Diet and Human Brain Composition

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Anyone have info about this quote I found, "Approximately 8% of the brain’s weight is comprised of omega-3 fatty acids" - http://www.lef.org/Magazine/2010/8/Omeg ... me/Page-01

I'm wondering if we have data on how much that varies according to dietary intake.
"Lipid composition of the normal human brain: gray matter, white matter, and myelin" - http://www.jlr.org/content/6/4/537.full.pdf

For those with immune responses in the brain - as detailed in Dr. Datis Kharrazian's "Why Isn't My Brain Working" - if the omega fats increase inflammation as much as Peat says, then they're a likely mechanism for these immune responses (and resultant effects like brain fog and gut-brain axis innervation).

Similar ones I haven't finished going through yet:
http://www.jlr.org/content/41/3/465.full
http://www.jlr.org/content/31/2/237.full.pdf
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7584862
https://books.google.ae/books?id=qwbhnq ... ed&f=false (can't link the whole book, unfortunately)
http://jn.nutrition.org/content/122/7/1521.full.pdf
This is of interest (coconut oil): Can anyone post the full article? http://www.researchgate.net/publication ... erent_Fats
 

Tom

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Yes, I think it´s around 8% of the total fat content, but fat content in human brain is probably max 10%, so maybe a whole big human brain has 10 grams of long chain omega-3 fatty acids in it. I think it is mostly DHA, some DPA, but not much EPA. DHA is also found in the eyes, but in most of the other organs of the body arachidonic acid is the chief fatty acid, as is the case for most land animals.

I´ve found that both pig brain and lamb brain had about similar amount of DHA despite likely extreme difference in diets (both directly, and indirectly through the effect of different digestive processes), although arachidonic acid was twice as high in pig brain (same as DHA) as lamb brain.

I think some of the analysis showing benefit of omega-3 during pregnancy seems to be twisted (funded by fish oil industry) and so there´s no separation of fish and fish oil supplements. Fish, and especially shellfish, can be very rich in desirable nutrients like selenium, iodine, b12 and others. I think Weston A Price showed long time ago how pregant women in primitive socities instinctively sought out shellfish, more so than fish, and shellfish is not so rich in omega-3 fatty acids compared to fish.

I don´t see much physiological requirement for DHA, but perhaps it can be used short term as a drug. Question then is if other substances (like say aspirin) is better.
 

Tom

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The figures for brain of pork and other animals can be found on nutritiondata.com, a more comprehensive analysis of fatty acid composition of the brain of wild animals can be found here: http://www.nature.com/ejcn/journal/v56/ ... .html#tbl3

Average composition as percentage of total brain fat for elk, deer and antelope:

Saturated fats 32%
Monounsaturated 28%
Polyunsaturated: 22%

Arachidonic acid 5.5%
22:4 n6 4.0%
DHA: 9.0%
DPA 0.6%
EPA: 0.1%

Whole human brain is almost 80% water (as szent Gyorgyi said "we are walking aquarium"). If lipid concentration in a newborn brain is 10% and the weight of the brain is 350 grams, then it may contain up to 3000 mg DHA. Say the whole body of the newborn has 5000 mg DHA, so that requires an extra average 20 mg DHA per day for the mother during the pregnancy.

My thinking is that DHA´s role is mainly to make the fats more "fluid" in the brain, I believe it´s 25 times more "fluid" than linolic acid for example, so very small quantities can achieve this goal. It is probably the most unsaturated fat used by the human body. If it is missing then the body will likely compensate by unsaturating other fatty acids (monounsaturated out of saturated, mead acid out of oleic acid - as seen in vegans that do not obtain any DHA or arachidonic acid). I also think the body perhaps makes 22:4 n6 out of arachidonic acid as this is much more "fluid", so there´s another possible compensation mechanism if DHA is missing. More often however it seems that the body has too much of these unsaturated fats and gets rid of them via the production of prostaglandins. This at least appears to be Peat´s idea. I´m really no expert on all of this, I just find that Peat´s ideas makes more sense at least than that of all the corrupted experts working for the fish oil industry etc.
 
OP
O
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There's quite a lot here and not much visibility about what balances of fats in what regions of the brain are more functionally beneficial. To go back to one of my original questions:
"...if the omega fats increase inflammation as much as Peat says, then they're a likely mechanism for these immune responses (and resultant effects like brain fog and gut-brain axis innervation)."
Maybe differently composed brains react differently immunologically leading to more rapid auto-immune effects in various cases.
 

Tom

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I don´t have the answer to your question, and alas do not understand it fully. I was just bringing out some additional ideas/information partially as a reaction to the first article from 2010 (which can read like an advertisement for fish oil supplements) and the misleading 8% omega-3 in the brain - an often used advertising trick to make us believe that the brain has enormous amount of omega-3´s in it, and so therefore implying we need to take fish oil supplements. I doubt that diet will have so much impact on the absolute levels of long chain polyunsaturated fats in the brain once a minimum dietary level is reached, and everyone even those following a Peat diet with some eggs and shellfish will obtain probably much more than this minimum level. I mentioned in another post how vegans that didn´t consume arachidonic acid and DHA was shown to be low in DHA but correspondingly higher in AA than the general population. Do these people suffer from more inflammatory conditions than others? Possibly higher DHA levels will displace AA over time in the brain, but if so, what type of impact will it have, or will it have any impact at all?
 
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They see that ill people have less of it, so then they try feeding it to people to see if they become in turn less ill. A null result or a negative effect is found. I will appreciate if you can find cases where this does not happen.
 

Tom

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It has been shown reproductive failure in cats when diet was completely absent in arachidonic acid (AA). This was alleviated with AA at 0.04% of energy (equal about 130 mg on a 3000 kcal diet), and was suggested to be higher if the diet contained large amounts of n3. Cats cannot make the conversion (at least in the liver) from LA to AA, so I think also humans that cannot make this conversion (diabetics, pre diabetics, some others) also should try and ingest at least this amount just to be sure especially given all the EPA/DHA that seems to creep into all sorts of products due to the fish oil hysteria (and unless you´re living like a monk you will be exposed to this). 1 egg per day plus a serving of liver every 2 weeks should probably be enough. But even eggs now often have as much DHA as AA, and if so some other organ meats may be recommended. AA is found in far higher quantities in most organs of land animals than DHA, it appears to be a vastly more important fatty acid. I do however contemplate that many of the Indian vegans use glasses could be an effect of insufficient DHA.
 

EnoreeG

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Tom said:
I don´t see much physiological requirement for DHA, but perhaps it can be used short term as a drug. Question then is if other substances (like say aspirin) is better.

DHA functions to allow electrical signaling. Although amino acids show as being synthesized 4 billion years ago, only the emergence of oxidative metabolism 600 million years ago allowed for the synthesis of highly unsaturated fatty acids. DHA has been a component of animals since that time according to this:

A quantum theory for the irreplaceable role of docosahexaenoic acid in neural cell signalling throughout evolution.

But if you want more, just search for "DHA electrical signaling".

edit - add:

Forgot to mention that I agree -- that much of the pro-fish-oil hype came from studies funded by the fish-meal industry, which existed before the fish-oil had a use, but seemed like it was really "begging" for a commercial use, since it was right there, on the fishing boat, being thrown away as they processed fish to get fish protein concentrates for animal feeds and human foods. If you want a history of how fish-oil has gone from something valuable (when used in lamps in the 19th century), to worthless, to valuable as a supplement, page through the history webpages of Omega Protein:

http://omegaprotein.com/who-we-are/our-history/

This is a company which at one time was owned by George Bush who jumped into "fishing" because he couldn't turn a profit in offshore drilling using WWII Navy ships, so he got into menhaden fishing and cornered the market and bought out the other companies. Omega Protein was a subsidiary which handled the meal/oil business and did a great job marketing it.
 

pboy

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so pufa depletion makes you unable to have children!??!>?!?! (nice) now I can freely let loose

I kid, im sure the amount you'd get on a fruit dairy diet is enough, if that is necessary, the thing is...they haven't done enough (or any) testing with meads acid or just in general...im pretty sure im pufa depleted for the most part, most possible, and im still fertile...so I dunno. On a serious note though, maybe the fact people can have kids so easily (probably like 70% are unfit to be parents, theyre unhealthy, and still get pregnant by accident, ect, and its just problems perpetuated) is a problem

this is something ive thought about..how is it that people who have depressed symptoms, like serotonin or in hibernation mode, chronically high cortisol, estrogen...how is it that the body still allows them to reproduce? it doesn't make sense in a strictly scientific logical sense...I think I know why in the higher sense, but still its an interesting question
 
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EnoreeG said:
Tom said:
I don´t see much physiological requirement for DHA, but perhaps it can be used short term as a drug. Question then is if other substances (like say aspirin) is better.

DHA functions to allow electrical signaling. Although amino acids show as being synthesized 4 billion years ago, only the emergence of oxidative metabolism 600 million years ago allowed for the synthesis of highly unsaturated fatty acids. DHA has been a component of animals since that time according to this:

A quantum theory for the irreplaceable role of docosahexaenoic acid in neural cell signalling throughout evolution.

But if you want more, just search for "DHA electrical signaling".

edit - add:

Forgot to mention that I agree -- that much of the pro-fish-oil hype came from studies funded by the fish-meal industry, which existed before the fish-oil had a use, but seemed like it was really "begging" for a commercial use, since it was right there, on the fishing boat, being thrown away as they processed fish to get fish protein concentrates for animal feeds and human foods. If you want a history of how fish-oil has gone from something valuable (when used in lamps in the 19th century), to worthless, to valuable as a supplement, page through the history webpages of Omega Protein:

http://omegaprotein.com/who-we-are/our-history/

This is a company which at one time was owned by George Bush who jumped into "fishing" because he couldn't turn a profit in offshore drilling using WWII Navy ships, so he got into menhaden fishing and cornered the market and bought out the other companies. Omega Protein was a subsidiary which handled the meal/oil business and did a great job marketing it.

I see plenty of assumptions in that piece, but anyway, I will send it to a computational chemist to see what he thinks. But the fat is completely unnecessary here, the stacked membranes that they talk about, the proteins that switch across it would basically act as photomultiplier tubes, or so would presumably think the protein folks such as Ling and Hameroff, who they by the way cite in their piece.

Focus on this Gerald Pollack quote before we go out on fat limbs:

Cells said:
Another example is rhodopsin. Rhodopsin is a retinal receptor molecule that undergoes conformational change in order to signal the presence of light. Rhodopsin exists in another form called bacteriorhodopsin. Also driven by absorbed light energy, bacteriorhodopsin can translocate protons across the bacterial cell membrane. Thus, rhodopsin is a light-driven receptor while bacteriorhodopsin is presumed to be a light-driven pump. Again, the charge movement observed in bacteriorhodopsin may not necessarily be the main event—the protein could function as a receptor of light just as rhodopsin does in the retina, triggering a response through conformational change (Lewis et al., 1996). As with the channeling action of colicin Ia, the pumping action of bacteriorhodopsin might then be an incidental byproduct, and not necessarily the primary event.
 

Hugh Johnson

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Tom said:
It has been shown reproductive failure in cats when diet was completely absent in arachidonic acid (AA). This was alleviated with AA at 0.04% of energy (equal about 130 mg on a 3000 kcal diet), and was suggested to be higher if the diet contained large amounts of n3. Cats cannot make the conversion (at least in the liver) from LA to AA,

Do you have the paper?
 

tara

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@pboy: I imagine being able to reproduce under suboptimal conditions has been important for the survival and spread of humans (and other species).
 

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