I Still Don’t Understand How EPA/DHA Are Bad Or “toxins” As Matt Blackburn Refers To Them

BBRP

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I can get on board with the idea that corn oil, soybean oil, peanut oil, etc are bad for us,


But I really don’t get the logic in lumping DHA with these oils.


I’ve heard Matt Blackburn refer to DHA as a “toxin”, and he’s said that EPA and DHA are not essential at all, and it’s all a hoax.


These are interesting theories,


But isn’t half the fat in our brain DHA?? So our bodies put all of this toxic fat in our brain for no reason?


Mother’s breast milk will be higher in DHA if the woman’s diet has more DHA intake. If DHA is a toxin why would the intelligent human body put it in the breast milk where it’s going to be toxic in the infants body?? Makes no sense.



Also the theory I heard before was that we “became human” (if you believe in evolution) because we were able to use tools to crack open the bones and skulls of animals and we would eat their brains and bone marrow that other animals could not.


I’ve heard that the bone marrow and brains of animals are LOADED with epa/DHA, way more than you’d get even if you ate tons of fish.


Fish is always thought of as super healthy, and when I was on the Gundry my main animal sources of food were eggs and salmon, and I lost a lot of weight; my theory was that the diet was very anti-inflammatory.


What are your thoughts? Is DHA really a toxin? Is your brain full of this toxin and poisoning your whole body right now??
 

RealNeat

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Quite fascinating.


Do you think that info about half of the fat in our brain being DHA is untrue then?


I’ve heard different people say it multiple times, but I never looked into the claim really

This is the Ray Peat forum, where we discuss ideas based on Ray Peat PhD, his work and those who he refers to, one of the major ideas being the misleading "essential" fatty acid theory, Blackburn just takes from his info.

So naturally the best place you can start is by reading Rays articles on his website and listening to the many podcasts he has been on. Most of your questions will be answered.
 

Noodlz2

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My guess is that the commonly thrown around "facts" you list in your first post are actually not facts, like you hit upon in your second post.

It would be hard to be 100% sure though. Like other posters say, Ray's articles would be a good place to help convince yourself, but I never feel 100% comfortable with any practices I adopt based on anyone's "research".

The thing that gives me confidence in the idea that pufas are on the whole not good to consume is that I easily stay away from major sources with no problems or cravings. Who knows though, maybe cravings and intuitions do not necessarily lead you the right way.
 

tankasnowgod

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What are your thoughts? Is DHA really a toxin? Is your brain full of this toxin and poisoning your whole body right now??

DHA is most certainly toxic. In the studies by Nanji, they induced liver fibrosis by feeding rats fish oil and ethanol. The fibrosis could be reversed by feeding long chain SFAs, even while continuing to administer ethanol- Thromboxane inhibitors attenuate inflammatory and fibrotic changes in rat liver despite continued ethanol administrations. - PubMed - NCBI

Since your body can't make the "essential" fatty acids, it would depend on dietary intake.

Calling them "essential" is a little misleading. It implies it's something you want to seek out. It's more accurate to call them "unavoidable" fatty acids, as it's basically impossible to construct a diet without them, outside of a lab. You would basically need to use a fat free diet, or rely heavily on hydrogenated coconut oil, and other pure SFAs like MCT oil and Stearic Acid.
 

tankasnowgod

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Do you think that info about half of the fat in our brain being DHA is untrue then?

Yes. I have never heard that before. Since most fat in warm blooded animals is about half SFA, about half MUFA, and the leftover 2-4% PUFA under ideal conditions, I would expect brain fat to be similar.
 
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In cows, the brain is about 25% PUFA, so it's more like a fourth of the fat in the brain, if you don't count cholesterol in. But the amount per 100 grams isn't very high. It's around 1,8 grams of PUFA per 100 grams. But the reason why the brain accumulates more PUFA than other tissues is something I haven't really found out yet. Maybe if the animal is getting any significant amount of PUFA in the diet, it will replace mead acid? So if the cows were eating zero PUFA, then would their brains have zero omega-6s and zero omega- 3s, and would, instead be 25% mead acid?

I wish they did a study where they fed the rats a zero PUFA diet their entire lives since they were babies and then measured the PUFA content of their brains. Measuring things like memory, intelligence, sexual function and strength of those rats would be really interesting. I wonder if the brain tissues would be totally PUFA depleted too.
 

RealNeat

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This is a theory and one which may seem oversimplistic but I think the reason we find PUFA at all is because of cold temperatures. In non-industrial, fresh (vitamin E preserved), physiologically insignificant doses it doesn't seem to be a large problem and just part of the natural order of cows eating grass which must have some PUFA to prevent damage to it's (grasses) structure, hence the cow inevitably also having some. Same with seeds, grains, legumes and fish in cold climates. The warmer you get with less severity of seasonal cycles the less PUFA.
 

Waynish

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Fish oil is for fish. You wanna pour it in your 37DegC body? Does that not seem problematic?
I don't know about Matt, but a quick Google shows that he was actually selling it to his clients up until about a year ago:


Meanwhile, as someone who has made $0 from health coaching in my life, I've been telling people not to avoid consuming PUFAs for at least 8 years. Not on a high horse, but just to impress upon you how health trends spread - and it isn't via some scientific consensus.
 

milkboi

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In cows, the brain is about 25% PUFA, so it's more like a fourth of the fat in the brain, if you don't count cholesterol in. But the amount per 100 grams isn't very high. It's around 1,8 grams of PUFA per 100 grams. But the reason why the brain accumulates more PUFA than other tissues is something I haven't really found out yet. Maybe if the animal is getting any significant amount of PUFA in the diet, it will replace mead acid? So if the cows were eating zero PUFA, then would their brains have zero omega-6s and zero omega- 3s, and would, instead be 25% mead acid?

I wish they did a study where they fed the rats a zero PUFA diet their entire lives since they were babies and then measured the PUFA content of their brains. Measuring things like memory, intelligence, sexual function and strength of those rats would be really interesting. I wonder if the brain tissues would be totally PUFA depleted too.

My vision is one day to do such an experiment in my own home, with rats fed a 0 PUFA diet and rats fed their natural diet with a good amount of PUFA.
 
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This is a theory and one which may seem oversimplistic but I think the reason we find PUFA at all is because of cold temperatures. In non-industrial, fresh (vitamin E preserved), physiologically insignificant doses it doesn't seem to be a large problem and just part of the natural order of cows eating grass which must have some PUFA to prevent damage to it's (grasses) structure, hence the cow inevitably also having some. Same with seeds, grains, legumes and fish in cold climates. The warmer you get with less severity of seasonal cycles the less PUFA.
Thanks.I can see being true. So it's really a side- effect then. These fats are useful for plants and fish, but useless for humans or cows. We accumulate them just because they are hard to get rid of, and they end up replacing our own fats.
 
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My vision is one day to do such an experiment in my own home, with rats fed a 0 PUFA diet and rats fed their natural diet with a good amount of PUFA.
Nice. If you ever do it, let us know :).
 

schultz

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In cows, the brain is about 25% PUFA, so it's more like a fourth of the fat in the brain, if you don't count cholesterol in. But the amount per 100 grams isn't very high. It's around 1,8 grams of PUFA per 100 grams. But the reason why the brain accumulates more PUFA than other tissues is something I haven't really found out yet. Maybe if the animal is getting any significant amount of PUFA in the diet, it will replace mead acid? So if the cows were eating zero PUFA, then would their brains have zero omega-6s and zero omega- 3s, and would, instead be 25% mead acid?

I wish they did a study where they fed the rats a zero PUFA diet their entire lives since they were babies and then measured the PUFA content of their brains. Measuring things like memory, intelligence, sexual function and strength of those rats would be really interesting. I wonder if the brain tissues would be totally PUFA depleted too.

I think it just has to do with the similarity in saturation between PUFA and other things in the body that the brain 'let's in'. The PUFA will bind to various proteins (albumin, SHBG, transthyretin) that other unsaturated things or oily things like hormones normally bind to, (thyroxin and vitamin A are both unsaturated)

Anyway, I am not explaining it that well, but I think that's at least a crude explaination to get the conversation started.
 
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I think it just has to do with the similarity in saturation between PUFA and other things in the body that the brain 'let's in'. The PUFA will bind to various proteins (albumin, SHBG, transthyretin) that other unsaturated things or oily things like hormones normally bind to, like thyroxin and vitamin A.

Anyway, I am not explaining it that well, but I think that's at least a crude explaination to get the conversation started.
That makes sense. Thanks.

So what do you think the PUFA in the brain would be replaced with if the organ could filter them out? With less PUFA in the diet, cardiolipin becomes more saturated with palmitic acid( pun intended). Travis said that the brain needs more fluidity than SFAs and MUFA and even mead acid could provide, but I didn't really see any studies showing that rats who were PUFA depleted were slow- witted. He only mentioned a study, but Kartoffel had some good arguments against the validity of using that study as proof that the brain needs DHA.
 
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Why do you care what Matt Blackburn says? The guy jumps from diet and lifestyle trend to trend pledging allegiance to whatever he thinks is correct at the moment. He’s a top tier repeater. I know because I have the same fault.

He’s also a righteous **** based on some of his YouTube comments I’ve stumbled across.

You need to evaluate people more based on their face and behaviour characteristics, the way they talk. His Danny roddy podcast is unlistenable because it’s basically him making dumb interjections while Danny tries to talk.

We all get the faces we deserve, ok?
Stop being autistic, you should be evaluating people’s threat levels based on appearance as well as character and that lanky Ali baba lookin nigga sets my alarm bells off.
 
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Kingpinguin

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Imo I think PUFA has a biological function in the human body. But thats more as signaling molecules to turn reactions on and off. The amount of pufa you actually need for this is so low that even if you eat a peat diet you will still get the needed amounts for these functions to happen. Drink 1 liter of whole milk and you already have 0,8 grams omega 3. Where as you probably only need 100-200mg of the stuff. Also you get 1,2 grams of omega 6 from milk. The ratio of n3 to n6 maybe matters and the amount. These fats are very bad in any significant amount. The body only needs them for inflammatory signaling. And not in the amount that is found in fish or refined vegetable oils. Conclusion is you dont need supplements and you should avoid fish and vegetable oils. The amount you find naturally in beef, milk, eggs are enough to not cause a deficiency. Deficiency in these oils have never been observed in humans. And only in lab experiments they have been able to cause what they claim is a deficiency but putting rats on a diet like that would cause many other nutrient deficiencies they havent accounted for. So even that could be false.
 

Auslander

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Fish oil is for fish. You wanna pour it in your 37DegC body? Does that not seem problematic?
I don't know about Matt, but a quick Google shows that he was actually selling it to his clients up until about a year ago:


Meanwhile, as someone who has made $0 from health coaching in my life, I've been telling people not to avoid consuming PUFAs for at least 8 years. Not on a high horse, but just to impress upon you how health trends spread - and it isn't via some scientific consensus.



What the hell is HUFA that he compares to PUFA?

“Highly Unsaturated Fatty Acids”??

Doesn’t POLY- in PUFA mean highly-?
 

haidut

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I can get on board with the idea that corn oil, soybean oil, peanut oil, etc are bad for us,


But I really don’t get the logic in lumping DHA with these oils.


I’ve heard Matt Blackburn refer to DHA as a “toxin”, and he’s said that EPA and DHA are not essential at all, and it’s all a hoax.


These are interesting theories,


But isn’t half the fat in our brain DHA?? So our bodies put all of this toxic fat in our brain for no reason?


Mother’s breast milk will be higher in DHA if the woman’s diet has more DHA intake. If DHA is a toxin why would the intelligent human body put it in the breast milk where it’s going to be toxic in the infants body?? Makes no sense.



Also the theory I heard before was that we “became human” (if you believe in evolution) because we were able to use tools to crack open the bones and skulls of animals and we would eat their brains and bone marrow that other animals could not.


I’ve heard that the bone marrow and brains of animals are LOADED with epa/DHA, way more than you’d get even if you ate tons of fish.


Fish is always thought of as super healthy, and when I was on the Gundry my main animal sources of food were eggs and salmon, and I lost a lot of weight; my theory was that the diet was very anti-inflammatory.


What are your thoughts? Is DHA really a toxin? Is your brain full of this toxin and poisoning your whole body right now??

Omega-3 are the most reliable dietary method to raise MDA. In fact, MDA levels are used as a biomarker of omega-3 consumption. Read the Wiki page below and see for yourself if it is something you want elevated. I'll just include one quote from the Wiki page below - MDA is a mutagen.
Malondialdehyde - Wikipedia
"...Malondialdehyde reacts with deoxyadenosine and deoxyguanosine in DNA, forming DNA adducts, the primary one being M1G, which is mutagenic.[11] The guanidine group of arginine residues condense with malondialdehyde to give 2-aminopyrimidines."
"...Malondialdehyde is reactive and potentially mutagenic.[13] It has been found in heated edible oils such as sunflower and palm oils.[14]"

If that still does not convince you just Google for "MDA DISEASE" where you replace DISEASE with any medical condition you can come up with - i.e. diabetes, CVD, cancer, Alzheimer, Parkinson, etc. I don't think you will find a single chronic disease where MDA is not elevated and several intervention trials have already confirmed that the link is causative - i.e. higher MDA contributes to pathology.
Finally, a simple search for "omega-3" or "DHA" or "EPA" on this forum would have turned up tons of threads on the topic. If you read through everything that has been posted I suspect most questions about a "benefit" of PUFA will disappear.
 

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