Fatty Acid Saturation And Longevity

[Travis]

I came across a good article on membrane lipid unsaturation and longevity. This is a summary of original research and provides 123 references to other articles that may be worth exploring. I also made a graph for four common foods and their fatty acid saturation as a percent of total fat:

Data source: nutritiondata.com

Colonel Sanders does not want you to know this! Outlive the fried-chicken eaters with coconut or beef!

Membrane lipid unsaturation as physiological adaptation to animal longevity

The amount of PUFAs in the diet does seem to be negatively correlated with longevity. There are dozens of experiments that show this.

 

[lollipop]

I came across a good article on membrane lipid unsaturation and longevity. This is a summary of original research and provides 123 references to other articles that may be worth exploring. I also made a graph for four common foods and their fatty acid saturation as a percent of total fat:

View attachment 3621
Data source: nutritiondata.com

Colonel Sanders does not want you to know this! Outlive the fried-chicken eaters with coconut or beef!

Membrane lipid unsaturation as physiological adaptation to animal longevity

The amount of PUFAs in the diet does seem to be negatively correlated with longevity. There are dozens of experiments that show this.

Interesting that milk is more saturated than beef...coconut being so high makes sense...

 

[Luann]

Mice were only to control <1/4 of their membrane lipid through their diet, here's the study:
Application Control Violation

 

[paymanz]

Thanks Travis!

Mice were only to control <1/4 of their membrane lipid through their diet, here's the study:
Application Control Violation

Nice, maybe 8weeks is too short to have big effect?and their normal chow which they feed them before study is high on pufas usually.

 

[Luann]

@paymanz That is to be hoped lol.

 

[paymanz]

@paymanz That is to be hoped lol.

haha no , seriously .with a diet very low on pufa how the body of the animal can be highly unsaturated? ability to make pufa de novo is low .maybe it be highly MUFA ,which is better than pufa rich.

 

[Travis]

Yeah that was an interesting study on mice. The graphical presentation was very easy to visualize; many studies don't present the data in such an easily interpretable way.

It seems like the brain's PUFA content is tightly regulated, but the adipose tissue and plasma varies a good deal with diet. Figure 4 is very interesting. This is the one that shows how the ratio of omega-3/omega-6 increases with diet. Perhaps this is something to look into.

 

[Luann]

This is an older study, and on rats. http://jn.nutrition.org/content/118/11/1311.extract

 

[Luann]

@lisaferraro the flamingo part of this thread : ) Hot Flashes, Night Sweats, The Relationship To Stress, KMUD Herb Doctors , 2012

 

[lollipop]

@lisaferraro the flamingo part of this thread : ) Hot Flashes, Night Sweats, The Relationship To Stress, KMUD Herb Doctors , 2012

Cool! Thank you @Liubo, I will listen tomorrow - soooo sweet to think about me btw...thank you for the birthday wishes!!!!

 

[Regina]

Cool! Thank you @Liubo, I will listen tomorrow - soooo sweet to think about me :) btw...thank you for the birthday wishes!!!!

Happy Birthday!

 

[lollipop]

Happy Birthday!

Thank you @Regina!!!! Sweeeeet

 

[Luann]

@Travis :

Desaturases will desaturate!
Regulation of Membrane Fluidity by Lipid Desaturases - Springer
And they can act on saturated fats
The surprising diversity of Delta6-desaturase substrates. - PubMed - NCBI
Without iron, algae can't desaturate their fats
http://www.jbc.org/content/early/2013/08/27/jbc.M113.490425.full.pdf
Iron and erythrocyte membrane lipids in kids
The effect of iron fortification on the fatty acid composition of plasma and erythrocyte membranes in primary school children with and without iron deficiency
iron, membrane lipids in rats
The effect of dietary iron deficiency on the fatty acid composition of plasma and erythrocyte membrane phospholipids in the rat
Iron and lipids in trees
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0952327809001045

So, it seems that fatty acids can be unsaturated by the body but the enzymes that do this need the help of Fe.

 

[Travis]

This is interesting. It seems as though in certain conditions, such as "unsaturated fatty-acid deficiency", the Δ-desaturases can create mead acids for the cell membrane. I think that double-bonds near the delta end are less prone to lipid peroxidation than ones at the omega end. It appears that humans don't have an ω-desaturase, leaving me to speculate that ω-3 fatty acids are unsuitable for cell membranes. From Wiki:

Four desaturases occur in humans: Δ⁹-desaturase, Δ⁶-desaturase, Δ⁵-desaturase, and Δ⁴-desaturase.

No mention of ω-desaturases. Biologists think, based on X-ray studies, that some desaturases contain a di-iron core surrounded by a motif of four carboxyl groups:

And this is the consensus view of the dehydrogenation. The di-iron group is assumed to be in the enzymes' core:

But I wonder if dehydrogenation could happen without enzymes in the presence of excess iron. Ray Peat warns about excess Iron, and for good reason. It is known that Iron is a good catalyst for lipid oxidation, even in stored food.

These sources of Iron, and any contamination from equipment during processing, provide the main catalyst for lip oxidation in cereal products.

Lipid Oxidation
And there is more. This appears to be a very well-observed phenomena:

caused severe degradation of myoglobin, leading to a significant increase in free ionic iron content in beef loin. It is suggested that free ionic iron is the major catalyst for lipid oxidation.

Effect of NaCl, myoglobin, Fe(II), and Fe(III) on lipid oxidation of raw and cooked chicken breast and beef loin.
It certainly happens in vivo and in vitro. From an article on iron-fed rats:

... had lower body weight and plasma total phospholipid linoleic acid levels typical of the symptoms of essential fatty acid deficiency...

Fatty-acid deficiency; there's that stupid term again. They act like it's a bad thing in this article, even though it is known that linoleic-acid-free rats can desaturate their own lipids as needed and have less cancer rates. They just assume that this is from a lack of enzymatic activity in the Fe-free group, and not of an excess of inappropriate desaturation in the Fe-fed group.

Additional ω3 and ω6 fatty acids may be necessary to counteract the effect of iron deficiency in rats.

I don't agree with these people; they assume that ω-3 fats are an acceptable substitute for endogenously-produced Δ-6 fats. I don't see the oxidative effect free iron has on lipids to be a good thing. There is a really good article, here, that links iron fortification to all sorts of metabolic issues. This is a must read.