Research
Mixed
Excessive dietary intake of linoleic acid (LA) leads to the formation of oxidized linoleic acid metabolites (OXLAMs) and alters cardiolipin composition, causing mitochondrial dysfunction and contributing to chronic diseases such as cardiovascular disease, cancer, and Alzheimer's.
Reduce intake of seed oils (soybean, corn, canola, sunflower) to lower linoleic acid consumption. This may help reduce the production of harmful metabolites linked to chronic disease, though the process is slow due to LA's long half-life.
ModerateSupportsMEDIUM confidence
an excessive intake of LA leads to the formation of oxidized linoleic acid metabolites (OXLAMs), impairments in mitochondrial function through suboptimal cardiolipin composition, and likely contributes to many chronic diseases that became an epidemic in the 20th century
Why this rating
The paper is a narrative review citing observational and animal studies, lacking large-scale human RCTs for the specific claim of harm from LA alone.
Source
Linoleic Acid: A Narrative Review of the Effects of Increased Intake in the Standard American Diet and Associations with Chronic Disease
Joseph Mercola et al. · Nutrients · 2023
DOI 10.3390/nu15143129
narrative_reviewCited 145×
Read the paper DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10
More from this paper
- Linoleic acid has a long half-life in the body (approximately two years), meaning that reducing intake takes years to significantly lower tissue levels.Good
- High dietary linoleic acid intake inhibits the conversion of short-chain omega-3 fatty acids (ALA) to long-chain omega-3 fatty acids (EPA/DHA) by inhibiting delta-desaturase enzyme activity.Moderate
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