grain and seed oils that we now consume in excess:
safflower, sunflower, canola, corn, and soybean oils.
Night of the Lipid Dead
As coveted as polyunsaturated fats are by the brain, they
are delicate and highly vulnerable to a process called
oxidation. Oxidation occurs when oxygen (you may have
heard of it) reacts chemically with certain molecules to
create a new, damaged “zombie” molecule that has a super-
reactive extra electron, called a free radical. How reactive is
“super-reactive”? Let’s just say these radicals make the
White Walkers from Game of Thrones look like a caravan of
pacifist hippies.
That extra electron can then react with another nearby
molecule, transforming it into a second free radical and
setting off a never-ending chain reaction that leaves utter
mayhem in its wake. It’s the biochemical equivalent of the
zombie apocalypse, one molecule biting and infecting the
one next to it, spawning a horde of the undead. Pioneering
Austrian organic biochemist Gerhard Spiteller, who had
done much of the eye-opening research on the dangers of
oxidized polyunsaturated fats, put it this way:
Radicals are typically four orders of magnitude
(10,000x) more reactive than non-radical molecules.
Their action is not under genetic control, they attack
nearly all biological molecules, destroying lipids,
proteins, nucleic acids [DNA], hormones and enzymes
until the radicals are quenched by scavenger molecules.