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Systematic review

Review of 48 studies: canola and olive oil lowered cholesterol, coconut oil raised it

Voon and colleagues · Advances in nutrition (Bethesda, Md.) · 2024

Original title: Health Effects of Various Edible Vegetable Oil: An Umbrella Review.

Under review. A person has not yet checked this summary against the paper. It is written from the PubMed abstract. Until a person checks it, search engines are asked not to list this page.

What the study found

Points to benefit

Canola, olive and rice bran oils lowered total cholesterol and LDL (bad cholesterol). Coconut and palm oil raised them. Evidence was moderate to very low certainty. Heart attacks not reported.

The study at a glance

Type of study
Systematic review
Who or what was studied
48 studies · adults in studies of different vegetable oils
What was tested
Eating various vegetable oils such as canola, olive, rice bran, coconut and palm oil, compared across 206 pooled analyses
What it measured
Lab tests or markers
Who has a stake
No disclosure in PubMed
No disclosure in PubMed.
Journal
Advances in nutrition (Bethesda, Md.), 2024
Source
PubMed record 39053603. This page is based on the abstract only.

How much this study counts

  • •Sums up 48 studies found with a set search method, without pooling the numbers.
  • –Measured lab tests or markers, which stand in for heart disease and inflammation. A better marker does not always mean better health.
  • •The PubMed record has no conflict-of-interest statement.
  • •Summarized from the PubMed abstract only. The full paper may hold details the abstract leaves out.

✓ Strength– Limit• Note

These points come from fixed rules about the type of study, its size and length, what it measured, and who has a stake. Every study on Digestery gets the same rules.

Where this study sits

This paper is not on the ladder. It is a systematic review, and reviews and opinion pieces discuss studies that are already counted on the steps below.

↑ Stronger evidence

  1. Trials in people: heart disease

    1

    1 harm

  2. Trials in people: other measures

    0

    None among the papers we read.

  3. Trials in people: lab tests or safety

    4

    1 benefit, 3 no difference

  4. Population studies

    2

    2 mixed

  5. Blood levels and genes

    0

    None among the papers we read.

↓ Weaker evidence

  • Points to benefit
  • Mixed
  • No difference
  • No direction
  • Points to harm

How it fits with the other research

The short answer to “Are seed oils bad for your heart?”

Not clearly; the evidence conflicts.

Confidence: very low. Based on 13 on-topic papers.

Read the full answer
  • Part of the finding “Heart risk markers: small differences between oils”.
  • Summed up in “What reviews found”: Umbrella review of 48 studies, including 206 meta-analyses, on vegetable oils in adults. Canola, virgin olive and rice bran oils lowered total and LDL cholesterol, with moderate to very low certainty. The abstract reports no heart attacks or heart deaths.

Other reviews on this question

See all 13 studies on this question

How this page was made

Label

First read of the abstract
Claude Sonnet
Independent second read
Claude Haiku
Differences settled
The two reads agreed on every checked field. Claude Opus 5.5.
Headline
Claude Sonnet, from the checked study record. A script checked its numbers and wording.
Numbers
Checked against the abstract by a script
“How much this study counts”
Fixed rules, the same for every study
Source check by a person
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