Study: Vegetable Oil Does Not Reduce Risk of Heart Disease

When it comes to health, most, if not all, believe that vegetable is healthy in all forms. However, a new study suggests that vegetable oil may not be as healthy as we thought.

Vegetable Oil Increases Risk of Cardiac Death

Those who decided to be healthy used vegetable oil to maintain their health. However, you should slow down with vegetable oil because replacing animal fat with vegetable oil does not guarantee you a healthy heart. In fact, it might even increase your risk of cardiac death, HindustanTimes reported.

According to Time, Christopher Ramsden, a medical investigator at the National Institute of Health examined the data from Minnesota Coronary Experiment that was conducted from 1968 to 1973.

In the study, 2,300 individuals were randomly assigned to a diet with vegetable oils or a control diet high in animal fats. Ramsden and his colleague learned that the control group has lower cholesterol by nearly 14 percent compared to their counterparts, which is good. A low cholesterol is associated with a healthy heart.

However, this seems not to be the case anymore, because the control group's risk of heart disease did not lower down. In fact, for every 30mg/dL in cholesterol, the risk due to heart death increases by 22 percent.

Previous Study Only Published Partial Data

Ramsden and his colleague learned that only part of the trial's results was published in the previous study. The data suggesting that vegetable oil is not efficient in protecting the heart was left out. "We saw that they didn't publish a lot of things they planned to," Ramsden said.

"The diet-heart hypothesis predicts that the more you lower cholesterol, the better your outcomes are going to be," Ramsden added. "Basically, we found the opposite."

The researcher notes that switching to vegetable oil does not mean that one is consuming more unhealthy trans fats, which are not good for the heart. This does not also suggest that one can consume bacon and butter as much as he wants. However, this is a warning for consumers that they have to slow down with animal fats and vegetable oils.

What do you think of this news? Are you surprised that vegetable oils are not as good as how they are marketed? Share your thoughts below.