THE ENERGY DOCTOR'S WARNING

Dr. Cate Shanahan on the Hidden Health Crisis of Seed Oils

COURTNEY MCGEE

2025

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In an age when nutritional advice is constantly shifting, Dr. Cate Shanahan offers a startlingly clear and urgent message: if you care about your health, start by eliminating seed oils.

Known as “The Energy Doctor,” Dr. Shanahan is a Cornell-trained physician-scientist and bestselling author whose influence has helped launch modern wellness trends like bone broth, kombucha, and fermented foods. Dr. Shanahan sat down with TereZa Hakobyan-Lolli and Anthony Lolli, Editors-in-Chief of longevity and wellness platform Biohack Yourself, for an interview for the influential upcoming women’s health documentary, “sHEALed,” and delivered what may be her most potent warning yet — a deep dive into the toxic undercurrent of our food supply: industrial seed oils.

From her early health struggles in 2002 to becoming a central voice in the anti-seed oil movement, Shanahan’s journey has been driven by both personal healing and scientific curiosity. “I developed a health problem myself and after nothing helped — not surgery, not even a Hawaiian kahuna — my husband suggested I might be eating too much sugar,” she recalls. But what truly changed her life was reading Spontaneous Healing by Dr. Andrew Weil. “In that book, I came across the phrase 'polyunsaturated fatty acid-rich oils' and my chemistry background kicked in. These oils can polymerize — like varnish — and I realized I needed to understand what they were doing in the body.”

What she uncovered led to a decades-long crusade against what she now calls the “hateful eight”: corn, canola, cottonseed, soy, sunflower, safflower, rice bran, and grapeseed oils. According to Shanahan, these oils are not just unhealthy — they are responsible for what she calls “the collapse of metabolic health in America.”

The sHEALed Documentary is the sister documentary to Biohack Yourself, which became a massive success after exploding on the scene in December 2024 and ignited a firestorm of interest in information focused on health and longevity. Biohack Yourself features 114 prominent and respected high-profile politicians, doctors, bestselling authors, Ph.D.s, M.D.s, scientists, chemists, inventors, biotech investors, and world-renowned academics. Stemming from the success of Biohack Yourself, TereZa Hakobyan-Lolli and Anthony Lolli have grown Biohack Yourself Media to become the number one resource for health news, publishing over 500 articles ranging from breaking news to peer reviewed content.

The True Cost of “Heart-Healthy” Oils

These oils, often promoted as heart-healthy alternatives to saturated fats, are in reality “refined, oxidized toxins,” says Shanahan. When heated — particularly in deep fryers — they degrade into dangerous compounds known as alpha-beta unsaturated aldehydes, the same cancer-causing toxins found in cigarette smoke. “The amount of toxin in a single French fry is equivalent to the amount of toxin you get from smoking a cigarette,” she warns.

That comparison isn’t hyperbole — it's rooted in molecular chemistry. These oils, especially after industrial processing, react with oxygen and produce oxidative stress in the body, depleting our natural antioxidants and contributing to conditions ranging from type 2 diabetes to infertility, premature menopause, dementia, and cancer.

Shanahan notes that the consumption of these oils has doubled in the past 20 years, and this increase mirrors the rise in obesity and chronic disease. “We’ve actually decreased sugar and flour intake in that same period, yet obesity has doubled,” she says. “That points directly to seed oils.”

Why Seed Oils Took Over the Food Supply

Seed oils weren’t always part of the human diet. In fact, Shanahan traces their widespread use to industrial and political motivations dating back to World War II, when the U.S. began producing vegetable oils as machine lubricants. After the war, surplus soy and cottonseed oils flooded the market. To sell them, companies like Procter & Gamble hired marketing mastermind Edward Bernays — author of Propaganda — to rebrand these oils as health foods, even convincing the American Heart Association to endorse them.

“Doctors were duped,” says Shanahan. “This wasn’t science; it was marketing disguised as medicine.”

She believes the results have been devastating. “Our food has been poisoned by profit motives, and now we’re paying the price with our health — and our children's.”

Reclaiming Health: What You Can Do

The damage, while severe, is not irreversible. Shanahan outlines a clear action plan for anyone ready to reclaim their health:

Memorize the Hateful Eight: Corn, canola, cottonseed, soy, sunflower, safflower, rice bran, and grapeseed. Avoid them completely.
Read Ingredient Labels: “If you can turn the bottle around, you can turn your health around,” she quips.
Eat Traditional Fats: Replace seed oils with olive oil, coconut oil, butter, and animal fats like tallow.
Rebuild Antioxidant Defenses: Focus on nourishing your body with whole foods rich in vitamins and minerals. Shanahan notes that the body can regenerate its own powerful antioxidants when given the right nutrients.
Be Patient: Seed oils accumulate in fat tissue and can take 18 months to five years to clear from the body, depending on weight.
Embrace Traditional Cuisines: Her “Four Pillars” — fresh food, fermented and sprouted food, meat on the bone, and organ meats — are common across all ancestral diets and offer a framework for robust health.

Beyond Food: Reclaiming Culinary Wisdom

Shanahan is not just calling for dietary change — she’s calling for a cultural reset. “We’ve lost the culinary knowledge that literally made us human,” she says, pointing to the science of epigenetics that connects nutrient intake to genetic expression. “Our food built our brains, our bones, our very biology. When we trade that for processed convenience, we’re not just getting sick — we’re devolving as a species.”

Her new platform, Rebel Well, aims to help people reconnect with ancestral eating and ditch processed foods for good. “You have to be a rebel to be well,” she says. “The system isn’t going to save you.”

A Message to Women

While seed oils affect everyone, Shanahan emphasizes their unique harm to women’s health. From PCOS and infertility to breast cancer and early menopause, she says these issues are linked to the inflammatory and hormonal disruptions caused by seed oils. “The toxins in seed oils are indistinguishable from those in cigarette smoke. If we accept that cigarettes cause cancer, why not seed oils?”

Her message to women: knowledge is power. “Your body is an incredible piece of natural technology. It can heal, reverse damage, and thrive — but only if we stop poisoning it.”

Final Thoughts

Dr. Cate Shanahan is not a fringe figure shouting into the void. She is a respected physician who has worked with elite athletes (including the Los Angeles Lakers) and helped launch some of the most influential health movements of the last two decades. Her voice is backed by science, personal experience, and a deep understanding of biochemistry.

While her message may be uncomfortable — and certainly inconvenient in a world dominated by processed food — it’s also a message of hope. Health is not just possible, it’s within reach. But it starts with awareness, courage, and, as Shanahan puts it, a little rebellion.

Quick Tips: Dr. Shanahan’s Action Plan to Detox from Seed Oils

Eat whole foods from the Four Pillars: fresh, fermented/sprouted, bone-in meats, organ meats
Be patient — it takes time (months to years) for your body to fully eliminate toxic fats
Focus on nutrient density to restore your antioxidant defenses
Get support from communities like Rebel Well
Start now — your brain, your mood, your metabolism, and your future self will thank you

Check here for information about the upcoming spring 2025 edition Biohack Yourself Magazine, where the team at Biohack Yourself Media dives deeper into their insights on biohacking, longevity and cutting-edge wellness strategies. Biohack Yourself Magazine is the first peer-reviewed longevity publication with international distribution across the U.S. and Canada, bringing science-backed health optimization, functional medicine and performance-driven breakthroughs to a broader audience. Pick up a copy at major retailers, including Barber & Noble, Books-A-Million, Publix, Kroger, Indigo/Chapters, and select fitness gyms and pharmacies.