Talk:Erucic acid

Untitled
The article on Canola says Erucic acid had been linked to cancer in large amounts. This article needs to elaborate on this and other health risks there are from Erucic acid, and for that mater any health benefits.


 * I have the references for this article ready but there on the Windows PC which has gone down again. Please bare with me for a few days, until I get it up and running again.--Aspro 18:58, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

Health Concerns Rambling
What is all that rambling on about under "Health concerns"?
 * I'm adding a NPOV template to the section. Although in broad terms I think portions of the narrative there is roughly right, it's presented with an agenda.  Quite a bit of it isn't even relevant to erucic acid.  Some of it is incoherent.
 * I don't have enuf time tonight to be bold, so I'll just tag it. David.Throop 01:18, 12 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Hi David. Yes it does ramble somewhat. Expanding the article I came across so much negative information about erucic acid that I added the Health concerns section balance things out a bit and put it into proper context -or so I hope. However, such was was the amount of danger levelled at this particular fatty acid and frequently repeated non-sequiturs stated as facts, that I found myself unable to stay on topic. It needs a fresh pair of eyes to tidy it up. So I am not going to add any more text for now, but I might dig out the viscosity and other properties that have been missed out.--Aspro 11:07, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

I've readded an NPOV template as the article seemed to be campaigning for its safety and didn't mention that it is banned in food stuffs etc. Secretlondon 01:17, 3 November 2007 (UTC)
 * The text cites Rastogi for support that erucic acid is cardioprotective. Reading the Rastogi paper, it does say that mustard oil is cardioprotective.  But it explains this by noting the high levels of &omega;-3 linolenic acid which is cardioprotective.  It further notes that, in the studied population, &omega;-3 levels are otherwise low.  It says that mustard oil is cardioprotective notwithstanding the presence of erucic acid.
 * So the cited paper does not support the claim that erucic acid is cardioprotective.
 * David.Throop (talk) 17:14, 10 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Yeah, its the 'platelet' bit that is in need of a separate reference – as it stands it is putting things into Rastogi's mouth that he has not said. To expand the article from the original stub I must have read though some sixty papers and the the overall view on the affect on the platelets was at slight  variance with Rastogi's  very limited references (who was, after all, looking to possible negative  effects for worst case).  It might be better to  just keep the 'suggestion'  brief on this article and then refer the reader on to a physiological explanation of the effect that these longer chain fatty acids have on platelets than duplicate it all in this article. If anyone else wants to start searching WP they are welcome as I quite busy  now.--Aspro (talk) 22:00, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

I removed the following material as it discussed matters far afield from erucic acid. The material also has NPOV problems. The only one of the cites that discussed erucic acid (canadian biodiversity) did not support the point being made in the text.
 * The public food regulator, the FDA has been publicly accused of being biased towards protecting industrial interests, and allowing unsatisfactory scientific testing, such as animal testing, where human clinical tests are required. Other trials have shown that total diet substitutions by Brussels spouts, kale, cod's liver, hare and so on can cause very negative health effects, and so the tests of erucic acid on animals done as they are do not fully demonstrate whether or not erucic acid is a threat to health.  If the same safety factor (120) was applied to fluoride then all natural spring water would be deemed not fit to drink.

David.Throop (talk) 02:20, 11 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Just my 2¢. My daughter, who is “into” health-foods, e-mailed me this morning concerned about canola oil. She had run across a health newsletter that seemed to me to be full of inflammatory, unscientific rhetoric. While reading up on canola oil here on Wikiipedia, I followed the link to Eurcic acid. I think, like me, many other readers of this article will be coming here desirous of learning more about eurcic acid in the context of food metabolism, food, and canola/rapeseed oil. It was interesting to read what the industrial uses of eurcic acid are and the general nature of it. I hope editors on both sides of the isle here manage to buttress their edits (facts) with good, solid citations. Generally speaking, I find the nature and scope of this article to be well balanced, topical, informative, and addressing the interests of the typical reader who will be coming here. Having said all that, I am not making any statements about the factual accuracy of what’s here, just that the text is addressing the right issues to be of interest to readers. P.S. I don't feel this article merits a {neutrality} tag for very much longer. If there is a factual inaccuracy, let the person who slapped this article with the tag delete the offending error and replace it with the true, well-cited facts. If the tag is instead here because the author feels the article meanders into insufficiently relevant topics, I don’t believe that is the case whatsoever. I note that the author who apparently slapped on the tag justified doing so by stating, in part: “Quite a bit of it isn't even relevant to erucic acid. Some of it is incoherent.” Well, “relevant” is a relative term and the charge doesn’t hold water IMO given what’s currently in this article. I for one, found the content of this article to be addressing precisly those issues I was interested in. My only wish now is that what I’m reading is true. Accordingly, “relevancy” hasn’t anything to do with issues of “neutrality” and neither does “incoherent.” I suggest the tag be removed and the authors get back to editing with well cited facts. Greg L (my talk) 21:52, 8 February 2008 (UTC)


 * P.P.S.: I saw that the {neutrality} tag was slapped on a year ago, little resolution was achieved over the course of the last year, and no work has occurred here since December to resolve it. I’ve done a couple of edits on both sides of the argument to rid the article of bias and deleted the tag as the dispute has effectively been abandoned. Greg L (my talk) 23:29, 8 February 2008 (UTC)


 * This article should have had a neutral POV tag, at least up until now (when I did some work to try and "fix" it.) The evidence for the negative health effects of euric acid as comapred to other lipids is questionable, and based mainly on studies performed on rats (which present a poor model as they have difficulty metabolizing euric acid comapred to humans or even pigs, which present a better animal model;) and even then negative health effects were only observed in males.  What's more, it appears to be that euric acid only caused negative health effects in pigs when given in extremely high doses, such that I would start to suspect that any lipid would caused negative health effects at that level; since these levels are literally at the point of eating nothing put pure fat for weeks on end (diets of 100% euric acid are literally diets of pure fat and nothing else,) at which point I would think that any organism would start to suffer heart problems as a result, no matter what type of lipid (fat) they were consuming.  As such, I have myself attempted to "fix" the relevant articles by changing uncited statements of "fact" labeled as "needing citation" to statements of possibility (ie. "is known to cause" to "may cause,") and even at that it would be better if somebody with greater knowledge on the subject could come along and either cite these statements or delete them altogether. Regardless, the implications that commercially-sold Canola Oil is unsafe are highly unfounded as the varities sold in stores contain extremely low concentrations of euric acid (levles that are clearly safe for humans.) Works of Sweat (talk) 22:13, 20 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Can someone delete everything after the lead. The 2 separate sections on health convey little usable information.Mantion (talk) 21:44, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

Sentence requires editing
Erucic acid silver salt has be found to useful modify the properties of photographic film. This sentence in the Uses section requires editing for clarity by someone who understands the intent. Trelligan 16:46, 11 May 2007 (UTC)


 * There. Have endeavoured to keep it really simple to understand and comprehensive. Does it make sense to everyone? --Aspro 08:56, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

Erucic vs. euric
The article seems to be using "erucic acid" and "euric acid" interchangeably. Are both terms referring to the same substance? I've done a cursory search with Google, but haven't been able to come up with a definite answer. If they are synonyms, the article should introduce the synonym in the first paragraph, but consistently stick to only one term in the remainder of the text, for the sake of style. &mdash;QuicksilverT @ 19:23, 11 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Well spotted Quicksilver. I don't use any of Microsoft's word-processing applications, so I will happily blame this phenomena on Microsoft's maverick spell-checker. The name is derived from the  genus Eruca (which should be mentioned early on in the article) from which is was first obtained and identified. Whilst Euric is an ancient European name.  I imagine this is just another example of people  let the spell-checker change it into 'euric' for them and without proof reading it through afterwards.
 * But with Erucic acid at the very top of the article in bold, you would think they would notice.--Aspro (talk) 00:14, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Health issues not NPOV
The health section is really far from NPOV. It cites the canola oil council as a main reference (?) and has many references to an internet hoax, but ignores all the legitimate research and reasonable concerns detailed below. It appears to be a whitewash job focusing on a straw man.

I think it is fair to give more citations and points on the point of view there may be a risk in canola oil / erucic acid consumption. There is plenty of evidence and no definitive proof of safety in humans. What is the role of a long-term longitudinal study in humans in providing definitive evidence that canola oil is safe in terms of many potential health issues?

citations given below for all points. Some of these points may be belong here, some in the erucic acid article that should be linked, and others in both:

1) the FDA does require less than 2% erucic oil in food grade rapeseed oil, shouldn't this be mentioned, and why?

2) the defense against negative rat studies is that they have trouble processing vegetable oils. But some studies with negative results control for this, and in others specific changes in cellular chemistry specific to erucic acid are revealed. Rat studies elucidating the toxic mechanisms of erucic acid are still being made. In any case, the status of all rat studies showing negative health effects is a still questioned by some scientific researchers and should not be so simply dismissed. See citations below.

3) again in terms of this defense against rat studies, there are studies with health effects in mice and gerbils, and also pigs and squirrel monkeys that don't have trouble processing vegetable oils.

4) there are a number of studies in humans showing large changes in cellular chemistry due to erucic acid.

5) the article does not say why erucic acid should not be taken by infants. It is not broken down in the infant liver, but why is that necessary?
 * See Metabolism of erucic acid:  these particular enzymes are in short supply (as the mother's milk is the normal food source during this period), although not totally absent.[2][3] --Aspro (talk) 18:22, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

6) what are the specific mechanisms known in which erucic acid changes the cell walls of animals? what are the effects of these changes? Shouldn't an article including health effects of erucic acid get into these specific issues? Isn't the toxicity of erucic acid well studied, and a separate topic from whether small doses are safe?

7) Health effects or chemical changes in animals and human postmortem studies are not just heart lesions, but also red blood cells, brain cells, liver, kidney, adrenal gland, etc. Shouldn't these papers be summarized and referenced?

8) There is a recent result correlating levels of erucic acid and autism in children. Doesn't this deserve mention?

9) There is the issue of unlabeled trans-fat content, up to 4.2%, due to the deordorization process for canola oil. The article is about erucic acid, but the major health concern is now canola oil. This might deserve mention here, and certainly deserves mention in the canola oil health section.

Citations for all of these points are given below. Many of the papers, and all the abstracts, have online links.

This part needs to be rewritten by an expert, but I think some explanation of this is appropriate here. [Erucic acid is toxic at least in part because it alters the chemistry of cell membranes; numerous studies show the changes in cell membranes. It is a very long chain fatty acid that when taken up into the cell membrane interferes in normal function. This in turn alters the normal functioning of the cell, and also the mitochondria (the source of energy for all our cells) which has its own membrane. Brain cells are particularly susceptible to this due to their large surface area and complex cell membrane function. Our livers do not break down all of the toxic erucic acid we eat; some is esterified into human tissues and organs as shown by postmortem studies cited below. How much will accumulate over 70 years of daily consumption? Aren't long-term human longitudinal studies of all the potential health effects listed below the only sure way to determine the safety of erucic acid at present consumer doses?]

Mustard oil, a relative of canola oil, is banned in the EU due to high levels of erucic acid. The FDA limits food grade rapeseed oil (canola oil) to 2% maximum erucic acid content (see below for the quote).

The following five studies document erucic-acid induced changes in humans from postmortem studies. In humans, regular intake of erucic acid cause low platelet counts, and this is one reason to avoid canola oil in infants and nursing mothers: Crowther MA, Barr RD, Kelton J, Whelan D, Greenwald M (February 1995). _Profound thrombocytopenia complicating dietary erucic acid therapy for adrenoleukodystrophy_. American Journal of Hematology 48 (2): 132-3. . If canola oil did not have toxic effects, it would not matter that infants are less capable of breaking it down in their liver, the organ dedicated to processing toxins and poisons. Four more studies on humans showing erucic acid damage or changes are cited below, this is merely a sample:

These two papers both report erucic-acid building up in various human organs and tissues: _Postmortem analysis of tissue from these X-ALD patients treated with LO show that erucic acid (22:1n-9) was absorbed from the gut and found esterified into liver, adrenal glands, and adipose lipid pools,_ Quite a bit of erucic acid is staying in the tissues of these humans. Poulos,A.,R.Gibson,P.Sharp,K.Beckman,andP.Grattan-Smith.1994. Very long chain fatty acids in X-linked adrenoleukodystrophy brain after treatment with Lorenzo's oil. Ann.Neurol. 36: 741-746. and Boles,D.J.,and W.B.Rizzo.1992.Dietary fatty acids temporarily alter liver very long chain fatty acid composition in mice. J.Nutr.122: 1662-1671.

Here is the conclusion of yet another postmortem study of humans who ate rapeseed oil: _Every heart had many degenerative lesions within nerves, ganglia, and the coronary chemoreceptor. Both the arterial and neural abnormalities prominently involved the conduction system.. Based upon observations by others with experimental feeding of rapeseed oil containing either high or low erucic acid, we suggest that this oil must remain a major suspected cause of the toxic oil syndrome, particularly in conjunction with some as yet unexplained facilitative influence by oleoanilids. If this is so, it is important to reconsider the widely recommended use of any rapeseed oil product as a suitable food for man or other animals._ From _Histologic abnormalities of large and small coronary arteries, neural structures, and the conduction system of the heart found in postmortem studies of individuals dying from the toxic oil syndrome_, Hames, Thomas N. M.D. et. al., American Heart Journal, 121:3:1, March 1991, p.803-815.

Here we have the opinion of medical researchers published in a major journal, who worked at WHO, University of Texas, and Hospital 1 of Madrid. These doctors think erucic acid, in combination with another non-fatal chemical, killed hundreds of people. This is one of two papers cited here where in combination with second, non-fatal chemical, erucic acid becomes deadly.

A fifth, fairly recent, and alarming human study found high levels of erucic acid in autistic children compared to developmentally normal children, from _Fatty acid compositions of red blood cell phospholipids in children with autism._ Bu B, Ashwood P, Harvey D, King IB, Water JV, Jin LW. Prostaglandins Leukot Essent Fatty Acids. 2006 Apr;74(4):215-21. This is not proof erucic acid is a cause or contributing factor, but until this result is definitively explained, and the mysterious causes of the increasing rate of autism are explained, isn't this an important result to cite for NPOV?

There is controversy in the literature that erucic acid rat studies are not valid, because they cannot digest vegetable oil well. However, similar results are found in pigs and squirrel monkeys that don't share that problem; here are four citations:

_piglets fed formulas with 100% canola oil had lower platelet counts than piglets fed with formula soybean oil_, in _Dietary canola oil alters hematological indices and blood lipids in neonatal piglets fed formula._, Innis SM and Dyer RA, J. Nutr 1999; 129: 1261-8.

_Rapeseed oil mixtures with 7 to 42.9% 22:1n-9 showed definite myocardial lipidosis [heart lesions] in newborn piglets_ is one of the conclusions of the study you cite, ( Kramer JK, Farnworth ER, Johnston KM, Wolynetz MS, Modler HW, Sauer FD (November 1990). "Myocardial changes in newborn piglets fed sow milk or milk replacer diets containing different levels of erucic acid". Lipids 25 (11): 729-37.)

_Innis SM and Dyer RA. Dietary canola oil alters hematological indices and blood lipids in neonatal piglets fed formula. J. Nutr 1999; 129: 1261-8._Kramer, J.K.G. and Sauer, F.D. (1983b). Cardiac lipid changes in rats, pigs and monkeys fed high fat diets. In: High and Low Erucic Acid Rapeseed Oils. Production, Usage, Chemistry, and Toxicological Examination. (J. K. G. Kramer, F.D. Sauer and W.J. Pigden, eds). Academic Press, Toronto, Canada, pp 475-513.

The above citations and others are not proof of harm in humans, but do show that erucic acid in animals produces physiological changes that are of concern. These citations deserve mention to those seeking detailed information.

Also, there are rat studies that attempt to clarify this issue by using controls fed other vegetable oils, which still show different effects from erucic acid, and studies that elucidate mechanism of chemical change specific to erucic acid.

For example, _The occurrence of myocardial lipidosis is less consistent when diets containing <10% 22:ln-9 [erucic acid] in the oil portion are fed,_, Effects of dietary saturated fat on erucic acid induced myocardial lipidosis in rats, J. K. G. Kramer et al., Lipids 27:8, p619-623, 1992.

Also this well controlled study in 2009 showed that erucic acid was "profoundly toxic" to rats getting chemotherapy medicine, _Effects of erucic acid supplemented feeding on chronic doxorubucin toxicity in rats_, Bozcali, Evin et. al., Int J Clin Exp Med. 2009, 2(4) 337-347. This was true even with very low levels of erucic acid. _Surprisingly, survivals of the rats were affected negatively by low dose erucic acid._ The fact that low levels of erucic acid produced death in animals receiving a specific medicine does not mean it is just as toxic in animals not taking that medicine. It does mean that there are specific, poorly understood biochemical effects of erucic acid that profoundly alter cell chemistry. See the above citation for fatality in combination with alanine.

Also, _Low-erucic acid rapeseed oil resulted in elevation of cardiac mitochondrial cardiolipin content after dietary treatment for 12 days_ and _ Rats fed high-erucic acid rapeseed oil for 12 or 23 days had significantly higher mitochondrial phosphatidylcholine content than rats fed soya-bean oil._, Innis SM, Clandinin MT. Mitochondrial membrane polar-head-group composition is influenced by diet fat. Biochem J 1981; 198:231-4.

And, _Rapeseed oil feeding led to the changes in mitochondrial membrane phospholipid fatty acid composition. It is speculated that diet-induced changes in membrane lipid affect the activity of mitochondrial membrane associated enzymes, thus having potentially serious consequences to normal functioning of the myocardial cell_ in Innis SM, Clandinin MT. Effect of strain, sex and duration of feeding on plasma fatty acids of rats fed various dietary oils. J Nutr 1980;110: 1006-13.

Heart lesions are not the only damage caused by erucic acid in animal studies, although it has been a focus. Red blood cells, liver, kidney, adrenal and brain cells were also damaged in numerous studies.

In particular, a number of studies show that erucic acid crosses the blood brain barrier and is incorporated into the brain, where it affects the cell membranes. Some of the erucic acid in the brain remains in its original form, 22:ln-9, as well as 20:ln-9 and 18:ln-9, from Uptake and Metabolism of plasma-derived erucic acid by rat brain, Mikhail Y. Golovoko et al., Journal of Lipid Research 47, June 2006, 1289-1297. This is also known to happen in humans, see the Lorenzo's oil paper cited above; in fact erucic acid is an experimental brain medicine for severe illnesses.

There is also the unlabeled trans-fat content problem with canola oil, the main dietary source of erucic acid. We are all aware that we should avoid trans fats. Canola oil not only requires bleaching but deodorizing, a chemical process that takes place at high temperatures. This creates trans fats, up to 4.2% according this paper: Levels of Trans Geometrical Isomers of Essential Fatty Acids in Some Unhydrogenated US Vegetable Oils. O'Keefe Sean et. al.,Journal of Food Lipids 1994;1:165-176. This is a reputable, peer-reviewed journal, however it probably belongs in the article on canola oil rather than erucic acid.

The FDA limits erucic acid to 2% in foodgrade rapeseed oil. Doesn't that indicate they believe there is a health risk from erucic acid, and doesn't this deserve discussion or mention here? Here is an excerpt from Title #21, Code of Federal Regulations, Part 184.1555 (C) Low erucic acid rapeseed oil (3) In addition to limiting the content of erucic acid to a level not exceeding 2 per cent of the component fatty acids, F.D.A. is developing other foodgrade specifications for low erucic acid rapeseed oil ...

A link to the wikipedia "funding bias" article may also be appropriate here, since a similar consideration may apply to canola oil research, and the canola council is cited as an authority. The "Mayo Clinic" is also relying on the FDA conclusion - it is not the result of research at the Mayo Clinic and we don't know who wrote that web page. See below for the New Zealand goverment report from 2003.

More references:

This study shows that in rats, erucic acid, the potentially toxic fatty acid found in canola oil, inhibited growth and caused myocardial lesions.

http://jn.nutrition.org/cgi/content/abstract/103/12/1696

This study also found myocardial lesions in rats correlating to erucic acid intake.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7200131

Vles and Cottenbos, 1989, p71, state that animal studies have shown that erucic acid in "large amounts retards growth and causes changes in various organs", although it has not been proven a hazard to human health. (Vles and Gottenbos, 1989 R.O. Vles and J.J. Gottenbos, Nutritional characteristics and food uses of vegetable oils. In: G. Robblen, R.K. Downey and A. Ashri, Editors, Oil crops of the world, McGraw Hill, New York, USA (1989), pp. 36-86. )

Excerpt from "ERUCIC ACID IN FOOD: A Toxicological Review and Risk Assessment", TECHNICAL REPORT SERIES NO. 21, FOOD STANDARDS AUSTRALIA NEW ZEALAND, June 2003:

"Conclusion The heart appears to be the principal target organ for toxic effects following short-term exposure to edible oils containing erucic acid. The most common observed effect, among rats, pigs and monkeys, is myocardial lipidosis. Studies in rats and young pigs demonstrate a dose relationship between the level of erucic acid in the diet and severity of myocardial lipidosis."

RiceMilk (talk) 19:07, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

In the Health concerns section, the first sentence uses the term genetic engineering. Doesn't that imply GMO rather than selective breeding for traits? Wouldn't that apply to the rapeseed plant and rapeseed oil, rather than erucic acid itself, and belong in another aticle? Is this an incorrect use of the term "genetic engineering", unless the writer is discussing GMO canola plants?

Also, sentences 3 and 4 also appear to be about canola oil, low erucic rapeseed oil. They should be moved to the canola article, or this should be clarified. Reference [13] actually confirms that erucic acid containing fats cause more harmful effects than corn oil in rats (of two genetic types that process oils differently). It therefore substantiates the toxicity of erucic acid vs. other oils in rats. Here are excerpts from [13]. (LEAR oils contain 0.8% erucic acid, HEAR oils contain 25.7%, Corn oil has 0%):

"Significantly (P<0.01) lower body weights were observed in both strains of rats fed HEAR oil compared to rats fed corn oil or LEAR oil. No differences in growth rates were observed in SD rats fed corn and LEAR oils. The CB rats fed corn oil grew slightly better than those fed LEAR oil from the 4th week onward; however, the difference was significant (P <0.05) only at the 16th week."

"The SD rats showed the characteristic effect of diet on the incidence and severity (corn < LEAR < HEAR) of focal myocardial necrosis.."

"The following properties were found to be similar between the hooded and the albino rats: a slower growth in rats fed HEAR oils ( 18 )"

"The two strains of rat showed similar myocardial lipidosis when fed HEAR oil, and negligible myocardial lipidosis when fed LEAR oils,..."

So erucic acid causes various problems in rats not caused by corn oil, and even LEAR oil caused lower growth rates in CB rats. Myocardial necrosis, however, was found not to be correlated to erucic acid in these rats.

RiceMilk (talk) 01:14, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

This same citation is used in the next paragraph in reference to claims about piglets, which are not mentioned in the article. The proper citation should be supplied, and also other research finding erucic acid health effects in piglets and squirrel monkeys should be discussed.

I am adding a not NPOV template to this section, based on my previous comments about missing discussion, references and research conclusions, as well as these further issues.

RiceMilk (talk) 01:22, 23 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Started to answer your points but you appear to be misreading something and getting other things confused. A lot of time was spent combing through the stuff that got added  to Canola, which then found its way over to this article.  Much of it seemed to come from conspiracy sites and the like. Then hours where spent reading through each paper and evaluating them from a NPOV and putting what was left in some meaningful context. As you said somewhere, there is a lot of financing bias out on the web and in the media, so  we removed that which does not belong in an encyclopedia or which were poor examples or plain bum steering non-sense. Skimming through the above, it reads to me as if you're suggesting we  just add it all back in again. As I get time,  I'll go through these two articles again  and see if I can phrase thing more clearly to address your observations. --Aspro (talk) 18:22, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

True there are plenty of unreliable sources on this topic which should not be used as references, and thank you for removing unreliable sources and their conclusions from the article.

However in my above post I listed a number of citations from major, peer-reviewed medical research journals (including the Journ. of Food Lipids, the Journ. of Lipid Research, Lipids, J. of Nutr. and more), so I clearly was not asking to put back references to unreliable sources promoting a biased point of view. I am not suggesting you add the non-sense back in again. Conspiracy web pages that do not cite reputable secondary sources are not acceptable Wikipedia sources (unless you are documenting a widespread but unsupported belief which might be appropriate to do here).

Also, I don't think that NPOV means that you remove papers that are cited if you find that they are not NPOV (if that's what you meant). It means that the Wikipedia article itself should include statements from sources representing other points of view, including minority points of view, as long as the paper was published in a journal that satisfies the Wikipedia criteria of reliability. Each source is allowed to represent a minority point of view.

So what I did was go ahead and take the time to put these references into the article myself. None of my citations are from conspiracy sites, but from peer reviewed scientific publications of repute, and I have carefully read them myself. The article as it stood was, it seems to me, not an accurate reflection of scientific research into the effects of erucic acid on animals and humans. This is particularly relevant in the section on erucic acid rather than canola/rapeseed oil. I didn't feel obligated to look at the sources from the point of view of whether they were supportive or not of eating canola oil, but of how well they describe and prove they specific effects of erucic acid in animals, as this is an article about erucic acid itself.

There are now three sections addressing health issues- one on metabolism relating to myocardial necrosis, and others on on health effects, health concerns, and single sub-heading of cardiac concerns. It seems to me all of these should be organized into one section on health concerns, which I may undertake, keeping the present content but reorganizing it into one section with sub-headings. For example "Health Concerns" with subsections "Cardiac", "Other", with the metabolism section going into cardiac. Almost all studies, however, do not just address the heart, but the heart and other organs as well, so it is not obvious how to do this without repeating a lot of citations. For example, do we need subsections on "heart", "liver", "blood", "brain", "muscles", "kidney", etc? The heart issues seem to have been the main concern for public health concerns and government regulation, which might justify a separate section. Another way to organize the discussion would be "studies on animals" and "studies on humans". Possibly though it would make easier reading with no subsections.

RiceMilk (talk) 04:55, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

Having added in a number of more citations that balance the information, I removed the NPOV tag I had put in. —Preceding unsigned comment added by RiceMilk (talk • contribs) 05:01, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

Heart concerns - incorrect citations
The first citation in the heart concerns section does not address concerns for heart disease in humans, nor anything about health effects of feeding erucic oils to animals or humans. The second citation does not discuss at all the effect of different types of oils on rats. These references should be replaced with appropriate ones. RiceMilk (talk) 00:44, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

Partial duplication of text
The first 2 sentences of the "Health effects" section are echoed nearly word-for-word by the section "Low erucic acid rapeseed", producing an odd deja vu effect in the reader. Could somebody clean this up? --Reify-tech (talk) 20:35, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

MEDRS issue
Today in this dif I deleted the following:

Epidemiological studies suggest that, in regions where mustard oil is still used in a traditional manner, mustard oil may afford some protection against cardiovascular diseases. In this sense “traditional” means that (a) the oil is used fresh; and (b) vegetable fats count only as a small percentage of the total caloric intake. Whether this effect is due to the nature of erucic acid per se to make the blood platelets less sticky, or to the presence of a reasonably high percentage of α-linolenic acid, or to a combination of properties of fresh unrefined oil, is as yet uncertain. Care needs to be taken with such epidemiological studies to exclude the possibility of early deaths from other causes skewing the results. The fact that early asymptomatic coronary disease is readily detectable post mortem and is absent in the mustard oil cohorts tends to add weight to the hypothesis that mustard oil is protective. ref

The reason I deleted it, is that entire paragraph is based on a single primary source, and as per MEDRS we do not base content on primary sources - we rely on review articles. I also want to say, that this is not just MEDRS, the policy WP:OR also drives for secondary sources.

The deletion was reverted by in this dif with the comment, Wikilawyering. In response, I say, following policies and guidelines is not wikilawyering! we need to find decent secondary sources to work off of. I was looking in pubmed and there are other primary sources that contradict this one, so we have a case here of classic WP:OR by cherrypicking a source. We need secondary sources not primary ones, to avoid this problem.

I think the FSANZ monograph is great http://www.foodstandards.gov.au/publications/documents/Erucic%20acid%20monograph.pdf and is pretty recent. Can we use this as our sourcde, Aspro? Thanks Jytdog (talk) 23:57, 21 April 2014 (UTC)


 * Oh for heavens sake Jytdog, spend some time to read and comprehend the papers your so keen to use  to to support your fringe ideas. That  paper you quote above even says “However, the available evidence does not indicate an association between myocardial lesions, of the type observed in rats, or significant myocardial lipidosis, and the consumption of rapeseed oil.” Which is what I and the other editors of this article, (who evidently  have have spent more time than you),  have  researched and  laid out!--Aspro (talk) 00:24, 22 April 2014 (UTC)


 * please comment on content, not contributor. i was working on the mustard oil article when you reverted me here - it is a more elaborated version of where i think it would be good to go. i would appreciate it if you would respond to what i wrote above. thanks. Jytdog (talk) 00:46, 22 April 2014 (UTC)


 * I also want to point out, that the 2004 Rastogi paper at no point says that erucic acid is good for you. It points back to the early 1998 study by Ghafoorunissa which found that the negatives of erucic acid outweighed the benefits of ALA in mustard oil; the 2004 Rastogi paper just says that this didn't happen here  - I quote "The inverse association that we observed between mustard oil consumption and IHD risk may support a beneficial effect of α-linolenic acid intake.... Unlike canola oil, mustard oil is also a source of erucic acid (22:1), a long-chain monounsaturated fatty acid. It has been suggested that erucic acid in mustard oil may counterbalance the beneficial effects of linolenic acid by increasing serum LDL-cholesterol and triacylglycerol concentrations (30 - this is the 1998 paper). However, our findings suggest that the overall effect of mustard seed oil is beneficial."  So there is no way you can use the 2004 paper to argue the erucic acid is good for you. Rastogi doesn't say that, and putting that in WP is OR. Jytdog (talk) 01:10, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

Incorrectly cited reference in health section
1) The cited reference "No negative health effects of any exposure to erucic acid have been documented in humans.[5]" does not make that statement at all. What it concludes is only that "... the available evidence does not indicate an association between myocardial lesions, of the type observed in rats, or significant myocardial lipidosis, and the consumption of rapeseed oil." This review article only examines erucic acid as a cause of myocardial lesions in humans, only one specific health effect, not all heath effects; erucic acid is associated with many other health effects than just myocardial lesions in animals and humans.

Thus the cited reference does not support the claim that references it.

2) From the Mayo Clinic website: ""Rapeseed oil contains very high levels of erucic acid, a compound that in large amounts can be toxic to humans. " http://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/nutrition-and-healthy-eating/expert-answers/canola-oil/faq-20058235

The Mayo Clinic website is a valid wikipedia source for the review of medical information and is saying that erucic acid is toxic to humans. Therefore at the very least how can it be valid to state that erucic acid is not toxic to humans in this article?

3) Canola, which contains erucic acid, is not just human food, but used as animal feed. In 2007-2008, 2.5 million metric tons of Canada produced canola meal (rapeseed meal) alone was used as animal feed around the world: page 3, Canola Council of Canada, "Canola meal Feed Guide", http://www.canolacouncil.org/media/516716/canola_meal_feed_guide_english.pdf Therefore toxicology data for animals has a place in this article.

4) From the highly regarded medical textbook on toxicology, most recent edition, there is a paragraph on the toxicity of erucic acid (p. 656-657): "Growth suppression, myocardial fatty infiltration, mononuclear cell infiltration, and were observed in weanlging rats fed with erucic acid...In addition, ducklings showed hydropericardium and cirrhosis, and guinea developed splenomegaly and hemolytic anemia."

"In humans, however, although ...Lorenzl's oil (oleic and erucic acid) ... leads to thrombocytopenia and lympopenia... adverse effects from dietary consumption of erucic acid have not been reported.", pg. 657, Hayes' Principles and Methods of Toxicology, Sixth Edition A. Wallace Hayes, Claire L. Kruger CRC Press, Oct 10, 2014 - Medical - 2184 pages

The section on erucic acid toxicology in this long established medical reference, a tertiary reference that summarizes review articles, is saying that erucic acid is toxic to various animals causing a number of different health effects. It also says that Lorenzo's Oil, a medication containing erucic acid, causes disease in humans, but that consuming erucic acid in the diet has no reported health effects. That is what the actual reference says, not original research.

A valid summary of these high quality references could be: Erucic acid is known to be toxic in animals and humans at high enough levels but there is no evidence of health risks to humans when consumed as part of the diet.

After a few weeks for discussion I will add these references to the article.

MongoNut (talk) 02:57, 26 April 2015 (UTC)
 * the current source here) is a gold standard toxicology report - the most recent one i could find that treated this in depth. The Mayo Clinic website is not reliable per WP:MEDRS. And yes!  Hayes does say:  "In humans. however. although the long-term use of Lorenzo's oil (oleic acid and erucic acid) in the treatment of adrenoleukodystrophy or adrenomyeloneuropathy leads to thrombocytopenia and lymphopenia (Unkrig et al. 1994), adverse effects from dietary consumption of erucic acid have not been reported."  It is unclear what your point is. Jytdog (talk) 15:33, 26 April 2015 (UTC)

From point 1), the australia report does not support the claim that is made... it only addresses myocardial lesions and lipidosis.

However at this time, thanks to the last edit of this paragraph, the article seem to me be much more in agreement with the references. There are few other points though:

A) Lorenzo's oil is used, at least primarily, to treat adrenoleukodystrophy (ALD), not cancer.

B) Animal studies show not only myocardial lesions, but also 5 other adverse health effects in other organs as well (listed above under point 4). The animal studies are not limited to the 1970's, the article "Foodborn... " already being used as a reference cites a 1994 paper on the subject.

MongoNut (talk) 03:13, 27 April 2015 (UTC)

Chemical structure
Pictured here is brassidic acid (trans isomer) whereas the page is about the cis isomer. I would recommend keeping brassidic acid on the page, but perhaps below the correct isomer of erucic acid, as well as being appropriately labeled. Dfcorrea00 (talk) 20:26, 28 April 2017 (UTC)

LEAR as Source of Erucic?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erucic_acid#Sources_of_erucic_acid Why is there a mention of Low Erucic Acid Rapeseed under Sources of Erucic Acid? Since Lorenzo's Oil, has there been any research in Erucic Acid's influence on Serum Cholesterol? Aaron 2601:18A:C781:8ABA:A950:6879:88E4:33F1 (talk) 15:39, 20 June 2017 (UTC)
 * yes that was goofy. fixed it. Jytdog (talk) 15:51, 20 June 2017 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified one external link on Erucic acid. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20061010225533/http://ers.usda.gov/publications/IUS6/ius6c.pdf to http://www.ers.usda.gov/publications/IUS6/ius6c.pdf

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot  (Report bug) 08:45, 23 September 2017 (UTC)