Seed Oils and Your Patients’ Hormones: The PUFA Problem Behind Stalled HRT

So they are arguably right now, based on just probably even going through a list of podcasts, YouTube channels, things like that, blogs, PUFAs or these seed oils, they're arguably the most polarizing conversation in both clinical practice and outside of clinical practice.

And so if you have a patient, let's say who's doing everything right on paper he or she they're taking their hormones they're working on their sleep they're working on reducing their exposure to say xenoestrogens which we just did an episode on uh but this guy or gal they just can't lose weight uh their thyroid numbers are not so hot maybe they just feel off in general maybe they still have a lot of inflammation going on you check hormones and everything still looks okay.

And again, it's one of those things you're scratching your head like, what is going on here? Why can't we see a change in this patient's entire health and wellness span? And a lot of it has to do with of course, diet, but I want to get more granular.

I want to talk specifically, again, about seed oils.

The seed oil conversation is mainstream.

I literally just read an article discussing, you know, it was RFK Jr. and his discussions in the government, in HHS, about nutrition.

And a lot of it had to do with seed oils in particular, outside of just processed foods.

So there are really like two, let's just call them two dominating camps.

There is like the freak out panic camp, which is like all seed oils are poison, throw all of them out, get rid of it, never ever touch it.

And then there's the polar opposite, which would be like the dismissal camp.

And this would be the whole thing is framed as a moral panic.

There's really no issue with seed oils whatsoever.

In fact, they're healthy for you and you could and should consider consuming them every single day.

So that's not very helpful.

And you don't really find a whole lot of middle ground on this, which I find kind of interesting.

But there was a review, I think it was back in last year, February, in this Frontiers in Nutrition.

It was a systematic review and it looked at 11 clinical studies on seed oils in especially diabetic and dyslipidemic patients.

So you're chronically ill, metabolically dysfunctional patients.

The commentary in the same journal proposed that basically what they're calling the quote unquote energy model of insulin resistance is linking directly to seed oil consumption.

And it's linking that to metabolic disease and even cancer.

And again, that's all occurring through mitochondrial disruption.

the mitochondria being what drives most of our metabolic demands.

Johns Hopkins published a synthesis of the evidence back in 2025 again.

And again, this isn't really like a fringe conversation to have here anymore, guys.

The data is being pooled essentially in every single direction.