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In December 2012, researchers from the Max Planck Institute of Psychiatry in Munich discovered that childhood trauma can causes  genetic changes that result in dysregulation of the stress hormone system.  After studying 2,000 children who had been exposed to trauma, only a third of  them went on to develop PTSD later in life. Interestingly, the risk of developing post-traumatic stress disorder only increased in individuals who are carriers of specific genetic variant  called the FKBP5 gene. Psychiatrists hope that by studying this genetic variant they can improve treatment of PTSD in children. (92 Words)

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In September of 2021, a research team from Ohio State University found that highly processed foods can harm memory in aging brains. There were 3 and 24-month-old mice and three groups of diets. A normal diet, a processed diet, and a processed diet + DHA. When the younger mice had different diets, they showed no significant difference. When the older mice had the processed diet, they expressed memory loss traits and weight gain. But, with the DHA diet, they had no memory loss and highly regulated the inflammation response gene (CRP) but they still gained weight. (98 words)

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Four weeks on a diet of highly processed food led to a strong inflammatory response in the brains of aging rats that was accompanied by behavioral signs of memory loss, a new study has found.

Researchers also found that supplementing the processed diet with the omega-3 fatty acid DHA prevented memory problems and reduced the inflammatory effects almost entirely in older rats.

Neuroinflammation and cognitive problems were not detected in young adult rats that ate the processed diet.

The study diet mimicked ready-to-eat human foods that are often packaged for long shelf lives, such as potato chips and other snacks, frozen entrees like pasta dishes and pizzas, and deli meats containing preservatives.

Highly processed diets are also associated with obesity and type 2 diabetes, suggesting older consumers might want to scale back on convenience foods and add foods rich in DHA, such as salmon, to their diets, researchers say -- especially considering harm to the aged brain in this study was evident in only four weeks.

"The fact we're seeing these effects so quickly is a little bit alarming," said senior study author Ruth Barrientos, an investigator in The Ohio State University Institute for Behavioral Medicine Research and associate professor of psychiatry and behavioral health.

"These findings indicate that consumption of a processed diet can produce significant and abrupt memory deficits -- and in the aging population, rapid memory decline has a greater likelihood of progressing into neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's disease. By being aware of this, maybe we can limit processed foods in our diets and increase consumption of foods that are rich in the omega-3 fatty acid DHA to either prevent or slow that progression."

The research is published in the journal Brain, Behavior, and Immunity.

Barrientos' lab studies how everyday life events -- such as surgery, an infection or, in this case, an unhealthy diet -- might trigger inflammation in the aging brain, with a specific focus on the hippocampus and amygdala regions. This work builds on her previous research suggesting a short-term, high-fat diet can lead to memory loss and brain inflammation in older animals, and that DHA levels are lower in the hippocampus and amygdala of the aged rat brain.

DHA, or docosahexaenoic acid, is an omega-3 fatty acid that is present along with eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) in fish and other seafood. Among DHA's multiple functions in the brain is a role in fending off an inflammatory response -- this is the first study of its ability to act against brain inflammation brought on by a processed diet.

The research team randomly assigned 3-month-old and 24-month-old male rats to their normal chow (32% calories from protein, 54% from wheat-based complex carbs and 14% from fat), a highly processed diet (19.6% of calories from protein, 63.3% from refined carbs -- cornstarch, maltodextrin and sucrose -- and 17.1% from fat), or the same processed diet supplemented with DHA.

Activation of genes linked to a powerful pro-inflammatory protein and other markers of inflammation was significantly elevated in the hippocampus and amygdala of the older rats that ate the processed diet alone compared to young rats on any diet and aged rats that ate the DHA-supplemented processed food.

The older rats on the processed diet also showed signs of memory loss in behavioral experiments that weren't evident in the young rats. They forgot having spent time in an unfamiliar space within a few days, a sign of problems with contextual memory in the hippocampus, and did not display anticipatory fear behavior to a danger cue, which suggested there were abnormalities in the amygdala.

"The amygdala in humans has been implicated in memories associated with emotional -- fear and anxiety-producing -- events. If this region of the brain is dysfunctional, cues that predict danger may be missed and could lead to bad decisions," Barrientos said.

The results also showed that DHA supplementation of the processed-food diets consumed by the older rats effectively prevented the elevated inflammatory response in the brain as well as behavioral signs of memory loss.

Researchers don't know the exact dosage of DHA -- or precise calories and nutrients -- taken in by the animals, which all had unlimited access to food. Both age groups gained a significant amount of weight on the processed diet, with old animals gaining significantly more than the young animals. DHA supplementation had no preventive effect on weight gain associated with eating highly processed foods.

That was a key finding: Barrientos cautioned against interpreting the results as a license for consumers to feast on processed foods as long as they take a DHA supplement. A better bet to prevent multiple negative effects of highly refined foods would be focusing on overall diet improvement, she said.

"These are the types of diets that are advertised as being low in fat, but they're highly processed. They have no fiber and have refined carbohydrates that are also known as low-quality carbohydrates," she said. "Folks who are used to looking at nutritional information need to pay attention to the fiber and quality of carbohydrates. This study really shows those things are important."

This research was supported by the National Institute on Aging, the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research, and the Ohio Agricultural Research and Development Center. Co-authors include Michael Butler, Nicholas Deems, Stephanie Muscat and Martha Belury from Ohio State and Christopher Butt of Inotiv Inc. in Boulder, Colorado.

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diet and weight loss; nutrition; obesity; cholesterol; food; food and agriculture; mice; animal learning and intelligence

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How highly processed foods harm memory in the aging brain: Study in animals suggests omega-3 may reduce effects

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Four weeks on a diet of highly processed food led to a strong inflammatory response in the brains of aging rats that was accompanied by behavioral signs of memory loss, a new study has found. Researchers also found that supplementing the processed diet with the omega-3 fatty acid DHA prevented memory problems and reduced the inflammatory effects almost entirely in older rats.

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Jackson Gustafson: How fat consumption effects hair loss 

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Jackson Gustafson: How fat consumption effects hair loss 

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a group of researchers from Tokyo Medical and Dental University Lead a study on how the consumption of fat effects hair growth in mice. They conducted this project by giving a group of mice a normal diet and another group a diet high in fat. They observed the hair follicles in the mice with a high fat diet acted differently than that of those who were on a normal diet. After a few weeks of the experiment they observed hair thinning and loss in the mice with a high fat diet.

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Chase Moretz: Head Injuries leading to Brain Diseases

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Chase Moretz: Head Injuries leading to Brain Diseases

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Biologists at UCLA have traced individual cells during brain trauma and have discovered that some genes play a factor in severity. The research discovered that mice with low levels of cells of a gene called Ttr had worse trauma than those with. In response they injected a hormone called T4 which function the same as Ttr, thus reducing the injury. With that being said, biologists found several genes that have been impacted by brain injury, which has recently been associated with neurotic behavior in humans. In the words of Mr. Yang, "Knowing which genes in which cells are changing in a particular person can lead to the right treatment for that person."

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Scientists have proven that an excess of light exposure during the nighttime can lead to changing the patterns in gene expression and can lead to breast cancer. In their experiment, they found that those who were exposed to more light during their sleep hours showed a significant slowed cycling of the Per2 clock gene, which is thought to be a tumor suppressor.

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Researchers are exploring one possible physiologic explanation of why prior studies have demonstrated a higher risk of breast cancer in women who experience high levels of illumination at night. Their study results in an animal model will be presented Saturday at the Endocrine Society's 98th annual meeting in Boston.

The mammary gland in the female appears to be sensitive to changes in light exposure, initially reacting to excess nighttime light in ways that might lead to tumor development, a research team from Oregon State University in Corvallis discovered.

"The medical research community is beginning to recognize that multiple environmental factors likely contribute to the development of hormone-dependent breast cancer through processes that can change normal patterns of gene expression or hormone responsiveness," said lead researcher Rebecca Veitch, MS, a graduate student at the university.

Among the environmental factors that scientists are exploring are chemicals and, less often, society's increasing exposure to nighttime illumination, such as streetlights and digital technology. Most Americans--95 percent, according to a 2011 poll from the National Sleep Foundation--report using an electronic device in the hour before bedtime at least a few nights a week.

Light is the main cue for setting the body's biological clock and circadian rhythms, which affect the release of hormones, sleep-wake cycles, metabolism and other important functions. This internal clock, Veitch explained, regulates the timing and expression of so-called clock genes that are necessary for many cellular functions, such as cell growth, cell proliferation and DNA repair. The Per2 clock gene is thought to be a tumor suppressor gene, she said.

Extended exposure to light, Veitch and her co-workers theorized, could disrupt normal cellular behaviors and gene expression, particularly in hormone-dependent tissues like the breast. Most aggressive forms of breast cancer stop responding to signals from the hormones estrogen and progesterone, she pointed out.

For three weeks, the investigators exposed one group of female mice to an extended light cycle of 18 hours of light and six hours of darkness, and another group of mice to 12 hours each of light and dark. The mice exposed to longer light exhibited significantly slowed cycling, or fluctuation, of the Per2 clock gene--from normal 24-hour cycling to approximately 42 hours--in mammary tissues but, to the investigators' surprise, there was no change in other peripheral tissues outside the brain. Slower cycling could indicate that cellular functions regulated by the biological clock are not working at the right times, Veitch said.

In other cohorts of mice exposed the same two light-dark cycles, only the extended light cycle group had substantially decreased expression of the genes that encode, or supply the genetic code for, estrogen receptors alpha and beta. Estrogen receptors are proteins that bind to DNA and can act as on-off switches for cell responses. An abundance of estrogen receptor beta is often associated with decreased spread of breast cancer and lower death rates due to breast cancer, Veitch noted. The expression of estrogen receptors alpha and beta was especially low in the mammary gland of the mice exposed to the extended light cycle.

"Our study provides new avenues of exploration for determining what might initiate breast cancer growth," Veitch commented. "This study also raises awareness of potential consequences of inappropriate nighttime light as a suspected mechanism of breast cancer."

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breast cancer; women's health; cancer; gene therapy; diseases and conditions; hormone disorders; brain tumor; gynecology

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Study investigates light, biological clocks, estrogen receptor expression in the breast

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Researchers are exploring one possible physiologic explanation of why prior studies have demonstrated a higher risk of breast cancer in women who experience high levels of illumination at night. Their study results in an animal model will be presented Saturday at the Endocrine Society's 98th annual meeting in Boston.

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How does smoking cause cancer. Harmful poisons damage the DNA, this weakens the immune system making it vulnerable to cancer. Smoking then allows a cancerous tumor to begin to grow. People who smoke nowadays have more of a risk of lung cancer than people who smokes in the 1960's even if they smoke less due to the types of chemicals and poisons in the cigarettes. Smoking basically weakens your DNA allowing there to be cancerous DNA and for it to grow/reproduce.

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Ethan Wagner: Young Social Connections With Hyenas

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Ethan Wagner: Young Social Connections With Hyenas

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Researchers found that better social connections and extra maternal care in a hyena cub and subadult years can reduce the stress hormone levels in the hyena and and less modification of the DNA. Hyenas are devoted mothers and they have a strong social hierarchy and they typically give birth to one or two cubs at a time. Soon after birth, the Hyena cubs move into a communal den, but they still nurse and are taken care of by their mothers. Stress hormones can be raised in a situation for instance being chased by a lion or a higher-ranking hyena. Hyenas, like other vertebrates, shut down non-essential functions, like digestion or reproduction, when escaping a dangerous situation.

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Early-life social connections influence gene expression, stress resilience

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Having friends may not only be good for the health of your social life, but also for your actual health -- if you’re a hyena, that is. Strong social connections and greater maternal care early in life can influence molecular markers related to gene expression in DNA and future stress response, sugge…

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Ryan: How meditation can help with gene expression

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Ryan: How meditation can help with gene expression

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In a recent study, scientists sought out to find a way to regulate your body and keep gene expression to a minimum. These scientists conducted an experiment to prove this involving meditation. In this experiment, they tracked two groups of people, one doing random activities for eight hours, and one group meditation for those eight hours. The experiment immediately proved the scientist’s hypothesis, as the meditation group showed results including drastic changes  in genetic and molecular statistics. These changes led to quicker recovery from mental illness, stress, and fatigue.

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With evidence growing that meditation can have beneficial health effects, scientists have sought to understand how these practices physically affect the body.

A new study by researchers in Wisconsin, Spain, and France reports the first evidence of specific molecular changes in the body following a period of mindfulness meditation.

The study investigated the effects of a day of intensive mindfulness practice in a group of experienced meditators, compared to a group of untrained control subjects who engaged in quiet non-meditative activities. After eight hours of mindfulness practice, the meditators showed a range of genetic and molecular differences, including altered levels of gene-regulating machinery and reduced levels of pro-inflammatory genes, which in turn correlated with faster physical recovery from a stressful situation.

"To the best of our knowledge, this is the first paper that shows rapid alterations in gene expression within subjects associated with mindfulness meditation practice," says study author Richard J. Davidson, founder of the Center for Investigating Healthy Minds and the William James and Vilas Professor of Psychology and Psychiatry at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

"Most interestingly, the changes were observed in genes that are the current targets of anti-inflammatory and analgesic drugs," says Perla Kaliman, first author of the article and a researcher at the Institute of Biomedical Research of Barcelona, Spain (IIBB-CSIC-IDIBAPS), where the molecular analyses were conducted.

The study was published in the journal Psychoneuroendocrinology.

Mindfulness-based trainings have shown beneficial effects on inflammatory disorders in prior clinical studies. The new results provide a possible biological mechanism for therapeutic effects.

The results show a down-regulation of genes that have been implicated in inflammation. The affected genes include the pro-inflammatory genes RIPK2 and COX2 as well as several histone deacetylase (HDAC) genes, which regulate the activity of other genes epigenetically by removing a type of chemical tag. What's more, the extent to which some of those genes were downregulated was associated with faster cortisol recovery to a social stress test involving an impromptu speech and tasks requiring mental calculations performed in front of an audience and video camera.

Perhaps surprisingly, the researchers say, there was no difference in the tested genes between the two groups of people at the start of the study. The observed effects were seen only in the meditators following mindfulness practice. In addition, several other DNA-modifying genes showed no differences between groups, suggesting that the mindfulness practice specifically affected certain regulatory pathways.

However, it is important to note that the study was not designed to distinguish any effects of long-term meditation training from those of a single day of practice. Instead, the key result is that meditators experienced genetic changes following mindfulness practice that were not seen in the non-meditating group after other quiet activities -- an outcome providing proof of principle that mindfulness practice can lead to epigenetic alterations of the genome.

Previous studies in rodents and in people have shown dynamic epigenetic responses to physical stimuli such as stress, diet, or exercise within just a few hours.

"Our genes are quite dynamic in their expression and these results suggest that the calmness of our mind can actually have a potential influence on their expression," Davidson says.

"The regulation of HDACs and inflammatory pathways may represent some of the mechanisms underlying the therapeutic potential of mindfulness-based interventions," Kaliman says. "Our findings set the foundation for future studies to further assess meditation strategies for the treatment of chronic inflammatory conditions."

Study funding came from National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (grant number P01-AT004952) and grants from the Fetzer Institute, the John Templeton Foundation, and an anonymous donor to Davidson. The study was conducted at the Center for Investigating Healthy Minds at the UW-Madison Waisman Center.

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genes; personalized medicine; medical topics; epigenetics; spirituality; intelligence; parkinson's; child development

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Study reveals gene expression changes with meditation

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With evidence growing that meditation can have beneficial health effects, scientists have sought to understand how these practices physically affect the body. A new study reports the first evidence of specific molecular changes in the body following a period of mindfulness meditation.

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A study on Himalayan rabbits showed how temperature can have an effect on gene expression. Himalayan rabbits carry the C gene, which is responsible for the pigments in the fur, skin, and eyes. The C gene is turned off when the temperature is above 35°C, but is fully turned on between 15°C and 25°C. In the warm parts of the rabbit the gene is turned off, causing these parts of the rabbit to be white, but in the colder area of the rabbits the gene is turned on, so the fur is black. (92 Words)

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How Social Interactions Can Alter Gene Expression in the Brain - Joseph Sherrard

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How Social Interactions Can Alter Gene Expression in the Brain - Joseph Sherrard

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Genes in the brain are malleable, and they respond to internal and external cues. University of Illinois professor Gene Robinson conducted a study on gene expression, which involved using microarrays to study the brains of honey bees. He knew that honey bees developed from nurses into foragers within the hive, but he theorized that a special gene called "for" (for foraging) helped the transition. This was correct, and manipulating it to express for "caused bees to forage precociously." Scientists found that bees socializing, in the form of exchanging pheromones, also increased gene expression of for, when foragers told young bees there weren't enough foragers.

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Our DNA determines a lot about who we are and how we play with others, but recent studies of social animals (birds and bees, among others) show that the interaction between genes and behavior is more of a two-way street than most of us realize.

This is not a new idea to neuroscience, but one that is gaining strength, said University of Illinois entomology and neuroscience professor Gene Robinson, lead author of a review on the subject this week in the journal Science. Stanford University biology professor Russell Fernald and Illinois cell and developmental biology and neuroscience professor David Clayton are co-authors.

Genes in the brain are malleable, turning on or off in response to internal and external cues. While genetic variation influences brain function and social behavior, the authors write, social information also alters gene expression in the brain to influence behavior.

Thanks to the newly sequenced genomes of several social animals, including honey bees and zebra finches, and new technologies such as microarrays (which allow researchers to glimpse the activity of thousands of genes at a time) neuroscientists are gradually coming to understand that "there is a dynamic relationship between genes and behavior," Robinson said. "Behavior is not etched in the DNA."

A critical insight came in 1992, in a study of songbirds led by David Clayton. He and his colleagues found that expression of a specific gene increases in the forebrain of a zebra finch or canary just after it hears a new song from a male of the same species. This gene, egr1, codes for a protein that itself regulates the expression of other genes.

The finding was not unprecedented; previous studies had shown that genes switch on and off when an animal is trained to perform a task in the laboratory, Robinson said.

But when Clayton's team found this change in gene expression in response to a social signal - a song from a potential competitor, something the bird would likely hear in nature - it drew attention to how powerfully social interactions can alter gene expression in the brain.

"What's more significant to a bird than hearing another bird singing?" Clayton said. "This is going on in the equivalent of our auditory cortex and association cortex, so this is pretty high-level stuff going on in the brain. And this was happening in more or less real time by very naturalistic stimuli."

Reading Clayton's 1992 paper "was a eureka moment for me," Robinson said.

"This just brought it out into the social world, saying that this occurred in animals that have to make a living in the real world and pay attention to a lot of nuanced stimuli," he said. "So I think that was really a very important step in our understanding."

In his own work, Robinson has used microarrays to study this phenomenon on a larger scale and has found that literally thousands of genes turn on or off in the honey bee brain in response to social stimuli. One such gene, called for (for foraging), was originally discovered in fruit flies by Marla Sokolowski at the University of Toronto. Flies that carry different versions of for show different types of foraging behavior. Each version gives its bearer a behavioral advantage in certain environmental conditions.

Robinson knew that honey bee workers start out working in the hive as nurses and only later graduate to the role of foragers. Perhaps, he reasoned, even though the differences in for are etched in the DNA in flies, this same gene in the bee might be more dynamic and help influence the transition from hive work to foraging.

In a study published in 2002, Robinson and his colleagues reported that expression of for did in fact increase in the brains of honey bees as they developed into foragers, and manipulating its expression caused bees to forage precociously.

The researchers also found that social factors, in the form of chemical signals called pheromones, induced this "upregulation" of for. Foragers produce a pheromone that signals to the younger bees that there are enough foragers. If the foragers are removed from the hive, some young bees develop into foragers much earlier in life than usual.

Sokolowski's work indicated that for had changed over evolutionary time, producing two varieties of fruit flies that differed in their behavior. Robinson had found that social information altered expression of the same gene over a much shorter timescale - within the lifespan of a honey bee - also changing its behavior.

"An appreciation of the idea that differences in gene expression can occur over vastly different time scales helps understand some of the complex relationships between genes, brain and behavior," Robinson said.

The picture that is emerging from these and other studies suggests that social signals can have a profound effect on when and how genes function.

An organism's genes, its environment, the social information it receives, "all these things interact," said Clayton. "Experience is constantly coming back in to the level of the DNA and twiddling the dials and the knobs."

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genes; human biology; gene therapy; psychology; social psychology; relationships; evolutionary biology; genetics; behavioral science

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Social Interactions Can Alter Gene Expression In Brain, And Vice Versa

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Our DNA determines a lot about who we are and how we play with others, but recent studies of social animals (birds and bees, among others) show that the interaction between genes and behavior is more of a two-way street than most of us realize.

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Parker: building muscle mass in monkeys 

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Parker: building muscle mass in monkeys 

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Lots of diseases have been proven to give monkeys soreness in their quadriceps. To fix this, scientists have discovered that injecting follistatin in the monkeys through gene therapy helps the soreness go away and helps them build muscle mass. I found this article in Science Daily

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Henry W : Oil causes genetic changes in the brain

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Henry W : Oil causes genetic changes in the brain

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According to Science Daily differnt oils can have many differnt affects on a person. the studies show that oils high in fat have more affect. Soybean oil and coconut oil are both high in fat and have the wors eaffects on the human brain. the worst affect are  Alzheimer's disease, anxiety, and deppression. If you have autism too much oils can be very bad for you. THis shows even more evedance on why to much oil is bad for you.

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New UC Riverside research shows soybean oil not only leads to obesity and diabetes, but could also affect neurological conditions like autism, Alzheimer's disease, anxiety, and depression.

Used for fast food frying, added to packaged foods, and fed to livestock, soybean oil is by far the most widely produced and consumed edible oil in the U.S., according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. In all likelihood, it is not healthy for humans.

It certainly is not good for mice. The new study, published this month in the journal Endocrinology, compared mice fed three different diets high in fat: soybean oil, soybean oil modified to be low in linoleic acid, and coconut oil.

The same UCR research team found in 2015 that soybean oil induces obesity, diabetes, insulin resistance, and fatty liver in mice. Then in a 2017 study, the same group learned that if soybean oil is engineered to be low in linoleic acid, it induces less obesity and insulin resistance.

However, in the study released this month, researchers did not find any difference between the modified and unmodified soybean oil's effects on the brain. Specifically, the scientists found pronounced effects of the oil on the hypothalamus, where a number of critical processes take place.

"The hypothalamus regulates body weight via your metabolism, maintains body temperature, is critical for reproduction and physical growth as well as your response to stress," said Margarita Curras-Collazo, a UCR associate professor of neuroscience and lead author on the study.

The team determined a number of genes in mice fed soybean oil were not functioning correctly. One such gene produces the "love" hormone, oxytocin. In soybean oil-fed mice, levels of oxytocin in the hypothalamus went down.

The research team discovered roughly 100 other genes also affected by the soybean oil diet. They believe this discovery could have ramifications not just for energy metabolism, but also for proper brain function and diseases such as autism or Parkinson's disease. However, it is important to note there is no proof the oil causes these diseases.

Additionally, the team notes the findings only apply to soybean oil -- not to other soy products or to other vegetable oils.

"Do not throw out your tofu, soymilk, edamame, or soy sauce," said Frances Sladek, a UCR toxicologist and professor of cell biology. "Many soy products only contain small amounts of the oil, and large amounts of healthful compounds such as essential fatty acids and proteins."

A caveat for readers concerned about their most recent meal is that this study was conducted on mice, and mouse studies do not always translate to the same results in humans.

Also, this study utilized male mice. Because oxytocin is so important for maternal health and promotes mother-child bonding, similar studies need to be performed using female mice.

One additional note on this study -- the research team has not yet isolated which chemicals in the oil are responsible for the changes they found in the hypothalamus. But they have ruled out two candidates. It is not linoleic acid, since the modified oil also produced genetic disruptions; nor is it stigmasterol, a cholesterol-like chemical found naturally in soybean oil.

Identifying the compounds responsible for the negative effects is an important area for the team's future research.

"This could help design healthier dietary oils in the future," said Poonamjot Deol, an assistant project scientist in Sladek's laboratory and first author on the study.

"The dogma is that saturated fat is bad and unsaturated fat is good. Soybean oil is a polyunsaturated fat, but the idea that it's good for you is just not proven," Sladek said.

Indeed, coconut oil, which contains saturated fats, produced very few changes in the hypothalamic genes.

"If there's one message I want people to take away, it's this: reduce consumption of soybean oil," Deol said about the most recent study.

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dieting and weight control; nutrition research; huntington's disease; disorders and syndromes; mice; food and agriculture; genetically modified; biotechnology and bioengineering

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America's most widely consumed oil causes genetic changes in the brain: Soybean oil linked to metabolic and neurological changes in mice

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New UC Riverside research shows soybean oil not only leads to obesity and diabetes, but could also affect neurological conditions like autism, Alzheimer's disease, anxiety, and depression. Used for fast food frying, added to packaged foods, and fed to livestock, soybean oil is by far the most widely produced and consumed edible oil in the U.S., according to the U.S.