>70 g of PUFA a day | Does diet even matter?

[Jennifer]

One thing I struggle to understand are the PUFA fiends out there who have been eating high amounts of PUFA years, with perfect skin, intact hairline and in generally good health. I have been observing these nut butter/tahini addicts for quite a while and the only explanation I have is if you start out healthy, it really does not matter much:







Shouldn’t these people be dropping instead of looking absolutely great?

My comment isn’t meant to address PUFAs, I just wanted to point out that Miles (Healthy Crazy Cool) has been very open about his health struggles, including mental health, over the years (even prior to veganism). He’s currently going through nasty withdrawal symptoms from weaning off a medication this year and in the past, he had an adrenal gland removed due to overproducing adrenaline and has dealt with all the usual symptoms that result from excess stress hormone production like weight loss despite his huge appetite, something he struggled with prior to getting on his medication.

 

[gaze]

My comment isn’t meant to address PUFAs, I just wanted to point out that Miles (Healthy Crazy Cool) has been very open about his health struggles, including mental health, over the years (even prior to veganism). He’s currently going through nasty withdrawal symptoms from weaning off a medication this year and in the past, he had an adrenal gland removed due to overproducing adrenaline and has dealt with all the usual symptoms that result from excess stress hormone production like weight loss despite his huge appetite, something he struggled with prior to getting on his medication.

oh i didn't know it was that bad. that's sad. i've dealt with unintentional weight loss and it's one of the scariest things a human can go through. it definitely one of the most helpless conditions to be in. what medication is he on?

 

[Jennifer]

oh i didn't know it was that bad. that's sad. i've dealt with unintentional weight loss and it's one of the scariest things a human can go through. it definitely one of the most helpless conditions to be in. what medication is he on?

It sure is! I’ve dealt with it too and it ended very badly for me. I’m not sure if he has ever said what medication he was on, but I don’t recall him mentioning it in any of the videos I’ve seen.

 

[boris]

@ursidae I looked up the first person in the videos you posted. Miles Kasiri. Wow, he used to look so good compared to now. Apart from the change in the eyes, his face seems to get progressively more asymetrical.

At 18-19:

At 32:

Now, at 34.

You can see his little son already having that kind of empty bug eye stare, that he himself develops now. I had that when I was eating a lot of grains/pufas/etc.

Spoiler

 

[MitchMitchell]

Well yeah people look better in their early 20s than in their 30s. Breaking news. It can only be the PUFAs right.

Roy swank fed his patients a lot of PUFAs and he reported great skin and hair.

 

[boris]

Well yeah people look better in their early 20s than in their 30s. Breaking news. It can only be the PUFAs right.

Roy swank fed his patients a lot of PUFAs and he reported great skin and hair.

Peoples eyes popping out like glass marbles about to fall out is not a normal development. You can clearly see a hormonal shift into a negative direction. It doesn't take a lot of imagination to look at his eye and brow area when he was 18 and imagine how a healthy aging would have looked for him. He looks more feminine and less androgenic now.

Roy Swank didn't feed his patients a lot of PUFA. He preferred PUFAs over saturated fat, but all in all it was an extremely low fat diet.

 

[MitchMitchell]

Roy Swank didn't feed his patients a lot of PUFA. He preferred PUFAs over saturated fat, but all in all it was an extremely low fat diet.

Saturated fat below 20g if not 10
Other fats up to 50g a day. More “oil” (PUFAs) if patients were larger sized.

 

[ursidae]

I looked up his recent health problem. He used pain killers for nearly a decade due to nerve damage from surgery and has issues now from quitting it abruptly. Hard to say if any of the issues are due to the medication, veganism or pufa consumption.
I used to eat a lot of almonds, walnuts and avocado and my skin was perfectly fine. My diet was in a lot of ways the opposite of the ray peat diet. And now my skin looks like utter crap. But after all this reading of ray peat and discarding pretty much all of it because it doesn’t work for me I’d like to keep at least something. I’ll admit I never went under 2 g, maybe I’ll try that for a month and if I continue to get worse, I’m completely done with this

 

[boris]

Saturated fat below 20g if not 10
Other fats up to 50g a day. More “oil” (PUFAs) if patients were larger sized.

Yes, other fats 20-50g. For a skinny person that would be at most 35g of fat per day. That's an extremely low fat diet.

Swank diet - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

1. Saturated fat should not exceed 15 grams per day
2. Unsaturated fat (oils) should be kept to 20-50 grams per day

 

[Jsaute21]

I think it's impossible to judge diet(s) alone without taking into account various stressors in people's lives. I have felt tremendous on a high calorie/pufa diet in my teens and in college while playing competitive sports. I was happy, fulfilled and had limited stress. If eating that diet in different circumstances, I doubt the results would be as favorable. There are too many variables to consider.

Peat's work and quotes are so often taken out of context. He makes dietary suggestions but often maintains that ones environment is crucial. I think its fruitless to look past this variable when comparing people's looks, health etc.

 

[boris]

@MitchMitchell I am not saying PUFAs made him ugly. He still looks good. But it looks like a stunted development when you see his early pictures. And he often has that empty stare where you see a lot of white in the eyes, I had that when I was eating lots of grains and PUFAs, but of course many factors play into this. Many vegans have this as you can see in the videos on the last page, I don't think it has to do with lack of animal products, probably a general hormonal state influenced by many factors.

 

[Nicole W.]

Just chiming in here... I’m in my 50’s and what I’ve noticed through out the years is that people can look great up until about 40, no matter what they’ve done in terms of poor diet, smoking, drinking, hard partying, massive stress, depression etc...But then, one day, it’s like the bottom falls out. it seems like the people who have not sustained a good lifestyle and mental outlook just age/develop health problems very suddenly...like overnight. I’ve seen it time and again. It’s just a very dramatic change, very very quickly. I’ve often had the experience of seeing someone I hadn’t seen in a few months and think to myself, WOW, what happened? This phenomenon starts to happen more and more often as you and your friends get age...

I think all the assaults of life, including excessive PUFA consumption, accumulate steadily and the body doesn’t have the wherewithal to defend like it did, so then, by 40 or 50, it all shows. Just my two cents, but I believe that having a happy, lower stress life, with sense of humor intact, probably does more for our health and appearance than just diet alone, regardless of PUFA consumption. Optimism and having an interesting life shows on a person’s face and supports health generally.

 

[GreekDemiGod]

what I’ve noticed through out the years is that people can look great up until about 40, no matter what they’ve done

That's a bit of a stretch. I'd say 30 is where we draw the line and clearly can tell if it goes bad or good for someone.
I have coworkers who just hit 30 and they're a bit overweight, gaining fat around midsection especially, their metabolism is slowing down, wrinkles and dark circles start to make their presence. Their is also a certain lifeless presence to them, probably serotonin dominance, rigidity. They don't realize how much their 9-5 work environment is damaging them.
And there's the 30 year olds with a rich social life / relationships, they are still fit and look a few good years younger than their age.
Even in women, if you have trained eyes, you can tell a woman's age, even if she apparently looks younger than her age, there are signs. The skin loses a bit of collagen, a few wrinkles around the eyes when smiling. It's hard to cheat aging.

 

[Nicole W.]

That's a bit of a stretch. I'd say 30 is where we draw the line and clearly can tell if it goes bad or good for someone.
I have coworkers who just hit 30 and they're a bit overweight, gaining fat around midsection especially, their metabolism is slowing down, wrinkles and dark circles start to make their presence. Their is also a certain lifeless presence to them, probably serotonin dominance, rigidity. They don't realize how much their 9-5 work environment is damaging them.
And there's the 30 year olds with a rich social life / relationships, they are still fit and look a few good years younger than their age.
Even in women, if you have trained eyes, you can tell a woman's age, even if she apparently looks younger than her age, there are signs. The skin loses a bit of collagen, a few wrinkles around the eyes when smiling. It's hard to cheat aging.

What age are you? Are you under 30? Your age influences how you view both younger and older people and also how you define “looking great”. As we age and change, the criteria for judging other people also changes. No one 40 or older expects anyone over 40 to look like a 20 year old. Even so, people at 40 and beyond can still look great: with good vitality, good hair and skin for their age, exuding energy and positivity. Wrinkles, weight gain etc.. don’t necessarily make a person look bad IMO.
That being said, I have several members of my family that lived healthfully to be past 100 and they did not look half their age, trust me. They looked like they were 100 with all the telltale signs: wrinkles, hair loss, lost teeth, liver spots etc. However, for them, it was a slow steady decline, not a situation where overnight they didn’t look like themselves anymore and developed a bunch of health problems. That’s a big difference in my estimation. I think we are all striving for slow aging, not no aging, haha.

 

[dukesbobby777]

What do people make of David Avocado Wolfe? The guy doesn’t shy away from nut butters, nuts/seeds, etc. Yes, he’s a bit of a quack with some very strange ideas but at 50 doesn’t seem to have turned into a massive blob. For 50, you could say he looks pretty good for his age. Being vegan (or so he purports) you’d expect a lack of structure and build (with lack of protein), but he doesn’t look any different from any other 50 year old male in that respect. With the latest pics that I see of him lately, he has greying in his beard and on the sides of his hair. I started greying in the same areas in my mid thirties with Peating. For a guy of 50 his skin looks fairly good IMO.

What he truly eats day by day though is anyone’s guess.

 

[mrchibbs]

What age are you? Are you under 30? Your age influences how you view both younger and older people and also how you define “looking great”. As we age and change, the criteria for judging other people also changes. No one 40 or older expects anyone over 40 to look like a 20 year old. Even so, people at 40 and beyond can still look great: with good vitality, good hair and skin for their age, exuding energy and positivity. Wrinkles, weight gain etc.. don’t necessarily make a person look bad IMO.
That being said, I have several members of my family that lived healthfully to be past 100 and they did not look half their age, trust me. They looked like they were 100 with all the telltale signs: wrinkles, hair loss, lost teeth, liver spots etc. However, for them, it was a slow steady decline, not a situation where overnight they didn’t look like themselves anymore and developed a bunch of health problems. That’s a big difference in my estimation. I think we are all striving for slow aging, not no aging, haha.

I'm in my late 20s and I agree with you. Our perception changes as we age. I've learned with time that a lot of people can look extremely youthful even past 40, and I also look at other characteristics, which to me are more telling than facial structure, i.e. (normally) flushed and hydrated skin, dark pigment, full and thick hair etc.

 

[tankasnowgod]

Well yeah people look better in their early 20s than in their 30s. Breaking news. It can only be the PUFAs right.

Roy swank fed his patients a lot of PUFAs and he reported great skin and hair.

Wrong.

He didn't "feed" them anything, but rather advised them on diet, and kept track of their diet through dietary questionnaires and recall-

Multiple sclerosis: the lipid relationship

ABSTRACT. Between 1949 and 1984, 150 multiple sclerosis patients consumed low-fat diets. Fats, oils, and protein intakes; disability; and deaths were determined

academic.oup.com

"At each visit the patients were interviewed, the clinical state of their disease was evaluated, and the contents of their diets were estimated from oral questions and written records, which the patients prepared for 1-2 wk before each visit. Initially, patients were seen every 2 wk, then once a month, and finally every 3-6 mo until July 1954. During each visit the patients were interviewed and examined and their diets were evaluated. After 1954 they were seen once a year until 1972 and they re- ported to us by letter every 3-4 mo. They were contacted by phone and letter between 1972 and 1977 and interviewed again in 1977. Since then they have reported to us irregularly but at least once a year by letter, the last time in January 1985. The procedures that we followed were in accord with the ethical standards of both supporting institutions."

The diet

From 1949 to mid- 1951 the fat intake, which before dieting had been ‘ 125 g/d, was reduced to 20-30 g of fat mostly from milk and other animal sources. In 195 1 butter fats and hydrogenated oils were eliminated and animal fats were limited to 15 g/d. Five grams of cod liver oil and vegetable oils that remained fluid at room temperature were added and allowed to vary from ,-. 10 to 40 g/d as desired by the patients. Margarines, hydrogenated peanut butter, and all shortenings were disallowed. The diet contained from 60 to 90 g protein mostly from fish and seafood, white meat ofchicken and turkey cooked with the skin removed, skim milk, all lean meats, an occasional egg, vegetables, cereals, and nuts. The fats and oils in all meat items and eggs had to be accounted for. Fats are defined as those lipids containing saturated fatty acids that are solid at room temperature (20-22 #{176}C) and below. They are mostly of animal origin but the lipids in coconuts and palm oils, which are usually referred to as oils, are actually fats by our definition and are cx- cluded from the low-fat diet. The oils that are unsaturated are vegetable in origin except for the fish oils. All oils are fluid at room temperature and many (the polyunsaturated) are also fluid at refrigerator temperature. As the study progressed com- mercially processed foods and pen-fattened beef had to be monitored to prevent unwanted increases in fat intake. Carbohydrates were consumed as needed to meet the energy requirements ofthe patients."

Truthfully, we really don't know how faithfully any of the patients followed the diet, but the initial diet appears to be more saturated. It's likely the patients were more compliant in the earlier phases, as they had appointments every two weeks or every month. By the time he switched up his advice to eat more PUFA rich fats, he was likely seeing patients 1-4 times a year. Did they make the switch? Did they keep on doing what they had been doing previous to 1951?

It's tough to draw any conclusions based on a group of 150 MS patients who self-reported dietary intake, and then making estimates off that data. Self reporting is notoriously inaccurate.

 

[gaze]

iron is underrated for skin aging too. i think if you avoid excess red meat and fortified bread, you can reduce age spots significantly. i think ray said swank had success from the reducing of iron rich meats too

 

[keytothecity]

I looked up his recent health problem. He used pain killers for nearly a decade due to nerve damage from surgery and has issues now from quitting it abruptly. Hard to say if any of the issues are due to the medication, veganism or pufa consumption.
I used to eat a lot of almonds, walnuts and avocado and my skin was perfectly fine. My diet was in a lot of ways the opposite of the ray peat diet. And now my skin looks like utter crap. But after all this reading of ray peat and discarding pretty much all of it because it doesn’t work for me I’d like to keep at least something. I’ll admit I never went under 2 g, maybe I’ll try that for a month and if I continue to get worse, I’m completely done with this

Same experience with the skin. I believe when you peat you have to be careful that E doesn’t get too low like in my case.
The second I have some pufa the skin in my whole body gets hydrated, the eczema on the back of my head disappears and my scalp feels reslly nice. There is a certain anti inflammatory aspect that you might need if your cortisol is low
Pufa avoidance is really nice for that sharp facial androgenic look though
My advice would be to keep avoiding pufa mostly, buffer with some fish and avocado where necessary (I think fresh pufas aren’t half as baf as ppl make it out to be, bottled oil and heated fats are the problem) and start putting retin-a. That‘ll take care of skin, look it up on YouTube. Plenty of old women with skin looking 20-30yrs younger

 

[tankasnowgod]

One other point....... even if Swank's patients were following his advice, and eating near the "upper end" of fat consumption, their PUFA intake would still be at least 25% lower than what the "average" person eats today-

The above USDA chart shows that PUFA consumption is near 38g per day in the early 2000s (and likely higher now). If we assume that the 15g of fat from animal sources had about 2 grams of PUFA, and that the PUFA in 5g of CLO is 1 gram (very close), and that they ate ALL of their 40 grams of fat allowed from oils as Soybean oil, which is 61% PUFA, they would be getting 25g of PUFA there. So that is 28 grams of PUFA a day, 10 grams less than the "average" intake in the early 2000s.

Template:Types of cooking oils and fats - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

If they had instead opted for Olive Oil (very likely, as it tastes better, and is just better all around), that same 40 grams of oil would yield about 5g of PUFA. In that case, they would be getting about 8g of PUFA a day, far, far lower than the average consumption in the early 2000s. If they had opted for the "low end" of 10g Olive Oil, that's closer to a gram, and only 4g of PUFA a day.

Swank's patients were likely eating less PUFA than the average individual today, and may have very well cut their own PUFA intake by as much as 70% even following the rules to the T that Swank laid out for them.