.

And in cancer, if you can't get pyruvate out of the cell, out of the cytosol, the part of the cell surrounding the mitochondria, it has to ferment there and turn it into energy, which is what we call the Warburg effect, where you start shifting over to this damaged primitive fuel system. The evidence seems to be that that's because you've broken your mitochondria.

Even the critical, the most important part of the mitochondria, complex 5ADP synthase — which is what takes all the energy coming from your mitochondria and turns it into ATP, which is what fuels the rest of your body — is damaged by HNE. This is a huge issue. There's no more fundamental problem in aging and health than protein damage."

Supporting Clinical Evidence

Advice to substitute polyunsaturated fats for saturated fats is a key component of worldwide dietary guidelines for coronary heart disease risk reduction. However, clinical benefits of the most abundant polyunsaturated fatty acid, omega 6 linoleic acid, have not been established. As reported by the 3 studies that have been published in reputable journals (BMJ and JAMA) below, available evidence points to the lack of benefit of replacing saturated fat with linoleic acid (Omega-6).

In this cohort (BMJ 2013), substituting dietary linoleic acid in place of saturated fats increased the rates of death from all causes, coronary heart disease, and cardiovascular disease. An updated meta-analysis of linoleic acid intervention trials showed no evidence of cardiovascular benefit. These findings could have important implications for worldwide dietary advice to substitute omega 6 linoleic acid, or polyunsaturated fats in general, for saturated fats.

Another study (Women's Health Initiative Study: JAMA), a dietary intervention that reduced total fat intake and increased intakes of vegetables, fruits, and grains did not significantly reduce the risk of CHD, stroke, or CVD in postmenopausal women.

The Minnesota Coronary Experiment (MCE), a randomized controlled trial conducted in 1968-73, was the largest (n=9570) and perhaps the most rigorously executed dietary trial of cholesterol lowering by replacement of saturated fat with vegetable oil rich in linoleic acid. A re-evaluation of the trial data (published in BMJ 2016), add to growing evidence that incomplete publication has contributed to overestimation of the benefits of replacing saturated fat with vegetable oils rich in linoleic acid. Available evidence from randomized controlled trials shows that replacement of saturated fat in the diet with linoleic acid effectively lowers serum cholesterol but does not support the hypothesis that this translates to a lower risk of death from coronary heart disease or all causes. 

Take Control of Your Health by Lowering Your Linoleic Acid Intake

As you can see, the evidence strongly suggests excessive LA is driving all the killer diseases today. The solution is simple though. Just lower your LA intake. There's an easy way to do this. Enter your food intake into Cronometer — a free online nutrition tracker — and it will provide you with your total LA intake. The key to accurate entry is to carefully weigh your food with a digital kitchen scale so you can enter the weight of your food to the nearest gram.

Since there's no downside to limiting your LA, you'll want to keep it as low as possible, which you do by avoiding high-LA foods.

Keep in mind you'll never be able to get to zero, and you wouldn't want to do that either. So, just what should you eat to keep your LA intake low? Goodrich summarizes his own diet:

"I eat mostly beef. I eat vegetables. I cook mostly in butter. I eat a little bit of fruit. I eat occasional grains. Occasionally I'll have corn, a little bit of rice and potatoes. I'm mostly on a cyclical keto diet. Once you fix your metabolic system, then you can go back and forth a lot easier and I don't see any reason to be on strict keto long term. I think [cyclical keto] is healthier.

They looked at a ketogenic diet in rodents and found they were protected. The reason they were protected is because they were able to burn HNE as fuel. But if you add a little bit more insulin into the system, then it turns off fat-burning and HNE goes out of the mitochondria and does more damage."

This is yet another reason for working out in a fasted state, which Goodrich also recommends. "I think working on a fasted state is one of the most important health things that you can do, without question," he says. Goodrich also points out that the reason a strict ketogenic diet can cause liver failure is due to the omega-6 fats in the diet. It's crucial to make sure the fats you eat are actually healthy. Goodrich is currently in the process of writing a book about this, as am I, in which all of this information will be laid out in even greater detail. In the meantime, you can learn more by visiting Goodrich's blog, Yelling-Stop, or follow him on Twitter. In closing:

"I can't say anything that you haven't already said in this talk, honestly," Goodrich says. "You want to eat like your ancestors ate because your ancestors were healthier and they were not eating industrial seed oils. They were not eating industrial processed carbs in high quantities.

They were making sure that they got lots of animal meat and animal fat and they were getting exercise. I mean, it doesn't really matter what kind of exercise you're doing, just as long as you're doing it.

I think I have helped many people in many different ways by telling people this. And it's typically a short conversation, like my girlfriend who cured her autoimmune disease, fibromyalgia. She'd been in constant pain for almost 30 years and it went away in a couple of weeks. I mean, that's amazing, and it's so simple to do.

This is, I believe, the fundamental problem with our modern health — this issue of LA. There are lots of other things that play into it. There's no doubt about that, but that's the fundamental thing. If you fix that, you can get away with doing a lot of other things that aren't exactly optimal, but still be healthy."

How Much Linoleic Acid Is Too Much?

Many now understand that your omega-6 to omega-3 ratio is very important, and should be about 1-to-1 or possibly up to 4-to-1, but simply increasing your omega-3 intake won't counteract the damage done by excessive LA. You really need to minimize the omega-6 to prevent damage from taking place.

Ideally, consider cutting LA down to below 7 grams per day, which is close to what our ancestors used to get before all of these chronic health conditions, including obesity, diabetes, heart disease and cancer, became widespread. If olive oil puts you over the limit, consider cooking with tallow or lard instead.

If you’re not sure how much you’re eating, enter your food intake into Cronometer — a free online nutrition tracker — and it will provide you with your total LA intake. The key to accurate entry is to carefully weigh your food with a digital kitchen scale so you can enter the weight of your food to the nearest gram.

Cronometer will tell you how much omega-6 you're getting from your food down to the 10th of a gram, and you can assume 90% of that is LA. Anything over 10 grams is likely to cause problems.

The Crucial Connection Between Animal Feed and Human Health

The saying "you are what you eat" extends further than we might initially think. The diet of the animals we consume plays a crucial role in determining the nutritional quality of our own diets. By being mindful of the feed given to livestock, we can make more informed choices about the animal products we consume and potentially improve our health outcomes.

Stay informed, make conscious choices, and don't be afraid to ask questions about where your food comes from and how it was raised. Your health will thank you for it.

And remember, the goal is not zero PUFA, as this is impossible! All animal products and dietary fat sources will have some amount of PUFA. But reducing linoleic acid and omega-6 intake where you can is beneficial for overall health.

Grass-Fed Versus Grain-Fed Matters in Omega 6 Intake

Dr Goodenowe, who holds a doctorate in medicine and psychiatry, notes that historically, lower omega-6 intakes were due to animals primarily eating grass. He urges people to read labels carefully, as “grass-fed” does not always mean “grain-free.” Although a meat label may say “grass-fed,” the fine print may also say “grain-finished,” which means the animal was fed seed grains in their final months.

Grain finished essentially defeats the whole purpose of a grass-fed diet and changes the quality of the meat, Goodenowe said.

However, people don’t have to become overly obsessive about every food source, he noted. The important thing to understand is that the entire composition of the Western food supply has shifted towards too much omega-6 fatty acid. He encourages consumers to be selective about their food choices and consciously rebalance their fatty acid intake.

“You can’t fight everything,” Goodenowe said.

According to the EpochTV episode, striving for ingredients low in linoleic acid is the first step. “Sunflower oil typically had really, really high levels of omega-6, but someone bred varieties of sunflower oil many years ago. It’s called high oleic acid sunflower oil,” Goodenowe added. High oleic acid is high in omega-9 fatty acids, making it a healthier choice to cook with. Avocado and olive oils are also good options to avoid omega-6, he noted.

Animal Fat: Good or Bad?

Goodenowe challenges the common belief that animal fats are bad. “Animal fats are totally great,” he said, explaining that beef lard contains fats that the body already makes. This means the body can metabolize them, converting them into one of the cleanest forms of energy and to oleic acid for later use.

“There’s absolutely nothing wrong with that.”

He attributes the negative perception of animal fats to marketing campaigns. These campaigns led people to believe seed oils were more environmentally friendly than the lard industry and that polyunsaturated fats lowered cholesterol.

However, Goodenowe says those campaigns simply haven’t turned out to be true and recommends people opt for animal versions of fat such as lard or stick to olive, coconut, or avocado oils. He also recommends getting fat from egg yolks due to their high omega-9 levels.

Low-PUFA Eggs and Meat

Exciting news for those looking to take control of their PUFA intake: Angel Acres now has limited openings for their custom-formulated, low-PUFA eggs (which are shipped to all 50 states). These nutrient-dense superfood eggs contain 62% less linoleic acid (an omega-6 PUFA) compared to pasture-raised eggs fed a standard diet, and 70% less linoleic acid than 'cage free' eggs.

Act now to take advantage of this opportunity to minimize your PUFA intake while enjoying these exceptional eggs.

Dr. Mercola and Ashley discussed the importance of low-PUFA eggs in a previous interview, embedded above for your convenience.

Armstrong also co-founded the sister organization, Nourish Food Club, which ships the best low-PUFA pork, low PUFA chicken meat, beef, cheese and A2 dairy, and traditional sourdough to all 50 states. They are close to accepting new members to the farm cooperative — join the waitlist here: nourishcooperative.com.

Summary and Key Takeaway

Do yourself and your family a favor and embark on a journey of reducing seed oils from your diet today to ward off virtually all chronic degenerative diseases. This means avoiding all seed oils, and even fruit oils like olive oil and avocado oils as they are frequently adulterated with cheap seed oils.

Cook with ghee, butter or beef tallow, and avoid all processed foods, as they are typically loaded with seed oils. Also avoid eating in restaurants, as nearly all use massive amounts of seed oils to cook with and put it in their sauces and dressings. Lastly, avoid chicken and pork as your primary meat sources.

FAQs About Seed Oils and Heart Disease

Q: Why weren't seed oils a problem in the past?

A: Seed oils were not widely consumed before the early 1900s. Traditional diets relied on butter, tallow, and lard, which are far more stable fats. The rapid industrial introduction of seed oils dramatically increased LA exposure in a very short period, creating conditions the human body hadn't adapted to over evolutionary time.

For most of human history, LA intake was estimated at 1% to 2% of calories. By the late 20th century, it had risen to 7% to 8% — a change that happened in decades rather than the millennia required for biological adaptation.

Q: What makes LA from seed oils harmful to arteries?

A: LA is highly unstable. When it breaks down, it forms reactive compounds that damage blood vessel walls, keep inflammation switched on, and accelerate plaque buildup. Over decades, this ongoing injury changes the structure and function of arteries in ways that raise heart disease risk.

Q: If I don't cook with seed oils, am I still exposed?

A: Yes. LA is embedded in the modern food supply. Packaged foods, restaurant meals, sauces, dressings, and fried foods almost always rely on seed oils. Even without using them at home, daily exposure adds up unless intake is intentionally reduced.

Q: How does reducing LA help heart health over time?

A: Lowering LA intake reduces the raw material that fuels oxidative damage inside arteries. Over time, this creates a calmer internal environment where inflammation subsides, plaque accumulation slows, and blood vessels regain resilience instead of continuing to deteriorate.

Q: What's the most effective first step to reduce risk?

A: The most effective first step is tracking and limiting Linoleic Acid intake to under 3 grams per day. Once intake becomes visible and measurable, heart disease shifts from feeling inevitable to something you can actively influence by reducing chronic exposure rather than chasing symptoms.

Read More: Linoleic Acid (Omega-6 Fatty Acid) series
 

Sources and References: 

https://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2021/11/13/linoleic-acid-health-effects.aspx

https://www.aestheticsadvisor.com/2023/07/linoleic-acid-most-destructive.html

https://www.theepochtimes.com/health/seed-oils-high-omega-6-its-two-fold-concern-and-the-incomplete-science-5831617

Toxic Superfoods: How Spinach and Almonds are Making You Sick

Best Anti Aging Supplements 2025

Directory of Health Foods: Mercola Food Facts

Higher Cholesterol Is Associated With Longer Life?

Soybean Oil May Cause Irreversible Changes in Your Brain

What You Eat First During Meals Can Lower Glucose by 40%

Cancer as a Metabolic Disease: On the Origin, Management and Prevention of Cancer

JAMA Internal Medicine published the first-ever study comparing butter to seed oils. But they skewed the data to the point of absurdity. (Dr Cate 2025)

Omega-6 Linoleic Acid Is Not What Makes Seed Oils Bad (Dr Cate 2025)

Acrylamide: More dangerous than high-fructose corn syrup, sugar, or seed oils (Dr Eric Berg 2025)

The Wellness Company's Base Spike Detox Trio

The first ever spike detox protocol appeared in the US Medical Literature and now it is available to you!

This base spike protein detox protocol consists of these three powerful ingredients: Spike Support's Nattokinase, Bromelain, and Tumeric Extract.

Vaccinated or not, prioritizing your well-being has never been more crucial.

Buy this ultimate detox bundle today, researched by Dr. Peter McCullough.

Recommended to maintain daily health for anyone exposed to COVID, vaccines, or shedding – and may help your body repair itself and remain at optimal health.

Where to buy Base Spike Detox Trio Formula: Available on The Wellness Company's website. Here is the link: Base Spike Detox Trio.

Note: Nattokinase and Bromelain are to be taken on an empty stomach, but Curcumin is with food.