Study links America's favorite cooking oil to obesity

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https://medicalxpress.com/news/2025-11-links-america-favorite-cooking-oil.html
by Jules Bernstein, University of California - Riverside

Soybean oil, the most widely consumed cooking oil in the United States and a staple of processed foods, contributes to obesity, at least in mice, through a mechanism scientists are now beginning to understand.

In an experiment conducted at UC Riverside, most mice on a high-fat diet rich in soybean oil gained significant weight. However, a group of genetically engineered mice did not. These mice produced a slightly different form of a liver protein that influences hundreds of genes linked to fat metabolism. This protein also appears to change how the body processes linoleic acid, a major component of soybean oil.

"This may be the first step toward understanding why some people gain weight more easily than others on a diet high in soybean oil," said Sonia Deol, a UCR biomedical scientist and corresponding author of the study published in the Journal of Lipid Research.

In humans, both versions of the liver protein HNF4α exist, but the alternative form is typically produced only under certain conditions, such as chronic illness or metabolic stress from fasting or alcoholic fatty liver. This variation, along with differences in age, sex, medications, and genetics, may help explain why some people are more susceptible than others to the metabolic effects of soybean oil.

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