Polyunsaturated fatty acids, or PUFAs, are a type of fat molecule that have a double bond that allow them to stay in liquid form at room temperature. Oils that are high in PUFAs include soybean, corn and sunflower.
These fats are so dangerous as they are loaded with the omega-6 fat, linoleic acid (LA). The LA wreaks havoc with your biology when consumed in concentrations higher than 1% to 2% of total calories and most people are getting somewhere between 10% and 20% of their calories from LA.
Saturated fats, which come from meats and dairy products such as lard, butter and cream, are solid at room temperature and are not prone to oxidative damage like LA, and are far safer and healthier to consume.
For many years PUFAs, aka vegetable oils, were pushed as the best types of fats for your heart, cholesterol levels and overall health by health experts such as the American Heart Association, which insisted that PUFAs were much better for you than natural saturated fats.
In more recent years, however, evidence has been pointing toward the fact that vegetable oils / PUFAs are not the health products they’re made out to be. As explained by health blogger Haidut, in a study that looks at the well-known PUFA metabolites known as prostaglandins, researchers found that prostaglandins are perhaps the primary driver of brain aging and the pathological effects they exert is due to lowering the metabolic rate of brain cells by restricting glucose metabolism.
In other words, “PUFA is a direct causative factor in brain aging through increased inflammation and decreased metabolic rate carried out by its metabolites known as prostaglandins,” Haidut says. The actual study, done with mice, found that this pathway could be reversed by blocking the inflammation. One way to do that is to not eat the types of things that can cause the inflammation, such as PUFAs.
SOURCES:
American Heart Association June 1, 2015
Stanford Medicine January 20, 2021
Haidut.me February 8, 2021