Cooking Oil-Derived Aldehydes: Overlooked Components of the Western Diet with the Potential to Disrupt Fetal Brain Development.

Dietitians routinely recommend refined high polyunsaturated fatty acid (PUFA) content culinary oils such as soybean, corn, canola, rapeseed and sunflower oils to pregnant women. Unfortunately, these PUFAs readily undergo peroxidation (especially at high frying or cooking temperatures), generating toxic lipid oxidation products, including reactive aldehydes and oxidized lipid mediators with established biological activities that may negatively impact fetal brain development. This hypothesis-driven perspective paper proposes a conceptual framework linking the maternal consumption of oils contaminated with lipid oxidation products to fetal neurodevelopmental vulnerability. We also identify key research priorities, including improved exposure assessments, the development of reliable aldehyde and other oxylipin biomarkers, and controlled dietary intervention studies. Such investigations will help clarify whether these commonly consumed culinary oils meaningfully contribute to the increasing rates of adverse neurodevelopmental outcomes.