A teaspoon or two of safflower oil – usually used for cooking – can improve your cholesterol and blood sugar levels, even if you have type II diabetes and you’re overweight.
Safflower oil contains linoleic acid, a polyunsaturated fatty acid (PUFA), which seems to start having a positive impact on health after just 16 weeks. Participants in the study – all obese postmenopausal women with type II diabetes – sipped one-and-two-thirds teaspoons of the oil every day for the study periods. On average, they had a 14 per cent increase in HDL, or “good”, cholesterol, inflammation had lowered and blood glucose had also dropped.
This is the second major benefit of safflower oil that researchers from Ohio State University have uncovered. Eighteen months ago they reported that the oil reduces abdominal fat and increases muscle tissue.
(Source: Clinical Nutrition, 2011; doi: 10.1016/j.clnu.2011.01.001).
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