India’s pour decision: How every extra drop of oil on your plate could be slowly damaging your heart, liver and other vital organs

India is now one of the world's largest consumers of edible oil, and the number has been climbing for years. Urbanisation, changing food habits, the explosion of street food and packaged snacks, and the deeply rooted cultural tradition of cooking in generous amounts of fat have all contributed. The body, unfortunately, doesn't care about tradition.Dr. Vivek Kumar, Director of Interventional Cardiology and Head of the Structural Heart Program at Max Super Speciality Hospital, Vaishali, Ghaziabad, is direct about what excessive oil intake does over time. "Increasing your oil intake may contribute to gaining weight, becoming obese, having elevated cholesterol levels, and experiencing an increased chance of developing cardiovascular diseases," he says. And the damage doesn't stop at the heart. "Increased oil consumption might also contribute to hypertension, have the potential to develop into a fatty liver disease, and develop into type 2 and other types of diabetes."There's also the inflammation angle, which tends to get less attention than cholesterol but is no less damaging. "Foods that are processed and fried and are high in bad fats can promote inflammatory responses and affect your ability to metabolise energy properly," Dr. Kumar adds.A landmark study published in JAMA Internal Medicine by researchers from Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health tracked over 126,000 adults for more than two decades and analysed the association between specific dietary fats and mortality. The findings showed that higher saturated fat intake was associated with increased total mortality, while higher polyunsaturated fat intake was associated with lower mortality. Critically, the study estimated that replacing just 5 per cent of calories from saturated fats with equivalent calories from polyunsaturated fats was associated with a 27 per cent reduced risk of death.The American Heart Association drew on extensive clinical evidence to reach a similarly unambiguous conclusion in Circulation. Randomised controlled trials that lowered dietary saturated fat intake and replaced it with polyunsaturated vegetable oil reduced cardiovascular disease by approximately 30 per cent, an effect comparable to the reduction achieved by cholesterol-lowering statin drugs.The conversation about oil in India often gets stuck on quantity, when the more actionable question is about quality and cooking method. Dr. Kumar is clear that some oils are significantly better than others, and that how you use them matters as much as which one you choose."Some of the best cooking oils are olive oil, mustard seed oil, groundnut seed oil, sesame seed oil, and rice bran oil," he says. "All of those cooking oils have unsaturated fats that provide substantial benefits to heart health when they're used sparingly and properly." The operative phrase there is sparingly. Even the healthiest oil becomes a problem at the volumes many Indian households use daily.His practical guidance is more specific than the usual advice to "eat less oil." "To achieve a good balance of nutrients, select the appropriate type of cooking fat for the method you're using to prepare food and rotate multiple types of healthy cooking oils during different times for preparing food," he says. Different oils have different smoke points and fatty acid profiles, and using the same oil for every purpose, from high-heat frying to light sautéing, isn't optimal for either health or flavour. Beyond oil selection, he's emphatic about two habits that compound the damage significantly: "Avoid deep frying and reheating or reusing oil." Reused oil degrades chemically, generating harmful compounds including trans fats and aldehydes that aren't present in fresh oil. And when it comes to saturated fat, his position is unequivocal. "Reduce oil rich in saturated fat, and avoid trans fat altogether."Indians have been told to cut down on oil for decades. But the increasing incidence of diseases related to consumption of oil suggests that the message hasn't translated into meaningful change at the level of actual cooking behaviour. Part of that is cultural, part is economic, and part is simply that oil is invisible in a way that other dietary problems aren't. You see a bowl of sugar. You feel the grease of a fried snack. But the cumulative daily drizzle of oil across six meals, reused multiple times, building up in vessels and arterial walls simultaneously, is harder to visualise.Medical experts consulted This article includes expert inputs shared with TOI Health by:Dr. Vivek Kumar, Director of Interventional Cardiology and Head of the Structural Heart Program at Max Super Speciality Hospital, Vaishali, GhaziabadInputs were used to explain the how excessive consumption of oil can affect the vital organs of the body.