Browse evidence-based analysis of health-related claims and assertions
When olive oil gets super hot, it starts forming gummy, big molecules called dimers — and the amount depends on the type of olive oil: blends with more Arbequina make way more than those with more Picual.
Quantitative
When you heat certain types of olive oil really hot, the healthy antioxidant called alpha-tocopherol disappears completely in some kinds, but not as much in others — Picual and Cornicabra oils hold up better.
Avocado oil doesn’t break down much faster than olive oil when used for frying — they both last about the same number of uses before going bad.
Descriptive
Both oils can be reused many times before they break down enough to be considered unsafe by health standards.
When you fry with these oils over and over, they react with heat and moisture and start breaking down into chemicals that signal the oil is going bad.
Avocado oil breaks down faster than olive oil when reused for frying — it hits the safety limit for bad compounds after 10 uses, while olive oil lasts 13 uses.
When you fry potatoes over and over using avocado or olive oil, the oil gets more acidic, more oxidized, and loses some of its natural antioxidants.
Support from friends, the hormone oxytocin, and even diet might help protect the body from the long-term harm of childhood trauma, while stress hormones like cortisol might make it worse.
Mechanistic
The rise in this chemical after childhood trauma might not mean more cell damage—it might mean the body is stuck in a low-level inflammatory state.
Women with a history of childhood trauma have higher levels of a natural antioxidant called bilirubin, which might be their body’s way of fighting back against long-term stress.
Correlational
Women who had bad childhoods tend to have shorter protective caps on the ends of their immune cell DNA, which may mean their cells are aging faster.
Women who had tough childhoods have immune cells that produce more reactive oxygen molecules, even though those molecules aren’t causing more DNA damage.
Even after accounting for things like smoking, weight, and illness, women with worse childhoods still have higher levels of this inflammation-related chemical in their blood.
Even if a new mom had a rough childhood, her white blood cells don’t show more signs of broken DNA than other moms, based on two sensitive lab tests.
Having a tough childhood doesn’t seem to leave a detectable mark on DNA or RNA damage in the blood of new moms, even when accounting for other health factors.
A specific form of a stress-related chemical (free 8-isoprostane) goes up in women with bad childhoods, but the total amount doesn’t—meaning it’s likely tied to body inflammation, not just general cell damage.
Even if someone had a rough childhood, their blood doesn't show more signs of DNA damage from oxidative stress after having a baby, based on multiple tests.
Women who experienced more abuse or neglect as children tend to have higher levels of a specific chemical in their blood that's linked to long-term inflammation, even after having a baby.
In lab-grown fat cells and immune cells, adding taurocholic acid made the fat cells store less fat and turned immune cells into a type that reduces inflammation.
Mice that ate moderate lard had more of a type of immune cell (M2 macrophage) in their fat tissue that is linked to reducing inflammation.
When mice had more taurocholic acid in their blood, their fat cells turned on more genes that help break down fat.
Mice that ate a moderate amount of lard had more of a substance called taurocholic acid in their blood than mice that ate other oils.
When mice ate a moderate amount of lard (pig fat), they stored less fat in their fat tissue than mice that ate the same amount of plant-based oils.
Human physiology is evolutionarily adapted to metabolize and utilize animal-derived saturated and monounsaturated fats as primary dietary lipids.
Assertion