ZOE & misinformation about seed oils

Executive summary
* I have received many emails from readers about recent claims in the media that seed oils are not harmful and that, on the contrary, they can reduce heart disease. The common factor in the media stories is Professor Sarah Berry. Berry is the chief scientist at ZOE Limited.
* This note explains what ZOE Limited is and gives some background to its meteoric rise.
* It reviews a podcast between Berry and Jonathan Wolf, who is the CEO and one of the founders of ZOE. The podcast is called “Seed oils may lower your risk of heart disease.”
* Berry presented four arguments that people use for saying that seed oils are toxic and then set out to debunk these.
* This note reviews the four arguments and the debunks and invites you to decide whether you have been convinced that seed oils are healthful, rather than harmful.
Introduction
In last Monday’s podcast, Dr Nina Teicholz and I talked about fats – primarily seed oils (Ref 1). Both Nina and I have PhDs in the field of dietary guidelines generally and dietary fat specifically. We have both studied all trials – randomised controlled trials (RCTs) and epidemiological studies – in the field of dietary fat (Ref 2). If you listened to the podcast, you would not have heard us say anything good about seed oils. We didn’t ascribe all health problems of so-called developed nations to seed oils, but we highlighted issues with them such as hydrogenation, inflammation, and oxidation/oxidisation (oxidation is more commonly used in the US and oxidisation is more commonly used in the UK).
In this week’s note, I’m going to look at recent claims that seed oils are not harmful and that, on the contrary, they can reduce heart disease. I have been sent three links by different readers on this topic. First, Allan Katz from Israel shared a podcast entitled “Seed oils may lower your risk of heart disease” (Ref 3). Another reader, Paul Blijkers from France, shared an article in the UK Guardian newspaper arrogantly headlined “Robert F Kennedy Jr claims seed oils are ‘poisoning’ us. Here’s why he’s wrong” (Ref 4). Third, my ‘butter-not-marg.’ brother-in-law, James, messaged me from New Zealand having seen this article in the Mail online: “Lives 'put at risk' by surge in demand for butter – as Gen Z turn away from low-fat marg for more 'natural' spread” (Ref 5). The common factor in these three links is Professor Sarah Berry (Ref 6). Berry is the chief scientist at ZOE. ZOE is nothing to do with me, by the way (I am asked this regularly).
In this note I will explain what ZOE is and give some background to its meteoric rise. I will then review Professor Berry's assertions that seed oils are not harmful. I will review her claim that seed oils reduce cardiovascular disease in a future note, as I’m in comms with Professor Berry and I’m waiting for her to send me the reference underpinning this claim: "There's also many, many randomized control trials that showed that if you increase your polyunsaturated fatty acid intake, you reduce your LDL cholesterol significantly, and it results in a 32% reduction in cardiovascular disease."
I’m going to use the podcast as the main link for review, as it’s an hour long and is more comprehensive than the Guardian or Mail articles. Berry said that there are three (and then named four) key arguments that people use for saying that seed oils are toxic. I will go through the four arguments and Berry’s debunk for each and you can decide if you are now convinced that seed oils are not toxic. I am not going to counter Berry’s counter and reiterate why many people think seed oils are “evil” (a word used in the podcast), or we’ll be forever in a circular loop. I’ll close with another argument against seed oils. It’s not a claim that they are toxic but a rational for why they should not be in our diets.
ZOE (Global) Limited
A private limited company called ZOE Global Limited was incorporated in England on 7th August 2017 (Ref 7). The name ZOE comes from the Greek word for life (as I know personally). The three founders were Professor Tim Spector (King's College London), data science expert Jonathan Wolf and entrepreneur George Hadjigeorgiou. Wolf is the current CEO of ZOE and host of the ZOE podcast (Ref 8). The name was changed to just ZOE Limited on 21st May 2021 (Ref 9). ZOE is described as a personalised nutrition company. It began with the work that Spector had been doing for 25 years especially on Twins (Ref 10).
ZOE was given a major boost by the COVID era. In the early months of 2020, the company developed a COVID Symptom Tracker app in collaboration with King's College London and Guy's and St Thomas' hospitals. At the end of April 2020, the project received assistance from the UK Department of Health and Social Care, which allowed it to offer up to 10,000 COVID-19 tests each week to app users (Ref 11). By May 2020 the app's name had changed to COVID symptom study. In August 2020, the UK government gave a grant of £2 million to support data collection by the project (Ref 12) and by August 2021, government funding amounted to £5m (Ref 13). Government funding ceased at the end of March 2022 (Ref 14). In May 2022, the name “ZOE COVID study” was changed to “ZOE health study” to reflect that COVID was no longer the focus (Ref 15).
ZOE Limited now provides (in the UK and US) a "personalized nutrition program" which has two parts. Part 1 provides (expensive) tests for gut microbiome, blood sugar and blood fat. The gut microbiome test involves sending off a poo sample, blood sugar is tested by wearing a continuous glucose monitor for 14 days, and the blood fat test involves a blood sample. Part 2 is a membership plan where test results are used to tell people what they should eat and to recommend other health programs. The UK starter four-month plan is £299 for the testing and then £24.99 a month for 4 months. Some American friends have told me about a company called Levels (Ref 16). Levels seems to have similar offerings to ZOE.
A December 2022 article on the Balderton Capital website reported that ZOE had raised £25 million – bringing ZOE's total investment to £73 million – Balderton being one of the investors. The article reported that ZOE had a waitlist of 250,000 people and had hired over 100 employees. The company was valued at £209 million in the article (Ref 17).
2024 was an eventful year for the ZOE company. On January 2nd, 2024, a product was launched with Marks & Spencer (M&S) Food. It was called the ZOE Gut Shot (with live cultures) (Ref 18). Priced at £2 for 150ml, a number of the product reviews said, “just buy some kefir and save money” (Ref 19). Kefir is the main ingredient (as shown in that Ocado link). The second ingredient is mixed fruit purée (21%). Save yourself money and sugar and fructose by buying (or making your own) kefir.
In April 2024, ZOE announced that it would reduce costs by 20% (including making some redundancies) because the nutrition startup had "overexpanded" (Ref 20).
In June 2024, another product collaboration was announced. This time ZOE's Daily30+ would be launched in UK Waitrose stores from 17th July. ZOE’s Daily30+ is “a savoury mix of seeds, herbs, nuts, legumes and functional mushrooms, formulated to provide over 30 plants and to introduce over 35 different types of fibre in just one scoop” (Ref 21). This was priced at £13.50 for a 7-day pack or £2.25 for a single serve (Ref 22). (For another Monday note, I’ve started looking at the ZOE ‘30 plants a day’ claim too).
In July 2024, business journals reported that ZOE had secured $15 million to expand in the US. The article noted that UK celebrities Davina McCall and Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall had been signed up as ambassadors for the programme (Ref 23). Entrepreneur and podcaster Steven Bartlett is both an ambassador and investor (Ref 24). In August 2024, Bartlett was criticised for not making it clear that he had financial interests in products he was promoting (Ref 25). (While researching for this note, another reader sent me a link to another podcast – this time between Professor Berry and Bartlett (Diary of a CEO podcast) (Ref 26). I listened to the seed oil part and it added nothing beyond the ZOE podcast, so I’ve stuck with that one).
In October 2024, ZOE announced that it was embarking on another round of redundancies, blaming overexpansion again (Ref 27). As a former Human Resources Director for a number of blue chip organisations, I find the expanding and contracting contradictions curious. People with good startup ideas and/or investment money are rarely the best people to run companies.

Anyway, that’s ZOE. In a moment, we’ll go through the podcast entitled “Seed oils may lower your risk of heart disease“ hosted by Jonathan Wolf and with ZOE chief scientist, Professor Sarah Berry, as the guest. Just before we do, we should cover non-disclosed potential conflicts. There have been two mentions of King’s College London (KCL) in this note thus far. Like Professor Tim Spector, Professor Berry is a professor at KCL (Ref 28).
In September 2016, KCL posted a press release reporting that "King’s and Unilever have been collaborating on research projects for nearly 20 years – so I am absolutely delighted that we have now been able to formalise this relationship" (Ref 29). The press release quantified the value of the relationship thus far "Unilever has funded research at King’s with around £2 million since 2014 in a variety of areas, such as regenerative medicine, cardiovascular, nutrition and dentistry. The now formalised relationship has the ambition to scale up in the future and potentially to cover other areas of activity." In January 2020, a new King's and Unilever bioscience hub was launched. The updated financial disclosures revealed "The longstanding partnership between King’s and Unilever was established over 20 years ago, with the last five years seeing Unilever directly funding over £3 million and leveraging a further £850,000 towards research at King’s" (Ref 30) Unilever, as I’m sure you know, is a major user of plant oils in its processed foods (Ref 31).
Berry and KCL are also connected to the British Nutrition Foundation (Ref 32) (don’t be fooled by the name – the BNF is the who’s who of the fake food industry) (Ref 33). There may be other potential conflicts. One conflict was declared during the podcast. At the one hour mark Berry said, “So I have spent many years comparing palm oil to other fats. I've actually received a lot of research funding from the palm oil industry, and I always like to declare any conflict of interest.” In the Diary of a CEO podcast, Berry declared funding from the almond industry.
The ZOE podcast
Jonathan Wolf opened with “Seed oils are in everything. You'll recognize them as sunflower oil, soybean, or canola, that's rapeseed in the U.K. They're in our snacks, our restaurants, and our pantries. They're inexpensive, they have a neutral taste and a high smoke point which makes them great for frying. [ZH comment – I do not consider them great for frying – quite the opposite]. But many people think seed oils are evil. There are countless videos calling them toxic which have gone viral online.” Wolf said, we’re going to find out what the science says with Professor Sarah Berry.
Berry responded with “I'm so excited. There is so much nutri-nonsense over this topic out there. And so I'm excited to debunk all the myths, Jonathan, and educate you on them as well.” Towards the end of the podcast, Berry closed the hour with “I'm looking forward to all seed oils are toxic influencers hate mail now.” She’s up for a fight on this topic.
To review the podcast, I have used the transcript on this page and assumed that it is an accurate capture of the discussion (Ref 34). There is much with which I disagree in the opening ‘background information’ part of the podcast. Berry explained what saturated, monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats are. Her structural descriptions of the three fats are correct (as we covered in last week’s note on my podcast with Nina). I don't consider Berry’s opinions on the three fats to be correct "What we know is that in general, saturated fatty acids are bad for our health. We know that monounsaturated fatty acids are good for our health, and we know that polyunsaturated fatty acids are also good for our health." Why would nature put something bad for us alongside two things good for us in every single real food?
Berry discussed cold pressed vs refined seed oils and argued that there is little difference between the two. She was very dismissive of concerns about the refinement process. I’ll save those passages for the four arguments section, as she presented her main counter to one of these in the background part of the podcast.
From just before 20 minutes into the podcast, Berry got into why many people say seed oils are toxic. She said that there are three key arguments – and then presented four:
“There's three key arguments that people use as a rationale for saying seed oils are toxic. And I'd love to work through each of these because I think it's important for listeners to be able to understand why this information is misinformation that they're reading.
“And so very briefly, one of them is that they use as an example, an association of this increase in seed oil with increase in all of these different health issues that we're having now.
“The other reason they use is that it creates an unfavorable omega-6 to omega-3 ratio causing inflammation.
“The third argument they use is, Oh, it's unnatural. It's gone through all this refinement process. You know, it's bleached. My God, it's going to kill us because of this process.
“And then the fourth is that it's prone to oxidation i.e. seed oils when they're heated are prone to oxidation” (Ref 35).
In the podcast, Berry aimed to debunk those four arguments for why many believe that seed oils are toxic. I will go through the four arguments and her debunk for each and you can decide if you have been convinced that seed oils are not toxic.
1) An association between intake in seed oils and health issues.
As Berry summarised when she presented the arguments, there is an association between an increase in seed oil intake and an increase in different health issues, but association does not mean causation. That is a fact. The association argument is an easy one to debunk. I am with Professor Berry on this one.
This argument is well illustrated by a number of charts in a paper by Dr Chris Knobbe and Marija Stojanoskab (Ref 36). I’ve been in communications with Chris during research for this note and we have a podcast arranged this week. This image from that paper is a good example of the argument – heart disease deaths and vegetable oil intake are associated over the past 120 years (notice that saturated fat isn’t) – but association does not mean causation.

During the same period that plant/seed oil intake has increased and health issues have increased, the number of television sets has increased, the population has increased, the price of a postage stamp has increased, the intake of corn sweeteners has increased. If association meant causation, any of these could be clamed to be responsible for chronic health issues.
The irony here is that so many what I would call nutri-nonsense claims are based on epidemiological studies and hence are trying to imply causation from associations. I reject any and all claims that association can mean causation – not just this seed oil one.
Having (rightly) dismissed the associations of seeds oil intake and health concerns as associations, Berry tried to rely on association studies (epidemiology) a number of times elsewhere in the podcast. Soon after 24 mins in, Berry said "What we see is that an increase in omega-6 intake from these population epidemiological studies is actually associated with favorable effects on all-cause mortality...It's associated with huge reductions in LDL cholesterol, or bad cholesterol, and it's associated with reductions in cardiovascular disease." Just before 27 mins in, Berry said "So all the recent studies, the epidemiological research shows that as you increase your polyunsaturated fat intake, you reduce your risk of ill health from cardiovascular disease and so forth." (My emphasis in bold).
You can’t have it both ways. You either need to dismiss epidemiology, population studies and associations, or accept them. They should all be rejected.

2) Seeds oils create an unfavourable omega-6 to omega-3 ratio and thus inflammation.
As a reminder, there are two essential fatty acids (EFAs). Essential in nutrition means something we must consume – the body can’t make it. The two EFAs are omega-6 and omega-3. They are both polyunsaturated fats. They are actually a family of polyunsaturated fats. The names omega-6 and omega-3 describe where the double bonds are positioned on the carbon chain of the fatty acid. Last week’s note (Ref 1) contained a diagram showing linoleic acid – an omega-6 fatty acid.
I’ll cite Berry’s comments for this claim verbatim so that I don’t misrepresent them: "in seed oils, you have an omega-6 fatty acid called linoleic acid, and you have also a similar fatty acid in omega-3 oils called alpha-linoleic acid, ALA... both of these fatty acids can be converted into the body to very long chain versions. So linoleic acid can be converted into something called arachidonic acid... Alpha-linolenic acid from the omega-3 can be converted into very long-chain versions called EPA and DHA, which are also found in fish oil... there are enzymes in the body that convert the linoleic or the alpha-linoleic to these very long chain versions, but they compete for each other. This is where this whole theory around the omega-3, omega-6 ratio comes from."
Berry continued: "What we know is that these chemicals [eicosanoids] produced by the omega-3 fatty acids have quite beneficial effects in our body. They can be anti-inflammatory. They can be anti-coagulatory. These special chemicals that come from the omega-6 very long chain fatty acids, arachidonic acid, have slightly more pro-inflammatory and pro-coagulatory properties."
Berry stated the argument against seed oils as "So mechanistically, there's a good sound argument to say, Oh, if you have more omega-6, whoa, it's going to be more, you're going to be more pro-inflammatory, you're going to be more coagulatory. Your blood's going to be more sticky. but if you have more omega-3 then, Hey, we're going to be anti-inflammatory. We're not going to have sticky blood. So there's a good mechanistic argument for this." But then she dismissed this as "However, this doesn't play out in reality. It doesn't play out in RCTs, randomized controlled trials in human subjects, that actually increasing the amount of omega-6 in your body or also what you consume does not result in any increase in inflammation. It doesn't result in any increase in coagulation, et cetera."
This section of the podcast missed the point that the body wants EFAs in a certain form. It wants EPA and DHA for omega-3 and it wants arachidonic acid for omega-6. Why consume plants and try to rely on converting to what the body wants when you can consume animals and obtain what the body wants directly? Berry is right that EPA and DHA are especially rich in fish oil (so consume oily fish, not flaxseed). The main sources of arachidonic acid are meat, eggs, fish and dairy products, so consume those. Many people are poor converters of plant nutrients to what is actually needed (Ref 37).
There were five references on the link page for the podcast. The reference for “the RCTs in human subjects” seemed to be this one: “Effect of Dietary Linoleic Acid on Markers of Inflammation in Healthy Persons: A Systematic Review of Randomized Controlled Trials” (Ref 38). The paper was industry funded (International Life Sciences Institute) (Ref 39). Both authors are industry conflicted (Ref 40). The lead author, Johnson, "provides industry experience, multi-faceted knowledge of nutrition, and solution-oriented outlooks to problems faced by the food and beverage industries." He added Monsanto and Bunge Limited conflicts at the end of the paper. The systematic review found 15 trials. The 3 best controlled studies (metabolic chamber) had 6-9 subjects. The largest study had 60 completers. The shortest non-acute study was 2 weeks; the longest was 40 days. One study tested just one meal. In the summary table for trial details, only 4 mentioned seed oils as interventions. Some trials changed fat intake with supplements, not seed oils. Some reduced carbohydrate to increase fat, which would confound results.
That’s the reference. The bigger issue is that the omega-6 to omega-3 ratio is not just about inflammation. There are many fundamental issues related to this ratio. The competition between these two fats has multiple downstream effects, significantly affecting prostaglandin pathways and having a myriad of effects on metabolic and hormonal functioning.
Simopoulos, in her vastly cited (5,711 times as of writing) 2002 paper “The importance of the ratio of omega-6/omega-3 essential fatty acids” summarised the key concern: “Several sources of information suggest that human beings evolved on a diet with a ratio of omega-6 to omega-3 essential fatty acids (EFA) of ∼ 1 whereas in Western diets the ratio is 15/1–16.7/1." i.e., we have historically consumed equal amounts of omega-3 and omega-6 and we now consume 15-16.7 times as much omega-6 as omega-3 (Ref 41). Safflower oil has an omega-6 to omega-3 ratio of over 100 (Ref 42). That’s unprecedented as a ratio in our historical intake of natural foods. Simopoulos’s article examined the impact of our unprecedented fatty acid ratios for cardiovascular disease, cancer, and inflammatory and autoimmune diseases.
3) Seed oils are unnatural, refined and bleached etc.
This was the one that was largely addressed early on in the podcast. Berry discussed cold pressed vs refined seed oils and tried to argue that there’s little difference between the two. “One way you can do it is what you call cold-pressed seed oil. This is literally just, in simple terms, squeezing the seeds so that the oil comes out. Now that's all very well, but actually it's not the most efficient process because what happens is, lots of the oil gets kept inside the seed. And obviously we always want to maximize production, don't we? Particularly in the food industry, seed, and oil industry.” Well, actually I would rather maximise health than production, but let’s continue…
Berry then dismissed the refinement process as being a health concern as follows:
“So what you can do is you can either heat that seed or in addition to that, you can add in a particular solvent. And typically we use hexane as a solvent and basically that allows us to extract all of the oils. So it becomes a more efficient way of extracting the oil. At that point, it can no longer be called cold-pressed and it started to go through what many people would say is a more refined process.
“What can also happen and most of the oils that are added to foods and most of the oils that you buy off the shelf, unless they say they're cold-pressed, go through further stages of processing. And this is to remove many minor components that you might find in the oil.
“And these terms that you might hear that are used as processing techniques are things like bleaching and deodorization. Now they do sound quite scary. People are thinking probably bleaching, peroxide. It's not as scary as it sounds. What happens is, is the end oil is therefore very stable. There are no harmful chemicals left in that end-stage oil.”
The “only potential downside” in Berry’s view is that some of the favourable elements of seed oils might get removed: “The only potential downside of this is that in that process of where the oil might've been heated or had these additional chemicals added, occasionally you might remove some of the other favorable elements in seed oils.”
Heating, hexane, solvents, extraction, processing, bleaching, deodorization, peroxide – “it’s not as scary as it sounds.” That’s the rebuttal. That doesn’t work for me. Contrast that with 38 minutes into the podcast with Nina where she talked about the uniforms (of the workers in fast food chains) spontaneously combusting with the chemicals on the fabric.
Just to close this point, I think that food refinement generally is sub optimal. I think that olives are healthier than olive oil; oranges are healthier than orange juice; sunflower seeds are healthier than sunflower oil. I think that it is best to consume food in the form it is found in nature.

4) Seed oils when they're heated are prone to oxidation.
Berry presented the argument as “ And so this is one of the big arguments that's used as well, that seed oils have a large amount of polyunsaturated fatty acids. The double bonds mean they're prone to oxidation. And when you heat them, therefore it damages the oil and it produces all of these toxic compounds.” Wolf asked, “Does it?” Berry replied, “No.” She said that she’d done a randomized controlled trial (RCT) many years ago, which she’d “forgotten about until I was thinking about this podcast yesterday.”
The RCT was a crossover trial, which was conducted at KCL on 19 healthy males aged 18-40 years. The trial wasn’t referenced on the ZOE podcast page, but enough information was given for me to track it. (The reference takes you to what looks like an abstract rather than a peer-reviewed paper. ADM-PURA – an edible oil manufacturer – is thanked at the end) (Ref 43).
The men were given 50g of oil (mostly sunflower oil) in a muffin. The men consumed muffins with fresh oil and then consumed muffins with the oil having been used to fry potato chips 5 times a day for 10 days. The study tested something called the flow-mediated dilation, as a measure of how blood vessels functioned during the hours after consuming the oil (the podcast said eight hours, the abstract said three hours. We should assume the three hours is accurate, as it was in the ‘abstract’ ). Berry summarised “There was no difference between the fresh oil or this rather nasty-sounding oil that we'd repeat fried on our measurements of these oxidative compounds.” Wolf said, "So it doesn't really matter in real life is what you're saying." Berry confirmed, "It doesn't matter in real life."
And that’s the rebuttal. Put “does flow mediation measure oxidation?” into a search engine. The answer I got was “No, flow-mediated dilation (FMD) does not directly measure oxidation.” Try “over what period of time does oxidation damage the body?” The answer I got was “Oxidation damage to the body occurs gradually over a long period of time.” The 3-hour, 19-men, non-full paper, non-peer reviewed, muffin test may have convinced you not to worry about seed oil oxidation. I have no seed oils in the house, haven’t for years, and I’m not planning to change this.
Wolf pushed for a "really clear answer" on cooking, heating seed oils above a certain temperature (seeing smoke) – “has that become harmful?” Berry reassured him "The worst thing that's going to happen is it will taste pretty rubbish. The second worst thing that's going to happen is you will have deactivated some of the beneficial compounds that are found in seed oils."
I shared the ZOE podcast with Guy Ben Zvi for his comments. Guy and I did a podcast on omega-3 oils in May 2024 (Ref 44). (Disclosure, Guy distributes omega-3 oils). I’ve arranged a follow-up podcast with Guy on omega-6 oils this week. He heats and tests oils in his lab to analyse what happens (he shared some videos with me). Guy said “The thing is that this worst thing is really the worst. The ‘taste pretty rubbish’ is the taste of oxidation products of the unsaturated double bonds in PUFA and MUFA. The primary oxidation products – peroxides, that bitter burning sensation of burnt rancid oil in your throat, and the disgusting ‘I want to vomit’ taste of aldehydes, those terrible secondary peroxidation products like malondialdehyde (MDA), acrolein, HENE 3 and a bunch of other nasty stuff that is literally killing the western industrialized food world.”
We’ve come to the end of the debunks for the four arguments, which Professor Berry says are nutri-nonsense. Another argument for not consuming seed oils, which I promised to add, is that they are nutritionally poor and highly calorific. This makes them a bad ‘bang for the buck’ in terms of food choices. At nearly 900 calories for 100g, they provide no essential fats in the form we want them (no EPA, DHA, arachidonic acid), no protein, no minerals, no water soluble vitamins – just a couple of fat soluble vitamins. There is always something better to consume than oils.
The recent Scientific Report for the Dietary Guidelines for Americans reported “The HUSS recommendations for Oils are 15 to 51 g per day of Oils for individuals ages 2 years and older” (HUSS is the Healthy U.S.-Style Dietary Pattern – the recommended diet for Americans) (Ref 45). That’s up to 450 essentially useless calories that Americans are supposed to consume and we wonder why we have obesity and ill-health.
We will return to seed oils with the podcasts with Chris and Guy and with a review of Berry’s claim that seed oils reduce cardiovascular disease (when I get the source for that). During the ZOE and Diary of a CEO podcasts, Berry also singled out one randomised controlled trial for criticism of those who think seed oils are toxic. In the ZOE podcast, she said “There's a study that's often referred to as well. It's called the Sydney Heart Study. And this is a key study that people use as a way of saying, actually, even in a randomized control trial, that seed oils are bad for us.” In the Diary of a CEO podcast, Berry accused those who thinks seed oils are bad of cherry picking this study to claim that seed oils are bad. I’ve got a Monday note in progress to put the Sydney Heart Study in the context of all RCTs on this topic to see what the totality of the evidence concluded (because I looked at all of them for my PhD – see Ref 2).
References
Ref 1: https://www.zoeharcombe.com/2025/01/zoe-dr-nina-teicholz-talk-about-seed-oils/
Ref 2: The inclusion criteria for my PhD were RCTs and epidemiological studies available at the time of the dietary guidelines being introduced (c. 1980) and at the time of my PhD (2016). The RCTs needed to have modified and/or reduced fat as a dietary intervention and to have results reported for serum cholesterol, mortality from Coronary Heart Disease and mortality from all-causes.
Ref 3: https://zoe.com/learn/podcast-seed-oils-lower-risk-heart-disease
Ref 4: https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2025/jan/13/robert-f-kennedy-jr-claims-seed-oils-are-poisoning-us-heres-why-hes-wrong
Ref 5: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14300997/Lives-risk-butter-Gen-Z.html
Ref 6: https://zoe.com/learn/sarah-berry
Ref 7: https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/10902884
Ref 8: https://zoe.com/learn/jonathan-wolf
Ref 9: https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/10902884
Ref 10: https://tim-spector.co.uk/research/ and https://twinsuk.ac.uk/
Ref 11: https://health-study.zoe.com/post/covid-testing-uk
Ref 12: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/huge-boost-to-national-testing-study-will-offer-new-covid-19-insights
Ref 13: https://www.ft.com/content/b1b60f54-5d32-4644-a5f9-27af3c1704c7
Ref 14: https://health-study.zoe.com/post/government-funding-announcement
Ref 15: https://health-study.zoe.com/post/introducing-the-zoe-health-study
Ref 16: https://www.levels.com/
Ref 17: https://www.balderton.com/news/zoe-raises-25m-and-invites-community-to-become-owners/
Ref 18: https://corporate.marksandspencer.com/media/press-releases/ms-food-leads-innovation-2024-launching-world-first-collaboration-nutritionZOE Science & Nutrition podcast
Ref 19: https://www.ocado.com/products/m-s-x-zoe-the-gut-shot-624265011?
Ref 20: https://sifted.eu/articles/zoe-healthtech-cost-cutting-news
https://www.linkedin.com/posts/jonathanwolf_zoe-company-announcement-11-april-2024-activity-7184181177723817984-3Otq
Ref 21: https://zoe.com/learn/daily30-and-what-it-contains
Ref 22: https://retailtimes.co.uk/say-hello-to-zoe-exclusive-product-launch-marks-the-start-of-an-exciting-new-partnership-with-waitrose/
Ref 23: https://bmmagazine.co.uk/get-funded/uk-wellness-start-up-zoe-secures-15m-investment-to-expand-in-us/
Ref 24: https://zoe.com/steven
Ref 25: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c0rwz5xkrg8o
Ref 26: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eOnIWDMNyfE
Ref 27: https://www.thegrocer.co.uk/news/health-app-and-gut-shot-brand-zoe-staff-facing-further-redundancies/697213.article
Ref 28: https://www.kcl.ac.uk/people/sarah-berry
Ref 29: https://tinyurl.com/3nj6kdve
Ref 30: https://www.kcl.ac.uk/news/new-kings-and-unilever-bioscience-innovation-hub-launched
Ref 31: https://www.unileverfoodsolutions.co.uk/oil.html
Ref 32: https://www.rlmedicine.com/blog/seed-oils
https://www.nutrition.org.uk/training-and-events/current-training/a-matter-of-fat/
Lockyer, Berry et al. How do we differentiate not demonise – Is there a role for healthier processed foods in an age of food insecurity? Proceedings of a roundtable event. BNF Nutrition Bulletin. May 2023. https://doi.org/10.1111/nbu.12617
Ref 33: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Nutrition_Foundation
Ref 34: https://zoe.com/learn/podcast-seed-oils-lower-risk-heart-disease
Ref 35: The transcript had an error here that I checked – it said “cedar” instead of seed oils. That’s the only time I changed the transcript in my reporting of it.
Ref 36: Chris Knobbe and Marija Stojanoskab. The ‘Displacing Foods of Modern Commerce’ Are the Primary and Proximate Cause of Age-Related Macular Degeneration: A Unifying Singular Hypothesis. Medical Hypotheses. 2017. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29150284/
Ref 37: Kawashima. Intake of arachidonic acid-containing lipids in adult humans: dietary surveys and clinical trials. Lipids in health and disease. 2019.
https://lipidworld.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12944-019-1039-y
Ref 38: Johnson & Fritsche. Effect of Dietary Linoleic Acid on Markers of Inflammation in Healthy Persons: A Systematic Review of Randomized Controlled Trials. Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics. July 2012. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jand.2012.03.029
Ref 39: Steele et al. Pushing partnerships: corporate influence on research and policy via the International Life Sciences Institute. Public Health Nutr. 2020.
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7348693/
Ref 40: https://www.nutritionsolutions.net/
https://www.rlmedicine.com/blog/seed-oils
One conflicted author, Kevin Fritsche, was the sole author on another of the five references on the ZOE podcast page.
Ref 41: Simopoulos. The importance of the ratio of omega-6/omega-3 essential fatty acids. Biomedicine & Pharmacotherapy. 2002. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12442909/
See other papers by Simopoulos on this ratio.
Ref 42: https://fdc.nal.usda.gov/food-details/171027/nutrients
Ref 43: Berry et al. The acute effect of meals rich in re-used deep-fried oil on endothelial function. Proceedings of the Nutrition Society. 2010.
https://tinyurl.com/bdewxr4c
https://www.adm.com/en-us/products-services/human-nutrition/products/edible-specialty-oils/
Ref 44: https://www.zoeharcombe.com/2024/05/zoe-chats-with-guy-ben-zvi-about-omega3-and-fish-oils/
Ref 45: https://www.zoeharcombe.com/2025/01/dietary-guidelines-for-americans-2025-2030/