Re-heated Sunflower Oil Releases more Toxic Aldehydes Than Olive Oil

Heating and re-heating oil to frying temperature produces toxic by-products, which can be detrimental to health.

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Sunflower contains more poly-unsaturated fatty acids whereas olive oil contains more mono-unsaturated fatty acids. Re-heating sunflower oil produced more toxic compounds than olive oil.
It has been seen by researchers from University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU, Spain) that re-heating these oils at 190 degree Celsius produced aldehyde those are potentially toxic to human body.
The maximum permissible limit of polar components (degradation products coming from frying) is 25% according to the Spanish regulations that control the quality of heated fats and oils.
Though aldehyde are generally volatile and evaporate to atmosphere, can be found in food too. Sometimes this exceeds the limit of 25% in food.
Some of the toxic by-products can cause some neurodegenerative diseases and some types of cancer.

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• Toxic aldehydes detected in reheated oil (physorg.com)

Mediterranean diet: Importance of individual components

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"The most protective components of the Mediterranean diet are moderate alcohol intake, low intake of meat and meat products, and high intakes of vegetables, fruits, nuts, olive oil and legumes." I quote from CIMS the benefits of Mediterranean diet. Of course, we can not go there for the diet; but can adopt the some of the diet feasible to have in our region. And that is the essence.

clipped from www.mims.com The study included 23,349 men and women. After an average follow-up of 8.5 years, mortality was 652/12,694 among people with a Mediterranean diet score of 0–4 and 423/10,655 among people with a score of 5 or more. After controlling for confounders, the Mediterranean diet was associated with a significant reduction in mortality of 14% per 2-unit increase in score. Moderate consumption of alcohol contributed 23.5% to this reduction; low consumption of meat and meat products, 16.6%; high consumption of vegetables, 16.2%; high consumption of fruit and nuts, 11.2%; high monounsaturated: saturated fat ratio, 10.6%; and high consumption of legumes, 9.7%. High intake of fish and seafood was associated with a non-significant increase in mortality. High consumption of cereals and low con­sumption of dairy products had little effect. Trichopoulou A, et al. Anatomy of health effects of Mediterranean diet: Greek EPIC prospective cohort study. BMJ 2009;339:26–29.

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