I Need To Be Convinced Of PUFA Being Bad For You

[KnowledgeSeeker]

Fellow community,

I used to believe that PUFA is bad for you without any doubts. Yet lately, I read many contradicting reports. Some were mentioning that babies require PUFA for proper brain development and so does the adult brain. Questions as "Should I give my baby PUFA rich food?" pop up in my head when I read those things.

Please be aware that I am very open minded. Hence I would love to get myself convinced of you as long as scientific evidence from literature is given.

Some studies that conclude positive effects of PUFA on the brain:

[1] Polyunsaturated fatty acids and their metabolites in brain function and disease

[2] Dietary polyunsaturated fatty acids, brain function and mental health

Thanks a lot in advance.

 

[raypeatclips]

You don't need to be convinced of anything, if you don't believe they're bad, then eat PUFA, nobody here is forcing you to avoid PUFA or eat one way or another. Have you read any of Peat's articles? This is pretty much the main thing he talks about, and if you had read anything of him you can't really miss it...

These articles will explain it better than anyone here can.

Ray Peat
Unsaturated Vegetable Oils: Toxic
Diabetes, scleroderma, oils and hormones


After this, search the forum for haidut's posts with "PUFA" in the title.

 

[KnowledgeSeeker]

You don't need to be convinced of anything, if you don't believe they're bad, then eat PUFA, nobody here is forcing you to avoid PUFA or eat one way or another. Have you read any of Peat's articles? This is pretty much the main thing he talks about, and if you had read anything of him you can't really miss it...

These articles will explain it better than anyone here can.

Ray Peat
Unsaturated Vegetable Oils: Toxic
Diabetes, scleroderma, oils and hormones


After this, search the forum for haidut's posts with "PUFA" in the title.

Well, I read some articles of Ray Peat. I just wanted some clarity for the points that I mentioned. And yes, I do not need to be convinced but I would love to because I am very undecided at the moment. In the end, it will be me that weighs the arguments that has been given to me and then decide what to go for.

Anyways, thank you for the references given.

 

[mayweatherking]

post what part of the article u think is true

 

[KnowledgeSeeker]

post what part of the article u think is true

I don't have the scientific background to conclude anything. Hence I ask for some help here. Do babies or does the brain require PUFA as mentioned in those linked studies?

 

[Vinero]

Just read Ray Peats articles and listen to his interviews on YouTube.
Nobody here can convince you better then the man himself.
All I know is in the last years I have avoided PUFA my health is way better then when I was eating a high-PUFA diet.

 

[SB4]

Certain types of PUFA in certain certain amount and certain contexts are good.

Having DHA or it's precursor is good for developing brain / eyes. Even omega 6 PUFAs can be beneficial in certain contexts.

You will find contradicting studies for almost everything. They aren't even necessarily contradicting.

Eg. A study could find DHA good for the brain. Sir Raymond of House Peater seems to be saying avoid PUFAs. These might not be contradictory as they seem, as if it's true that we can form the right amount of DHA from small amounts of EPA, and Ray Peat doesn't talk about zero PUFA as far as I'm aware as you well get some with any real food, then both arguments are in alignment with each other.

If you don't want to go too deep into the science then why not try it for yourself, see if it improves your health, if not, try something different.

 

[freyasam]

I would consider rephrasing your thread title. You have a good question, you want to understand why certain studies show that pufa is good. But asking to be convinced of something will draw a lot of responses explaining why you shouldn't be convinced of anything.

I briefly looked at the second link you posted. It reviews a lot of different studies. Some of them show no benefits from eating pufa but at least one or two do show benefits. There was one study that was only 26 weeks long. That may not be long enough to show long-term effects of pufa consumption.

 

[AretnaP]

polyunsaturated fats peroxidize

PUFA isn't needed to make hormones, in fact saturated fats make them better

PUFA is pro-aromatase and pro-estrogen in many ways

 

[Hazarlar]

You or your baby will get 5 -10 grams of PUFA (a day) anyway from egg yolks and other animal fats unless you go into quite restrictive orange juice/fruits and low-fat dairy/milk diet. No need to start eat nuts, avocados and vegetable oil on purpose ... Maybe some fatty fish can be added to diet in winter; as it carries lot of vitamin D and taurine... Seems pretty unnatural if you supplement vitamin D to get your 100% of RDA which is a small amount in itself.

 

[YourUniverse]

Human body produces its own unsaturates in the absence of dietary PUFA, "Mead Acid" which is anti-inflammatory as opposed to PUFA being inflammatory. Basically to my understanding it is impossible to be truly "deficient" in PUFA because you will make your own, and the one you make is better than the ones you would consume.

"EFA deficiency" symptoms like scaly skin tend to actually be vitamin B6 deficiency, so theres that too.

 

[CarbAppreciator]

You could try giving the baby fatty fish/caviar and see if they reject it. Otherwise, the omega-3s in dairy and red meat is probably enough. Omega3s in supplement form are likely to be oxidized and toxic.

 

[Vinero]

I just ate some Cod fish today, in the case I might have an omega 3 fatty acid deficiency.

 

[charlie]

Haidut's Summary Of PUFA

 

[Sobieski]

This is anecdotal evidence so take it with a grain of salt but the last 8 months the one constant I've kept in my diet is the exclusion of significant sources of PUFAs. In that time quite a few things I've suffered with for a long time (almost my entire life in some cases) have pretty much disappeared. No studies to back up my experience, but it's worked.

 

[2thecloudsabove]

PUFAs are bad in excess, like pretty much everything. Peat grew in an age where seed industry emerged and western society yielded to its propaganda, falling for vegetable seed oils as a healthy choice in their diets. I think Peat obsessed a bit too far with that and took it to the extreme.

Avoiding refined seed oils, and added oils to processed marketed food and all that stuff is commom sense (same as sugar in food industry). That has nothing to do with aiming to avoid pufa intake by limiting avocados, olives, some nuts here and there, eggs, fish (real, not oil supps).. or any natural food just because it contains pufas, or thinking the "under 5gr/day"... or the more you restrict them the healthier you will be. Thats what Peat promotes, pufas being 100% useless in a healthy diet, a philosophy/religion some people around here seems comfortable with following. There are lots of evidente they have a place in a diet for keeping healthy skin.

 

[KnowledgeSeeker]

Thanks a lot everyone. Really very qualitative posts here that have brought clarity to me. Thank you so much.

 

[fradon]

Fellow community,

I used to believe that PUFA is bad for you without any doubts. Yet lately, I read many contradicting reports. Some were mentioning that babies require PUFA for proper brain development and so does the adult brain. Questions as "Should I give my baby PUFA rich food?" pop up in my head when I read those things.

Please be aware that I am very open minded. Hence I would love to get myself convinced of you as long as scientific evidence from literature is given.

Some studies that conclude positive effects of PUFA on the brain:

[1] Polyunsaturated fatty acids and their metabolites in brain function and disease

[2] Dietary polyunsaturated fatty acids, brain function and mental health

Thanks a lot in advance.

problem with PUFA is they oxidize quickly. like stinky fish. sure they are important for babies but they have growing brains and they can get it from NON OXIDIZE SOURCE - MOTHER'S MILK.

most PUFA soybean oil, corn oil, peanut oil have been chemically extracted and they are oxidized when you buy them. if you read DR SEARS BOOK the OMEGA ZONE he tells you the human cell is about 45% saturated fat 45% monounsaturated fat and about 10% percent polyunsaturated fat. so we don't need much polyunsaturated fat at all. you could get what you need from eating some butter or even some bacon.

i used to take a lot of fish oil but stopped when I learned the PUFA suppress the immune system. its what they give people when they get organ transplants or bone transplants so that the body does not reject it. I also ready a report in the past that women who eat a lot of salad dressing also have a higher chance of developing breast cancer and for ment prostate cancer.

I do get some PUFA from a table spoon of walnuts and pecans i eat for the gamma and alpha vitamin E.
I also eat kerry gold butter which has about 13 percent PUFA 50/50 omega 3 and omega 6. but most sources of PUFA are not natural. if you get it from foods like butter then it will contain saturated fat along with it that will keep it from oxidizing.

I would learn as much as possible about what you want to do and why you want to do it. sometimes we are not sick we just think we are.

 

[schultz]

You or your baby will get 5 -10 grams of PUFA (a day) anyway from egg yolks and other animal fats unless you go into quite restrictive orange juice/fruits and low-fat dairy/milk diet.

10g seems like a lot. That's like 10 days worth of PUFA!

Jokes aside, I don't think anybody should be getting that much PUFA if they are serious about their long-term health. 8 cups of 2% milk, 4 commercial eggs (hardboiled) and a 4oz steak is only 4.3g PUFA. How the heck do you even get 10g other than by eating nuts and/or vegetable oil?

 

[lvysaur]

Jokes aside, I don't think anybody should be getting that much PUFA if they are serious about their long-term health. 8 cups of 2% milk, 4 commercial eggs (hardboiled) and a 4oz steak is only 4.3g PUFA.

That sounds like way more than 4.3 grams

edit: nevermind, I just checked it. Pleasantly surprised.