Talk:Polyunsaturated fatty acid

Healthy Fat and Recommended Intake

Sentence in question: "Polyunsaturated fat, along with monounsaturated fat are "healthy fats," the amount of which in one's daily diet should be near 25 g (in a 2000 calorie-per-day diet)."

The sentence contains grammatical errors and is poorly worded. There is no cited source. The term, "Healthy Fat," is subjective and expresses bias when the healthiness of different fats is controversial at best. The amount of polyunsaturated fat a person should consume varies greatly from person to person. It would be better to express recommended intake as a percentage of total caloric intake. However, macronutrient intake, especially of fats, is fairly controversial as well.

I intend to remove this sentence altogether. X1101011x (talk) 09:28, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

Polyunsaturated Fatty Acids Increase LDL Cholesterol?

A sentence in the Health Benefits section contains information contradicted by its cited source: "Omega-3 fatty acids in fish oil, fish and seafood lower the total amount of LDL in the blood, which can decrease the risk of cardiovascular disease."

The link cited specifically says that omega-3 fatty acids from fish or fish oil supplements showed an increase in low-density lipoprotein (LDL) levels, not a decrease. Additionally, there is nothing in the cited article linking low-density lipoprotein levels with cardiovascular disease. X1101011x (talk) 10:33, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

I have changed the aforementioned sentence to agree with the cited source. X1101011x (talk) 02:18, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

An increase in LDL levels increases the risk of CHD, because LDLs (Low Density Lipoproteins) have a tendency to deposit cholesterol that they carry in the damaged walls of arteries. If an artery wall is damaged, the cells will continue to divide as the body attempts to repair this damage, and this causes a buildup of lipids. This buildup of tissue/chemicals is known as Atheromatus Plaque, and this plaque reduces the volume of the artery. When LDLs drop off cholestrol in damaged arteries, it actually makes up a large proportion of this plaque. The more LDLs you have (compared to HDLs, which remove cholesterol from arteries to be returned to the liver), the more cholesterol is dropped off, the greater the risk of CHD. The wording in that sentence made it sound like more LDLs reduces the change of heart disease, which is wrong. So I reworded it. I included this explanation so that you understand my reasoning. :P Monkey Chief (talk) 14:24, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

That's nice. Unfortunatedly, that doesn't change the fact that the cited source makes no connection whatsoever between LDL levels and any sort of health risk. I'm removing the reference to LDL levels altogether to restore a NPOV. X1101011x (talk) 15:21, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

Relation to Cancer

By reviewing the talk page for Coenzyme Q10 which is linked to under the section Relation to Cancer I've found that Peter Lambrechts, Business Developer for Kaneka Pharma, has made significant edits to the article on Coenzyme Q10 and other articles related to it, including this one, adding sections and other data in an effort to mislead readers into believing the chemical has significant benefits in reducing the risk of or curing cancer. Because of this I recommend removing the section Relation to Cancer because it is so biased as to require enough rewriting that very little could remain unchanged. -FoxMajik (talk) 15:23, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

Polyunsaturated Fats versus Polyunsaturated Fatty Acids

Why are there articles for both of the above topics? Are they not the same? It is confusing to the reader. Also, the status of the omega fatty acids as polyunsaturated fats/fatty acids is unclear. It is also unclear as to how this relates to the polyunsaturated fat content on nutritional facts on food.71.130.241.197 (talk) 21:19, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

propose merge the 2 articles ? Rod57 (talk) 06:50, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

Polyunsaturated oils increase cancer risk?

http://www.second-opinions.co.uk/fats_and_cancer.html (82.83.46.161 23:31, 6 October 2006 (UTC))

Fats versus oils

Are polyunsaturated oils the same as polyunsaturated fats? I read somewhere that one should avoid soymilk because it contains polyunsaturated oils, but then I looked to the ingredients of Silk soymilk brand and the label listed that it contained polyunsaturated fats, and I wondered if that were the same to polyunstaturated oils, which I am reading here, is known as a "healthy fat."

From a biochemical point of view I don't think there is a difference between "fat", "oil" or "lipid" (of course I am excluding "motor oil", etc.) Regarding the claim that "Polyunsaturated fats are not to be compared to polyunsaturated oils, which are carcinogenic and can cause problems with the cardiovascular system", this sounds completely bogus to me, but I simply labeled the claim , on the remote chance that I am wrong. If no one supplies any backing for this odd-sounding statement I will delete it in a week or two. --Ben Best 00:45, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Requested move

• Polyunsaturated → Polyunsaturated fat … Rationale: This should be an uncontroversial move. Polyunsaturated was just the wrong name for this article, but I can't do it myself because a previous redirect was at Polyunsaturated fat. I've updated the Polyunsaturated fat redirect to point at Polyunsaturated but this leaves the right article with the wrong name … Please share your opinion at Talk:Polyunsaturated. —cmh 04:24, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

Survey

Add *Support or *Oppose followed by an optional one-sentence explanation, then sign your opinion with ~~~~

• Support, as this is the most common usage (is there any other usage for polyunsaturated at all?). --Dhartung | Talk 04:32, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

• Support. But there are many other uses for the polyunsaturated material; it's used as an oil which, according to studies, is still known as carcinogenic and damaging to the cardiovascular system by these guys here: Dr. Ben Kim - [Say No to Soy Milk and Rice Milk] and Second Opinions - [Polyunsaturated Oils and Cancer]

These are not popular studies, so the belief is not well known. Can we get a "polyunsaturated oil" page started and see if things branch off from there?

Discussion

Add any additional comments

I don't see the point of pasting all of this here, but it's in the spec for requested moves so I'm doing it. -- cmh 04:28, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

Cmh, it's so that consensus can be reached. If the discussion area always looks the same it make editors aware that a formal process is taking place, and the organization makes it easier to participate, so you get a better cross-section of opinion. --Dhartung | Talk 04:32, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

Ok, thanks. I didn't check that I was done after pasting this part. -- cmh 04:35, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

This article has been renamed as the result of a move request. Vegaswikian 04:50, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

Benefits

Under Benefits: The statement, "Omega-6 fatty acids in sunflower oil and safflower oil also reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease, but can contribute to allergies and inflammation" should be changed. Inflammation is a general term, which in this context reveals almost nothing about potential negative effects of sunflower oil or safflower oil. The inflammatory process is a necessary component of the immune response. But inappropriate inflammation can be part of a disease process. Thus, inflammation, within this context, should be fully explained. What is being inflammed? the digestive tract? Further, these oils do not contribute to allergies... you're either allergic to them or your not, but they don't attenuate another allergic reaction. Overall, this sentence appears to be anecdotal, inaccurate and misleading. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.98.121.228 (talk) 05:18, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

I agree, that sentence sounds like a pile of crap. I am removing it; if someone wants it back they need to supply evidence. -- 125.236.160.38 (talk) 07:41, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

Higher or Lower ?

This sentence: Trans fats are more similar to saturated fat than are cis fats in many respects, including the fact that they solidify at a higher temperature.

I changed it grom "higher" to "lower" which from what I can find on the net is what makes sense. Anyone know? Hoopiefromwayback 16:45, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

yeh ye

Wrong! It should be higher. In room temperature polyunsaturated fats are liquids and saturated fats are solids. It means that polyunsaturated fats require lower temperature to solidify. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.28.148.70 (talk) 21:58, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

Healthy fats?

The statement which calls these polyunsaturated and monounsaturated fats "healthy fats" is POV and should probably be removed. The evidence is conflicting and so the article shouldn't take a strong stance. What say you, fellow wikipedians? 76.180.120.161 07:55, 14 October 2007 (UTC) {I agree DS}

No mention of Omega-6:Omega3 ratio?

There is increasing evidence that concentrated vegetable oils are unhealthy in large consumption (think USA). The ratio of Omega-6:Omega-3 appears to be the problem as Omega-6 floods the metabolic pathway so the Omega-3 effect is negated. Mediterranean persons use olive oil which has a healthy ratio. The hunter-gathers ate a diet with 2:1 whereas US average diet is 40:1 or more.

Assessment comment

The comment(s) below were originally left at Talk:Polyunsaturated fatty acid/Comments, and are posted here for posterity. Following several discussions in past years, these subpages are now deprecated. The comments may be irrelevant or outdated; if so, please feel free to remove this section.

Rated "high" as highschool/SAT biology content. - tameeria 02:12, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

Last edited at 02:12, 29 April 2007 (UTC). Substituted at 03:12, 30 April 2016 (UTC)

Edits by IP re iodine etc

Here is the edit. 1) The ref being used by the IP was extremely low quality (a conference poster gussied up look like an actual article at first glance - see here but look at the citation in the diff; 2) the content being added was a) added only to the lead and not in the body; b) was blatant WP:COPYVIO; and c) was WP:OFFTOPIC on a high level article like this. Zefr's reverts were correct, although they didn't articulate all these things. I will request revdel of the copyright violation. Jytdog (talk) 20:41, 5 December 2016 (UTC)

The citation provided by the IP was:

• Venturi, Sebastiano (2014). "Iodine, PUFAs and Iodolipids in Health and Disease: An Evolutionary Perspective". Human Evolution-. 29 (1-3): 185–205. ISSN 0393-9375.

This appears to be fraudulent, as the journal shown the ISSN ceased publishing in 2006 with volume 21 -- see here. But worldcat provides a citation here as

Title: Iodine, PUFAs and Iodolipids in Health and Diseases: An Evolutionary Perspective

Author: S Venturi; M Venturi

Edition/Format: Article Article : English

Publication: HUMAN EVOLUTION, 29, no. 1/3, (2014): 185-205

Database: British Library Serials

weird. in any case the content was directly copied from the conference poster. Jytdog (talk) 21:00, 5 December 2016 (UTC)

• Zefr didn't articulate any of that for the simple reason that he didn't even for a moment suspect that it was a copyvio, but repeatedly (as in violating WP:3RR) reverted the IP for no obviously valid reason. - Tom | Thomas.W ^talk 21:32, 5 December 2016 (UTC)

=

I'm sorry, but when you wrote above is not correct !

I beg you to control what I reported below also at the conference in London:

Human Evolution: Past, Present & Future: Anthropological, Medical & Nutritional Considerations. Congress in London, 8-10th May 2013,

and published in new "HUMAN EVOLUTION", 29, 1-3, 2014.

Please check!

Greetings

Dr. Venturi Sebastiano:

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/281115776_Human_Evolution_Past_Present_Future_Anthropological_Medical_Nutritional_Considerations_Congress_in_London_8-10th_May_2013

Conference proceedings are not sufficiently peer-reviewed, so are not usable as reliable sources for an encyclopedia per WP:SPS. The abstract content you provided is unconfirmed science, conjectural, and self-reported, which represents WP:COI; see under Common mistakes, scientists in academia. --Zefr (talk) 16:30, 16 December 2016 (UTC)

Inconsistent nutritional content

The polyunsaturated fat content of sunflower seeds given in the table is inconsistent with that appearing in the table of the WP article sunflower seed, especially considering that the latter applies to dried seeds. The table in this article should specify whether each seed or nut entry applies to the dried product. Layzeeboi (talk) 19:04, 28 May 2020 (UTC)

Merge from Polyunsaturated fatty acid

We don't really need two articles on this, but this is the common (if technically less compete) name. In terms of material, this article has better coverage of the food nutrition aspects, while the other one does a better job with the biochemistry. There's good parts of both, which is why it should be handled as a merge. oknazevad (talk) 01:47, 18 November 2022 (UTC)

The distinction between a fat (a triglyceride) and a fatty acid (an aliphatic carboxylic acid) is important, and the articles should not be merged. There does seem to be redundant information between the two articles, and given their length it might be worth merging Polyunsaturated Fat into Fat, and/or Polyunsaturated Fatty Acid into Fatty Acid. In fact both of these article titles already have redirects to those pages... Synpath (talk) 00:48, 21 November 2022 (UTC)

Having polyunsaturated fatty acid to the main fatty acid article could be a logical outcome as well. The merging of the polyunsaturated fat article to fat is too high of a merge. In fact, it was just undone as the merge left no details at the main fat article which are of interest and independently notable. oknazevad (talk) 02:34, 21 November 2022 (UTC)

Oh you're right, I didn't see how the rest of the Fat related articles were organized. Looking at the monounsaturated fat and polyunsaturated fat articles there might be an argument to merge them with unsaturated fat. None of the three are very long, each lists several of the same compounds and have seemingly duplicate tables of information. To be honest it looks like all of these articles need work, at least to smooth out use of terminology and adding more relevant chemical images. Synpath (talk) 20:36, 21 November 2022 (UTC)

Just as long as saturated fat and unsaturated fat keep their independent articles, as there's more than enough for them to have separate articles, and the previous merger of them into the main fat article (which was done despite there being clear consensus against such a merger) resulted in the topics getting a shallow, insufficient treatment. oknazevad (talk) 00:39, 22 November 2022 (UTC)

What is going on here? Fats and Fatty acids are distinct concepts

@Amakuru: Not sure why anyone would move polyunsaturated fatty acids to polyunsaturated fats? Does not make sense. These are distinct materials.--Smokefoot (talk) 20:58, 5 August 2023 (UTC)

@Smokefoot: see the thread above. The two articles were previously separated, but then were merged. However, as noted at the top of that thread, the term polyunsaturated fat is clearly the common (if technically less compete) name. If, as you say, the materials are distinct, then the merge should perhaps be reverted. But either way, the bulk of the content which has resided at the title of polyunsaturated fat for the entire lifetime of Wikipedia, should remain at this title. Cheers  — Amakuru (talk) 21:01, 5 August 2023 (UTC)

If you're going to quote me then you should also note that I agreed with the comment that "polyunsaturated fatty acid" is also a possible valid title for this article. It may be that a further split is needed. But the idea of merging all unsaturated and saturated fat articles into the top fat article is why they were split in the first place. Also, the person who actually performed the merge of the formerly separate articles chose the "fatty acid" version for a reason (I discussed it at their talk page).

In short, I think it was unwise to perform the move(s) without discussion. oknazevad (talk) 21:18, 5 August 2023 (UTC)

Please stop any and all moves and reversions immediately. You've made a total hash of the articles and now I have to clean up your mess. Stop. oknazevad (talk) 21:20, 5 August 2023 (UTC)

@Oknazevad: no, you stop. The pages were merged despite the objections of several editors, and as you can see Smokefoot has also objected, saying that the fatty acids and the fats are separate concepts. The previous status quo should remain unless there's consensus to change it.  — Amakuru (talk) 21:22, 5 August 2023 (UTC)

All past discussions were incomplete and piecemeal. I'm objecting to any moves, reversions, or de-mergers without thorough discussion. One talk page comment is not a reason to revert a previously discussed merger without a full discussion. You clearly don't have the technical knowledge about the subject to be making these moves. Leave things as they were while discussion is ongoing, and notify the appropriate projects in hope we can get some editors with necessary subject matter knowledge to chime in. oknazevad (talk) 21:27, 5 August 2023 (UTC)

Also I would like to note that the merge was actually carried out by Crashed greek, so they should chime in. oknazevad (talk) 21:31, 5 August 2023 (UTC)

Stop insulting me, please. There is no primacy of "experts" here, consensus is established through discussion and I have simply restored the status quo to how it existed without issue for 20 years before the recent changes were made. As indeed was requested by Smokefoot above. That doesn't require technical knowledge. But it seems like even the principle of a merge is not established yet. Synpath also said above that the distinction between the fat and the fatty acid is important and therefore merging was not appropriate. My main point in all this is that if a merge is to take place, then polyunsaturated fat is the WP:COMMONNAME between the two, and should be the title of the merged page. As indeed you yourself also said in the opening comment above. But first the principle of a merge needs to be established anyway.  — Amakuru (talk) 21:34, 5 August 2023 (UTC)

Look, I have no objection if the correct course of coverage is to have separate articles for mono and polyunsaturated fatty acids, and one on monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats, or if the just the general fatty acid and unsaturated fat articles with redirects from that particular varieties is the way to cover it. (Actually, that was suggested above as well. Having a separate polyunsaturated fatty acid article but not a separate monounsaturated fatty acid makes little sense. Which is why the monounsaturated fat article was moved for consistency with this article, which was at polyunsaturated fatty acid following the merge.)

The point being that when dealing with a technical or scientific subject, factual correctness is too important to act impulsively, and full discussion is the best course. Anything that has been in place for over six months isn't just a straight reversion at that point. We shouldn't just revert without taking our time to get it right. oknazevad (talk) 22:10, 5 August 2023 (UTC)

Well, if there was an obvious consensus to merge, or indeed if subsequent editing had established it as a fait accompli, then that would be a valid argument. But in fact, it's fairly clear that the discussion had not reached a consensus, the merge was made without that consensus being established and there have been almost no subsequent edits since then, meaning the community has not endorsed this and the "new" status quo can't override years and years of stable content. If there really is a consensus to merge, then so be it, that will become evident here but I'm really not seeing that at the moment, and the comments of Synpath and Smokefoot rather suggest the opposite. Cheers  — Amakuru (talk) 23:32, 5 August 2023 (UTC)

I agree that consensus was unclear. That's why I didn't carry out the merger myself despite proposing it, as the discussion had only two commentators including me. Heck, the whole reason I restored the separate articles in the first place is because it was pretty clear that the previous merger of all the articles into fat not only had no consensus, but the discussion was against such a merger. I do think a more through discussion about scoping of articles is likely needed. oknazevad (talk) 00:05, 6 August 2023 (UTC)

• I think part of the problem here is that often when quantifying the composition of fats (from what I can tell) you break them down into their fatty acids. That makes it a lot easier since you no longer have to separate structural isomers and removes other ambiguity (Is triolein a polyunsaturated fat?). Of course, that means that studies relying on those compositional analyses make conclusions about fatty acid content rather than the fats they originate from even though something like >90 % of fatty acids are from glyceride esters (Britannica). That's also probably very fair since turning fats into fatty acids is part of digestion. Then somewhere down the line of science communication the distinction between fatty acid and fat is lost. Britannica loses the distinction in its unsaturated fat entry [1] and you can see the same in the UK with NHS messaging [2].

As for how it impacts article content, I'm not sure, because you have reliable sources mixing the definition of fat and fatty acid. At the very least, I'm less opposed to the merge now, since I don't think we need to have stand-alone articles for "Triglycerides/esters containing polyunsaturated fatty acids" and "polyunsaturated fatty acids". Especially since Polyunsaturated fatty acid is essentially just a list of PUFAs anyways. All that needs to to be done is to define fat, fatty acid and their relationship if merging. At the same time I find it inappropriate for Fatty acid article sections to link to a more general topic as the "Main article", e.g. Fatty acid#Unsaturated fatty acids links to Unsaturated fat. Probably the only real solution to this is rewriting articles covered in {{Fats}} so that they have consistent identities. ― Synpath 00:30, 6 August 2023 (UTC)

The article has stayed merged for months means there is consensus for the merge. Please arrive at the consensus if you want it unmerged. All food labels in all products sold mention polyunsaturated fat and PUFA interchangeably. Crashed greek (talk) 05:44, 6 August 2023 (UTC)

Polyunsaturated fat can instead be redirected to unsaturated fat if all agree. Crashed greek (talk) 05:50, 6 August 2023 (UTC)

Also same case with Monounsaturated fat, where single article stays. Crashed greek (talk) 05:53, 6 August 2023 (UTC)

• @Smokefoot: just FYI, I undid the merge as you had requested, but that has noww been reverted, so the two articles are merged again. As you can see, there is discussion above and - given that Synpath is now on board with the merge - perhaps a consensus that they should remain merged.  — Amakuru (talk) 12:46, 7 August 2023 (UTC)
  • @Amakuru:@Synpath:: My real world is intervening for a while so I need to step back. Just be aware that fats and fatty acids are distinct classes of chemical compounds. Fats are esters, fatty acids are carboxylic acids. If in doubt, ask around at the Chem Project where several editors understand the chemistry. Please dont guess at the chemistry. I'll be back, hopefully, Cheers, --Smokefoot (talk) 13:40, 7 August 2023 (UTC)
  • @Amakuru:, for consistency, can we move Monounsaturated fat to Monounsaturated fatty acid? That will be similar to this Polyunsaturated fatty acid article. Crashed greek (talk) 06:14, 8 August 2023 (UTC)

Move discussion in progress

There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:Polyunsaturated fatty acid which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RMCD bot 08:47, 31 August 2023 (UTC)