Paytm's Vijay Shekhar Sharma uses ChatGPT to check negative health claims about cooking oil, here's what he found...

livemint.com:

Vijay Shekhar Sharma has joined the social media health train by claiming to verify claims made by an X user (platform formerly known as Twitter), using ChatGPT. In a post engaging X user Chirag Barjatya's post on the harm of reusing cooking oil, Sharma said he asked ChatGPT "to give more details" and shared the response from the artificial intelligence (AI) tool. "Reheating and reusing ghee or cooking oil can indeed impact its health properties, including potentially increasing the trans fat content.

The process of repeatedly heating oil, especially beyond its smoke point, can lead to chemical changes. This includes the breakdown of fatty acids and the formation of trans fatty acids, among other potentially harmful compounds like aldehydes, which are linked to various health issues," GPT4 said, per Sharma's post. "Trans fats are created through industrial hydrogenation but can also form when oils are repeatedly heated to high temperatures.

This transformation occurs because the high heat can alter the molecular structure of the fats, converting some of the unsaturated fats into trans fats, which are known to be harmful to heart health, increasing bad cholesterol levels (LDL) and decreasing good cholesterol levels (HDL)," it added. Further, the answer noted that oil's smoking point decreases each time it is reheated, thus making it "more prone to oxidative damage, leading to the formation of free radicals and other harmful compounds". "The extent of these changes depends on the type of oil, the temperature it's heated to, and the duration of heating.