August 6, 2026 Chronic Inflammation

Are Seed Oils Secretly Making You Fat? How Cutting Calories Hurt ‘Biggest Losers’ — Georgi Dinkov

When the immune system detects viruses, bacteria, toxic chemicals or anything non-self, it sends out inflammatory cells as the first line of defense.

These cells start an inflammatory response to trap microorganisms and other offending agents or to start healing injured tissue. The inflammatory response can cause pain, swelling, bruising or redness, and pain.

There are two types of inflammation:

Acute inflammation is the response to a sudden on-set attack or injury; symptoms include pain or tenderness, swelling, and flushed skin at the injury site.

Chronic inflammation is when the immune system continues sending inflammatory cells even when there is no longer danger. Autoimmune disorders, exposure to toxins, and untreated acute inflammation can cause chronic inflammation. There is usually chronic inflammation in Alzheimer’s disease, asthma, cancer, heart disease, rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and ankylosing spondylitis (AS), and type 2 diabetes, to name just a few.

Certain vitamins (A, C, D) and supplements (zinc) may reduce inflammation.

Some OTC medicines, such as ibuprofen (Advil®), aspirin (Bayer®) or naproxen (Aleve®), may reduce inflammation.

Steroid injections may decrease inflammation at a specific site in a joint or muscle.

Foods that have anti-inflammatory properties are oily fish (mackerel, salmon or sardines), leafy greens (spinach, kale), olive oil, and tomatoes.

Seed oils may be quietly driving the modern obesity epidemic, according to metabolic-health writer Georgi Dinkov — and the culprit isn’t sugar, he says, but the industrial cooking oils that replaced butter and animal fats over the past century.

Dinkov explores the metabolic theory of disease with Vital Signs host Brendon Fallon, arguing that polyunsaturated fats found in canola, soybean, and cottonseed oil drive chronic inflammation linked to obesity, cardiovascular disease, and declining fertility.

The conversation challenges the long-standing cholesterol hypothesis, pointing to a 2015 federal guideline change that removed dietary cholesterol limits, and questions why saturated fat continues to be villainized despite the shift.

The discussion also examines high-carbohydrate populations like the Tsimané tribe of the Amazon, who show remarkably low rates of heart disease and diabetes despite a diet almost entirely free of seed oils, and traces how these oils entered the food supply through 20th-century industrial agriculture.

Dinkov, whose background is in computer science rather than medicine, brings an outsider’s lens shaped by years working alongside biochemists early in his career and acquiring an informal biochemistry education at Georgetown University.

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Vital Signs’ host, guests, and contributors offer general information on improving health and wellness. This is not intended as diagnosis or medical advice. You should consult your medical doctor or holistic doctor before enacting any suggested strategies for health and wellness improvement, including those in relation to preventing or treating specific diseases featured on this program.

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