Re: Chart for Canola

[Guest guest]

From: Kyberneticist <kyberneticist@y...>

Date: Mon May 19, 2003 3:14 pm

Subject: Re: [ ] Chart for Canola

Hi All, But you forgot to read:

The following is an example of the Canola oil warning.

Click here to find out why this is untrue.>>>>

http://www.urbanlegends.com/ulz/canola.html >>>>

Synopsis: Canola oil is harmful to your health.

Is it true? No. It's a pastiche of distortions, falsehoods and baseless

charges with a very thin dressing of truth…….

A hoax it is methinks.

Cheers, Al.

Alan Pater, Ph.D.; Faculty of Medicine; Memorial University; St. 's, NL

A1B 3V6 Canada; Tel. No.: (709) 777-6488; Fax No.: (709) 777-7010; email:

apater@...

[Guest guest]

Kyberneticist wrote regarding Subject: Re: [ ] Chart for

Canola

http://www.cansa.co.za/facts_myths_diet_canola.asp

------------------------

Hi All,

It was difficult to read so I fixed it up some.

Cheers, Al.

Canola oil -good or bad?

BY DR CARL ALBRECHT

Introduction:

On the 12th July 2000 I received an e-mail containing very negative

aspects of Canola Oil. I decided to analyse the veracity of these statements

because the Cancer Association of South Africa has identified Canola Oil as

a possible food item that could help to reduce the incidence of cancer due

to the presence of omega-3-fatty acids. These fats are deficient in the

average Western diet and it is thought that the diet should contain a

balance of omega-6- and omega-3-fatty acids for optimum health.

Using the Copernic 2000 search engine and the search term " Canola Oil " I

retrieved 70 websites. One of these, www.naturalhealthinfo.com contained an

article by on Canola Oil. This article contained the same

statements as were circulated in the e-mail. I also contacted

canola@... , and requested further information. I received an

official statement by Prof Bruce Mac of the Department of Nutrition of

the University of Manitoba in Canada from Dorothy Long as well as her

personal remarks. According to these documents, a Mr in a " health

magazine called Perceptions " in 1995 made the original " attack " on Canola

Oil. In order to analyse the statements of Mr I will place them in a

table on the left, with rebuttals on the right. Many of the statements were

checked against the prestigious Medline site, which contains 11 million

medical abstracts. The Medline site address is

www3,ncbi.nlm.gov/Entrez/medline.html.

ATTACK ON CANOLA OIL AND REBUTTALS

Statement by

Rebuttal

Canola oil comes from the rapeseed, which is part of the mustard

family of plants.

This is correct, except that Canola oil is from a special variety

of

rape which is not chemically identical to the common rape plant.

Rape is the most toxic of all food plants.

I could find nothing to support this statement. According to the

Encyclopaedia Britannica website, www.britannica.com, rape seed

oil is native to Europe where it is used in cooking, in soap,

margarine, as a lamp fuel as a lubricant and the seeds as bird

feed.

No mention is made of toxicity in Medline

Rape is a weed. Insects won't eat it. It is deadly poisonous.

Not support found for these statements.

Oil from rape is hundred times more toxic than soy oil

No evidence could be found for this statement.

Rape oil is industrial oil and does not belong in the body.

Rape oil appears to be used in industry as a lubricant but this is

no

argument to exclude it as a food.

Canola oil forms latex-like substances that agglutinate red blood

corpuscles, as does soy.

No evidence could be found for this statement. According to

Dorothy Long, Canola oil products have been on the market in

Canada since the late 1970's and now make up 85% of salad oils,

45% of margarines and 50% of shortenings. I find it highly

unlikely

that this would be the case if Canola Oil was toxic to the red

blood

corpuscles.

According to the official Canola statement there is no evidence

for

this. It is stated that " there is evidence from our research that

linolenic acid in Canola oil gives rise to higher tissue levels of

eicosapentaenoic acid that, in turn, gives rise to thromboxane A3,

which has weak aggregating activity compared to the more

common thromboxane A2 " . Thus Canola Oil should actually reduce

the aggregation of blood platelets.

Rape oil causes blindness and antagonizes the central and

peripheral nervous system. Deterioration takes years.

The official Canola statement comments " There is no evidence, to

my knowledge, of Canola oil or rape seed oil having any adverse

effect on vision or the central or peripheral nervous systems.

Rape (Canola) oil causes emphysema, respiratory distress,

anemia, constipation, irritability and blindness in animals.

No evidence in Medline for this.According to the Canola statement,

healthy human subjects were fed 75 grams of Canola oil for 21 days

in numerous studies and no complaints of any kind were recorded.

Rape oil fed to animals in England caused Mad Cow Disease.

Experts agree that Mad Cow Disease was caused by a virus-like

organism called Scrapie in sheep and that contaminated sheep

offal was fed to the cows. I have never heard of this being

related to

rapeseed oil in any way. No Medline evidence for this.

Canola Oil is " Low in Erucic Acid "

This is true.

Rape oil contains a fat called erucic acid. It constitutes 40-50%

of

total fatty acids in the oil.

Erucic acid is " drastically reduced " , " essentially eliminated " in

the

Canola variant of the Rape plant according to the Canola

statement. The reason for this is that erucic acid stunts growth

(according to Medline abstracts).

Erucic acid was part of the so-called " Lorenzo's Oil " which was

used to treat a genetic defect causing long chain fatty acids in

the

brain to accumulate.

According to Medline, clinical studies did not support this use of

Erucic acid. No information could be found that Erucic acid was

toxic. Patients were treated with it for more than two years.

Canola oil contains omega 3, 6 and 12 fatty acids.

According to the Canola Statement, there is no omega-12 fatty

acid.

The term Canola is derived from the words " Canadian oil "

This appears to be correct

Rape oil is also the source of the infamous chemical-warfare

agent, mustard gas.

This is totally wrong. Mustard gas or Bis(2-chloroethyl)sulfide is

made by treating ethylene with sulfur chloride or dihydroxyethyl

sulfide with HCl gas (Merck Index ). These are highly dangerous

reactions and can only be done by experts.

The confusion with rapeseed is because it belongs to the so-called

mustard family of plants also known as the Brassicaceae.

Canola contains large amounts of " isothiocyanates " which contain

cyanide, which can inhibit the formation of ATP, which keeps us

healthy and young.

According to the Canola statement, there is no evidence that

Canola Oil contains isothiocyanates, at least at levels that

produce

physiological effect.

There is evidence that isothiocyanates in food such as cabbage can

stimulate so-called Phase 2 enzymes to excrete carcinogens from

the body, i.e. protect the body against cancer. I am not aware of

any

evidence that these molecules can release cyanide in the body. If

they could, we certainly would not be eating cabbage.

Canola glycosides depress the immune system. " The T cells go

into a stupor and fall asleep on the job "

There is no known evidence to support this.

On the contrary, the relatively high levels of omega-3-fatty acids

in

Canola Oil may play a role in stimulating the immune system

(Canola Statement)

Canola glycosides interfere with the biochemistry in animals and

humans. Their presence in rattlesnake venom inhibits muscle

enzymes and causes instant immobilization of the victim.

There is no evidence for this. Rattlesnake poison contains small

peptides that block receptors for neurotransmitters; this has got

nothing to do with glycosides.

Alcohol in Canola Oil shut down the immune system

There are no free alcohols in Canola Oil (Canola statement).

Academia and Government continue to bamboozle the public with

stories of " safe " science and cheap food through the use of

poisons.

There is no evidence that Canola Oil contains any poisons.

Comments:

This article by an excellent example of misinformation

created to discredit a bona fide commercial product.

After analysing the statements of and Prof Bruce Mac

as well as consulting textbooks, Medline, The Merck Index and other sources

of information, I am satisfied that this attack on Canola Oil is without

substance and is a travesty of the truth.

I am satisfied that Canola Oil is an advance in human nutrition and the

relatively high levels of omega-3-fatty acids in this oil could be of

benefit in promoting health.

There is accumulating evidence that omega-3 fatty acids can help to

prevent cancers of the colon, breast, and possibly the prostate by

suppressing neoplastic transformation, enhanced apoptosis and

anti-angiogenicity (Omega-3 fatty acids as cancer chemopreventive agents,

Rose DP and Connolly JM, Pharmacol Ther, 1999, 83, 217-244). There is

growing consensus that human nutrition requires a balance of omega-6 and

omega-3 fatty acids, i.e. a 1:1 ratio such as found in the traditional Greek

diet. The current ratio in the Western World is about 10 :1. This is a very

large disparity and is worthy of serious consideration. Main sources of

omega-3 fatty acids in the US are vegetable oils such as soybean and Canola.

Studies have shown that the omega-6 to omega-3 ratio has decreased from

12,4:1 to 10.6 to 1 since 1985 to 1994 and that this decrease is mainly due

to a 5.5 fold increase in the use of Canola Oil (Polyunsaturated fatty acids

in the food chain in the United States, Kris-Etherton PM et al., Am J Nutr,

2000, 71, 179S-188S).

The Canola Council of Canada will shortly be posting a Q & A feature

titled -Canola Facts & Myths -on their Web site home page at

www.canola-council.org which will address the points raised in the " "

letter.