Dr. Chris Knobbe is a physician, researcher, ophthalmologist, public health advocate, and Associate Clinical Professor Emeritus, formerly of the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, Texas. He is known primarily for his research, publications, and presentations connecting Westernised diets and highly polyunsaturated vegetable oils to numerous chronic diseases, including coronary heart disease, hypertension, stroke, cancers, type 2 diabetes, metabolic syndrome, obesity, Alzheimer’s disease, autoimmune diseases, and age-related macular degeneration (AMD).
Dr. Knobbe’s research has focused greatly on the “vegetable oil hypothesis” as the primary driver of overweight and chronic disease. In 2016 he formally introduced the hypothesis that processed foods and vegetable oils are the primary drivers of AMD, which is the leading cause of irreversible vision loss and blindness in people over the age of 50, worldwide. Dr. Knobbe has presented his research on ancestral dietary strategy and macular degeneration at various conferences and has also authored a book titled 'The Ancestral Diet Revolution: How Vegetable Oils and Processed Foods are Destroying Your Health'. His research suggests that macular degeneration can be prevented and treated through an ancestral dietary strategy and “sacred” foods.
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26 responses to “Dr. Chris Knobbe – ‘Are Vegetable Oils the primary driver of Obesity, Diabetes and Chronic Disease?’”
Thank you Dr Knobbe, first I wouldn’t trust any words from Harvard now! I live in MA. I feel so much better not eating seed oils. My Rheumatoid Arthritis is under control, my gut, no IBS. My diet is 90% meat based and at 64 feel better than I did in my thirties. I’ve had the same eye prescription for three years. My doctor us surpried🎉. Again thank you!
Not sure if there are any institutions I trust anymore. They all seem to be compromised by greed.
that’s wonderful – RA is horrible, so good for you finding your way.
Fear of vegetable oils has increased my consumption of grass-fed butter and homemade ghee. Both parents were nearly blind from wet macular degeneration before they died (though in their 90s).
I don’t trust olive oil to be unadulterated either.
When I watch a video of some guy cooking recipes from famous modern chefs and he fries expensive beef in canola oil, I cringe. But Famous Chef has been brainwashed into worshipping rapeseed…
I found out olive oil if its ‘mild’ has much less of the good stuff, so you have to go the full taste variety to the dose of good stuff that makes it worthwhile.
Hard to beat beef dripping when cooking. Or eggs fried in butter.✌️
Great presentation as usual. Thank you!
Thanks Doc Knobbe and LCDU. Much appreciated
Bravo! A wonderful piece of scientific communication. Thank you!
I know this may have been asking too much but, I’m concerned for the vegetarian population in India that have recently turned to oils and have left butter and ghee behind. I understand this has become quite a problem.
The Jain are the primary candidates.
Do no harm, become a
Banker.
So Dr. Knobbe notes that heart disease was uncommon prior to the 1900s. Yet it is said that heart disease was common among ancient Egyptians, as evidenced by the fact that mummys often show evidence of calcified arteries.
Why would the ancient Egyptians have experienced CVD? Is it because they ate a lot of breads/grains?
Exactly
I always appreciate what you have to say Chris, thank you for your contribution to our health.
I was thinking about this Doctor this morning and there we go is a new video. Great coincidence and great talk thank you. I have retinitis pigmentosa and since being on carnivore low-carb diet my eyesight has improved dramatically and I would love to speak with someone that knows about this stuff from an ophthalmology point of view.
Wow. I would have never expected to see carb and sugar consumption are on the decline from 1960 to now. As I have cut carbs and gotten healthier, I’ve probably also somewhat unconsciously been cutting vegetable oils. I’ve been thinking carbs are the devil. You might be onto something!
I don’t know what is causing what, but I do know from my N=1 that cutting out carbs and the majority of processed foods (and thereby reducing the seeds oils too) I am now metabolically healthy, and have lost 25% of my starting weight without trying. I was diagnosed with diabetes in October 2021 and it only took 3 months to remit it. I have gained so many unexpected benefits from changing my diet. I don’t look at foods in the shop as how they taste, but whether they are good, bad or neutral for my body.
I did an experiment on myself. I did a low carb diet and avoided fructose and sugar for 3 years but in my diet, I always included canned sardines and anchovies in olive oil (Adulterated vegetable seed oil ) I have no history of Type 2 Diabetes etc. My Coronary Artery calcium Score was 36 in 2019 and 100 in 2023. The increase is due to the oil.
So folks, imo, if your liver is in good condition and you are on a low carb or keto diet and totally avoid fruit you can probably say that man-made, manufactured oil is the culprit.
Avoid canned tuna, sardines, mackerel, anchovies etc if they have any kind of oil; only eat the canned sardines or mackerel in spring water.
Get oil out of your diet, even olive oil (Investigate and you will find that up to 70% of olive oil is adulterated with seed oils)
Thankyou Dr Knobbe, this presentation has turned my head. I have been aware of the dangers of seed oil consumption, but had primarily focussed on sugars and carbohydrates to be the main drivers of metabolic disregulation. An essential adjustment of thinking was needed, and this presentation has provided sufficient, quantified and qualified information for me to do so.
Thankyou once again.
As usual, excellent presentation by Dr. Knobbe! Thanks again!
There is one thing that I haven’t heard mentioned in this line of reasoning that I think is worth considering. All of the vegetable oils that are used for frying, especially in restaurants, are treated with strong synthetic antioxidants because they have to be, otherwise they wouldn’t even last a few hours in the fryer. Those antioxidants are, of course, oil soluble, and are eaten with whatever food has been cooked in the oil. They are formulated to resist degradation even in the harsh conditions of industrial frying and are certainly resistant to biological/human-enzymatic degradation, and so they must end up dissolved in the fats of human cells, both storage fat and structural. The nature of the antioxidants is to inhibit chemical changes to fats and they must continue to do that in the body. That is metabolic havoc for sure.
This makes a lot of sense. Even though carbs and sugar may account for a proportion of the metabolic crisis we are seeing globally, our great- grandparents ate bread and some sweets, and most were trim. The main thing which has changed is the seed oils.
Whilst carbs by themselves may not be so problematic, it might be a significant problem in a mixed macro diet with large amounts of both carbs and fat.
I haven’t touched seed oils for many years. I consider them toxic; high heat treated, processed with chemicals, oxidized before getting in the bottle, often further oxidized when used for cooking, contain aldehydes.
The wife and I both late 50s. Been eating wrong all our lives. She’s got breast cancer, I was morbidly obese with T2D. I’ve turned it around on Carnivore but cancer is harder to defeat. The worst thing is watching the next generation destroy themselves on a fast food, seed oil based diet. Take away pizzas, burgers and french fries are so much more convenient than having to make the effort to eat the Proper Human Diet.
Thank you Chris I am a huge fan of your work and this is an excellent presentation. I believe you are spot on and for myself I have been avoiding seed oils for 9 years now and I have seen enormes improvement in my Health.
Thanks again 🙏🤗❤️
Thanks❤️🤗
If you “eliminate” vegetable oils you also avoid ultra processed foods. While these oils are pretty certainly a big player, they’re not the only one. UPFs have many other toxic ingredients.