Canola Oil Might Impair Memory

Canola oil has long been pitched as a healthy cook­ing oil, but accord­ing to a new study that might not be entirely true.

Researchers found that what its man­u­fac­tur­ers call ​“the world’s health­i­est oil” is actu­ally linked to obe­sity, mem­ory impair­ments and other harm­ful effects on the brain.

In recent years, the use of canola oil has become pop­u­lar due to its low cost and the per­cep­tion that it shares some of the health ben­e­fits of olive oil. However, the chronic con­sump­tion of canola oil hadn’t been stud­ied to see how it might affect the devel­op­ment of neu­ro­log­i­cal dis­eases.

In a recent study, senior author Domenico Praticò of the Lewis Katz School of Medicine at Temple University in Philadelphia and col­leagues under­took an inves­ti­ga­tion to see if it canola mea­sured up to its healthy billing.

The sci­en­tists divided mice mod­els with Alzheimer’s into two groups. One group was fed a diet that was aug­mented daily with the human equiv­a­lent of two table­spoons of canola oil, while the other was fed a nor­mal diet.

All the mice were observed for six months. When the mice on the canola-rich diet reached one year in age, they had gained weight and were suf­fer­ing from a sig­nif­i­cantly impaired mem­ory, com­pared to the mice in the con­trol group.

In addi­tion, neuro bio­chem­i­cal analy­ses showed they had a reduc­tion in synap­tic integrity (a synapse refers to the junc­tion between nerve cells where impulses pass). The decrease in synap­tic integrity means the trans­mis­sion of impulses from one nerve cell to another doesn’t func­tion as well. Earlier stud­ies have shown this loss is strongly cor­re­lated to the cog­ni­tive decline in AD.

The mice that were fed canola oil didn’t show an increase in the amy­loid plaque or tau neu­rofib­ril­lary tan­gles char­ac­ter­is­tic of AD. Nonetheless, they had a sta­tis­ti­cally sig­nif­i­cant ele­va­tion in a para­me­ter called Aβ 42/40, which sug­gests they had a higher like­li­hood of accu­mu­lat­ing plaque in the brain.

“Overall our find­ings do not pro­vide sup­port to some of the cur­rent ideas sug­gest­ing healthy ben­e­fits deriv­ing from the reg­u­lar con­sump­tion of canola oil,” the authors wrote. ​“Although we rec­og­nize that more stud­ies are needed to inves­ti­gate the bio­log­i­cal effects of this oil, our data would not jus­tify the increas­ing ten­dency of replac­ing olive oil with canola oil as part of a good and healthy dietary alter­na­tive in non-Mediterranean coun­tries.”

In an inter­view with Olive Oil Times, Simon Poole, physi­cian and author of The Olive Oil Diet con­trasted the health ben­e­fits of the MedDiet with the appar­ent health risks of canola oil.

https://t.co/qoU4ottg1G con­cern­ing report on canola from same group who showed ben­e­fits #evoo@oliveoiltimes@yleniagranitto@curtiscord

— Dr Simon Poole (@tasteofthemed) December 7, 2017

“While we need to be cau­tious about extrap­o­lat­ing from ani­mal stud­ies, this study con­firms that we can’t replace olive oil with other oils and expect to see the same health ben­e­fits. Previous work by the same research team demon­strated advan­tages in cog­ni­tive func­tion with olive oil. These are con­sis­tent with other stud­ies that have shown a marked reduc­tion in neu­rode­gen­er­a­tion in mice with the use of olive oil polyphe­nols such as oleu­ropein.

“There is now ample evi­dence to asso­ciate the MedDiet, which involves the reg­u­lar use of olive oil, with improved cog­ni­tive func­tion and lower inci­dence of AD. The authors of this study are cor­rect in cit­ing the paucity of data on the health prop­er­ties of other oils which are so often pro­moted as pos­si­ble alter­na­tives to olive oil.”

While canola oil boasts a cheaper price than olive oil, it could be costly in terms of harm­ful effects on the mind and body. The study, which was pub­lished in the jour­nal Scientific Reports, shows that health claims attrib­uted to canola oil don’t have merit.

• Scientific Reports