Studies Of Effects Of Natural PUFA's Vs. Vegetable Oils?

[milkboi]

@Cirion the omega 6 fatty acids are actually the precursors to the prostaglandins - it's hard to get more inflammatory then that. Not only do they cause and promote inflammation via multiple mechanisms- they are inflammation (basically).

But the effects of PUFA do damage far outside just causing inflammation.
1. They lower androgens and increase estrogen:

“Some of the interesting enzymes affected specifically by polyunsaturated fatty acids are those involved in hormone production. While they inhibit the formation of progesterone and androgens, they activate the synthesis of estrogen, which in turn activates the release of more free polyunsaturated fatty acids from the tissues, in a positive feedback pattern.”

2. They’re carcinogenic

“The equivalent of just about a teaspoonful of unsaturated fat per day is enough to show a threshold increase in the incidence of cancer. “

3. They’re immunosuppressive (omega 3s are actually more immunosuppressive then omega 6s and that’s the way omega 3s lower inflammation- via immunosuppression)

“The proteolytic enzymes are an essential part of innate immunity, and the highly unsaturated fatty acid, EPA, which is the most immunosuppressive of the fats, strongly inhibits proteolysis in some cells. The natural killer (NK) cells and phagocytic cells are two types of cell that are suppressed by PUFA, and they are involved in many kinds of physiological events, not just the killing of tumor cells and virus infected cells.

The immunosuppressive effects of PUFA are very general. Many metabolites that are known to have harmful effects on the immune system are increased by the PUFA (histamine [Masini, et al., 1990], serotonin, lactate, nitric oxide [Omura, et al., 2001]). These substances are also involved in tumor development.”

4. They’re prone to Lipid peroxidation - basically they go rancid inside your body. Yeah no fun.

5. They inhibit mitochondrial respiration:
“The suppressive effects of unsaturated fats on mitochondrial energy production have been widely investigated, since it is that effect that makes animal fattening with PUFA so economical. Rather than interpreting that as a toxic effect, using the innate structure and function of the mitochondrion as a point of reference from which to evaluate dietary components, the consumption of "good" oils is being used as the reference point from which to evaluate the meaning of metabolism ("efficiency is good," "low oxygen consumption is good")

6. They inhibit detoxification processes

“The inhibition of detoxification enzymes by PUFA (Tsoutsikos, et al., 2004) affects many processes, such as the elimination of estrogen, contributing to the positive feedback between estrogen and the oils. The meaning of this tends to be lost, because of the estrogen industry's effective campaigns.

7. They’re essential to the development of lipofuscin (age pigment- age spots)

8. They’re heptatotoxic (liver toxic)

9. They inhibit the formation of the protective Mead Acid (that’s the accurate way to see it in my opinion. I think its misrepresntitive to say that Mead Acid “fills in” for a lack of PUFA in the diet.)

10. They lower the ability to properly oxidize glucose.

“The most highly unsaturated fats found in fish oil break down into chemicals that block the use of glucose and oxygen.“

11. Lowers thyroid hormone production and blocks the effect of thyroid hormone.

“The unsaturation of vitamin A and of thyroxin allow them to bind firmly with transthyretin and certain other proteins, but the unsaturated fatty acids are able to displace them, with an efficiency that increases with the number of double bonds, from linoleic (with two double bonds) through DHA (with six double bonds). “

“While the competition by PUFA for protein binding sites blocks the effects of thyroid hormone and vitamin A, the action of PUFA on the sex steroid binding protein (SBP, or SSBG, for sex steroid binding globulin) increases the activity of estrogen.”

And I know I’m missing some other damaging effects of PUFA
(All quotes by ray peat)



One for the road:

“The food-derived polyunsaturated fatty acids play important roles in the development of all of the problems associated with aging--reduced immunity, insomnia, decreased learning ability, substitution of fat for muscle, susceptibility to tissue peroxidation and inflammation, growth of tumors, etc., and are probably involved in most other health problems, even in children. If research hadn't been guided by the economic interests of the seed oil industry, many of those problems would have been solved by now.“

Besides the ones @tankasnowgod referenced these are good too:

Fats, functions and malfunctions.

Suitable Fats, Unsuitable Fats: Issues in Nutrition

And Broda B from downtown with the game point:

“Everyone should have the privilege of playing Russian Roulette if desired, but it is only fair to have the warning that with the use of polyunsaturated fats the gun probably contains live ammunition.” - Dr Broda Barnes, MD

Great summary!

 

[ilikecats]

@Noah Glanz thanks man!

 

[Cirion]

I have indeed read a lot of what you guys wrote. Again I already know fish oil, vegetable oil etc is bad. Ray peat only has like one sentence on whole food PUFA's and primarily goes on long rants about fish and vegetable oils. Even vegans know the danger of these oils! At least the more reputable vegans.

Ray Peat:
"Vegetables, grains, nuts, fish and meats all naturally contain large amounts of these oils, and the extra oil used in cooking becomes a more serious problem. " That's all he says in the whole article to pufa's other than vegetable oils.

I saw only references to PUFA's/vegetable oils and not nuts though what you guys wrote is a good summary of at least fish oils and vegetable oils. I agree on both. I have zero interest to ingest fish oil ever again either.

For the moment I'm still low PUFA. I have indeed read a lot of Peat's articles. I don't agree with them all. Like I said, I'm a contrarian. I question everyone. But, what he says about PUFA and what I know about PUFA says they aren't good. But, virtually everyone who says PUFA is bad has only looked at the oils and not whole foods. And those who have looked at the whole foods usually only look at meat and fish which I absolutely can see are bad too. And even at that, fish oil =/= fish. Though I know for myself I don't do well on fatty fish after adding them to my diet. I can also say that nut BUTTERS and me do not mix either (start to get muscle aches and pains). But nut butters aren't necessarily the same as nuts either. I say this because when you make butters, the oil separates from the rest of it. So you've basically got another "oil" supplement. Whenever you separate the oil from the food, this is problematic - whether its fish, from vegetables, nuts, or yes even coconuts (imo). I don't even consume coconut or MCT oils anymore. These aren't really PUFA's, but all oils have damaging effects to the body I now believe. coconut or mct oil less so than pufa oils, but still. If I ever wanted coconut oil again, I'd eat an actual coconut probably. It seems todays' "health" culture has forgotten how to eat actual food and relies on oils, supplements, hormones, etc.

If you must know, overall I tend to believe that all PUFA are bad still. I am often under 2 gram PUFA a day. And that's why I don't eat nuts. I just have a passing interest to learn more to make sure that stance is actually valid. I guess because I like being right and not just believing something just because someone said so.

 

[ilikecats]

@Cirion In all those quotes I sent you nowhere does he say "epa from fish oil" or "linoleic acid from sunflower oil" because he doesn't need to- they all end up as the same thing once digested. He's talking about EPA from any source... linoleic acid from any source. These are the basic effects of these molecules. So linoleic acid from a Whole Foods source isn't a precursor to the prostaglandins anymore? How does it coming from a whole food source allow it to circumvent physiological reality? Or in your view these molecules only selectively circumvent reality when from Whole Food sources that you're partial to? (PUFA from fish and meat are still problematic despite being from Whole Foods?). And I believe the cancer studies he references just took into account total daily PUFA intake regardless of source. Yes there can be factors that help (barely) mitigate the damage which have already been addressed in this thread such as vitamin E or the total ratio of saturated/polyunsaturated fats in said food product (these are things Peat has already addressed and fit perfectly inline with his ideas). You're not even proposing any mechanisms...

*computer keeps auto capitalizing Whole Foods

 

[Atman]

Most natural sources of PUFA come with lots of Vitamin E.

Oh how I love this recurrent remark.

They come with just enough vitamin E to prevent too much peroxidation of the fats from the perspective of the plants lifecycle.
Sunflower seeds for example contain vitamin E because there is a high variance in temperature in the nothern climates. If there is a very warm spring, the oils in the seed must not degrade too much, yet at the same time, if there is a cold spring the oils still have to be fluid. This is why they have a high PUFA as well as high vitamin E concentration. The plant doesn't synthesize the vitamin E and accumulates it in its seeds so you have a health benefit from it when eating it! Putting these oils in your body is the equivalent of sowing them in the tropics at 40°C. And it's even worse because your digestive tract / blood is a high oxygen environment, wheras the intact seed acts as an airtight container.

 

[tankasnowgod]

It seems todays' "health" culture has forgotten how to eat actual food and relies on oils, supplements, hormones, etc.

I don't know how you missed the Paleo movement, Weston A Price Foundation, and a whole host of others in the "Ancestral Health" movement.

 

[lampofred]

I keep asking myself this question in my head--

Do we need vitamin E if we eat a low PUFA diet or only if there are PUFA's in the diet? Since I no longer take supplements, the only way for me to easily get VE is via nuts, but I don't particularly wish to increase my PUFA intake to do so.

Somewhat on the side... but Sometimes I wonder if we don't need as many vitamins and minerals as we think we do. What if we looked at foods holistically. For example - nuts naturally are balanced by the E with the pufa. Fruit sugar is naturally balanced by potassium and fiber (and water!). What gets us into trouble is when we start eating things that aren't whole foods and are not balanced with the nutrients required to digest it. AT the end of the day, what matters is you digest your food and properly assimilate its energy right?

I think Peat has said we don't need vitamin E if we don't consume PUFA and we are careful to inhibit FFA in bloodstream and lipolysis. Don't think he would recommend eating nuts just for the Vitamin E.

I agree that whole foods are better than taking isolated supplements, but even among whole foods, I think the quality of food varies... For example, milk is an extremely high quality food where vegetables/nuts are famine food, even though both famine diets and high quality diets will cause balanced development. It's just that eating a whole food diet of lower quality food will lead to a balanced, but lower functioning organism, whereas a whole food diet of very high quality food such as milk and fruit will lead to a balanced and high functioning, evolved organism.

Supplements seem to be a short cut to get the "high level" of functioning but because they do not provide nutrients and minerals in balance, they lead to an imbalanced but high functioning organism (manufacturing impurities & contaminants aside, talking strictly about pure supplements).

^The above is just my guess, Peat has never talked about supplements caused an imbalance in development.

 

[hmpf]

Interesting thread. As I am quit new to Ray Peat thoughts. PUFA are for me the most hard understand.
I ate quite a lot last two years wild salmon, sardines, avocado, olive oil, soaked walnuts flex seeds, and sometimes pumpking seeds (also soaked lentils and adzuki beans as well) and still think these can behave neutral and can have benefits minerals vitamins.
But the truth is I never eat this food in past until last two years (becouse of as a healthy food on google). And last half year my hair started fall and be very oily.
But is it really PUFA or I just eat too much fat or becouse of less sucrose and calcium from dairy which I ate a lot in past, honestly I do not know. I see a few people which eat sardines, salmons, little soaked seeds walnuts and they look very healthy.