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Our work challenges the decades-old thinking that many chronic diseases stem from the consumption of excess saturated fats from animal products, and that, conversely, unsaturated fats from plants are necessarily more healthful," said Poonamjot Deol, an assistant professional researcher in the Department of Microbiology and Plant Pathology and a co-corresponding author of the study, which was published in Gut Microbes, an open-access journal. The researchers note that the increase in IBD parallels the increase in soybean oil consumption in the U.S. and hypothesize the two may be linked. "Sometimes, it can be unclear how research done in mice translates to humans, but in this study it is fairly clear." The research team was also surprised to find that the mice fed on a high soybean oil diet showed a reduction in the gut of endocannabinoids, cannabis-like molecules made naturally by the body to regulate a wide variety of physiological processes. The bottom line of our current study is that a soybean oil-enriched diet similar to the current American diet causes oxylipin levels to increase in the gut and endocannabinoid levels to decrease, which is consistent with IBD in humans." Most processed foods in the U.S. contain soybean oil, perhaps explaining why many Americans have more than the recommended daily allowance for linoleic acid."