Some cooking oils not so good for your heart

That sunflower oil might not be as good for you as the label says and a University of Toronto doctor wants a crackdown on the bold cooking oil claims.

Dr. Richard Bazinet, a researcher in the nutritional sciences department at U of T, wants Health Canada to stop allowing companies that manufacture cooking oils to make claims on their labels that they are good for heart health.

Currently oils containing omega-3 or omega-6 fatty acids are allowed to claim they are good for your heart and can stave off heart disease, but research only shows there are benefits from oils containing omega-3, not omega-6. There is no research to show that the cooking oils containing omega-6 are good for your heart, and some recent studies actually find it can increase the risk of heart disease, the opposite of what is claimed on labels.

Bazinet and his colleague Dr. Michael Chu, a cardiologist, published an analysis of previous research this week in the Canadian Medical Association Journal and believe Health Canada should stop allowing the companies to make unsubstantiated claims.

The oils most commonly used which are high in omega-6 fatty acids but with little or no omega-3 fatty acids are corn, sunflower and safflower oils.

“We’re not telling people they have to go out and lower their intakes of this, because they’re not very high,” Bazinet told the Canadian Press. “What we’re just saying is: if we’re going to take these health claims seriously, these products shouldn’t be allowed one.”

The authors do note that the oils they are targetting make up a very small portion of the average Canadian’s dietary oil intake, possibly below five per cent.