Theoretically, is it better to eat stale PUFA than fresh?

lvysaur

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I've heard Ray Peat mention in passing that "already oxidized" oils are somewhat less harmful than oils which are prone to oxidation, but not yet oxidized. He made this comment when talking about fish oil in an interview since the O3 oils oxidize much more readily than the O6 ones from soy/corn.

He didn't elaborate much, but said that oxidized oils were "less easily incorporated" or something like that.

So, theoretically, would it be better to consume stale corn oil than fresh corn oil? Would it also be better to consume fish oil than krill oil? Krill oil has the antioxidant astaxanthin, so it would be less oxidized prior to consumption than fish oil. It also exists in the form of phospholipids, rather than triglycerides, which may make it more absorbable.
 
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If you find that quote from Ray, I would be interested to see the context.

I would guess the fresh PUFA would be better, as some of it will end up getting oxidized as fuel or excreted, whereas the already oxidized PUFA (a lipid peroxide) immediately acts as a catalyst for even more oxidative damage.

The oxidized PUFA does get absorbed digestively, and end up in the blood:

"dietary oxidized lipids make a major contribution to the levels of oxidized lipids in circulating lipoproteins"
The effect of oxidized lipids in the diet on serum lipoprotein peroxides in control and diabetic rats. - PubMed - NCBI

"dietary oxidized fatty acids can be absorbed by the intestine and incorporated into lipoproteins and could potentially impose an oxidative stress and exacerbate atherogenesis"
Dietary oxidized fatty acids: an atherogenic risk? - PubMed - NCBI
 

narouz

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IvySaur--
I've heard Peat talk about that several times in interviews.
(I may be able to pinpoint which if I look over my notes.)

I see where you're going with the logic.
Peat has always applied it to fish oils, not the n-6's.
But I don't see why it wouldn't hold true for them also... :roll:

What a grotesque choice:
nice fresh PUFA
or
rancid PUFA.

Let me know when you figure it out.
It hurts my brain to contemplate it. :lol:
 
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lvysaur

lvysaur

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For the record, this isn't an exercise in pure mental masturbation.

I was taking krill oil for a long while, which has naturally occurring antioxidants, as well as having its fats in phospholipid form (possibly more effectively incorporated into the cell membranes?)

If what Peat says is really true, then krill oil should be much worse than fish oil, and would explain my predicament, which so many who take fish oil don't develop.
 
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lvysaur

lvysaur

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Did you two experience any bad symptoms from it? How long did you take it for?
 

jyb

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lvysaur said:
Did you two experience any bad symptoms from it? How long did you take it for?

I was already hypothyroid and started to experiment with a poor diet, namely paleo, so it's hard to know if it worsened anything.
 

Blossom

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lvysaur said:
Did you two experience any bad symptoms from it? How long did you take it for?
I took krill oil from J. Edwards International for about a year and a half. :shock: You could smell the freshness of the product. By the time I stopped taking it I was so sick I thought I was dying, literally. I don't think it was just the krill oil alone but a combination of very low carb paleo, supplemental glutamine and being ill already going into that scenario. I think I was burning a lot of it off because I seemed to stay primarily in ketosis at the time. I feel better and better as time goes on....
 

jyb

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lvysaur said:
If what Peat says is really true, then krill oil should be much worse than fish oil, and would explain my predicament

What sort of predicament you got which you think is specific to that fish oil?
 

narouz

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With my wonderful diet--
low carb, Mercola, homemade raw milk kefir with ground flaxseed,
lots of krill oil, raw vegetable juices, etc--
I concocted a lovely tripartite poison:
n-3, n-6, and lactic acid. :banghead
 

Spokey

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I took fish oil for a while thinking it would help the depression I suffered from at the time. It made things much worse.

I also had a dog I fed food with high amounts of O-3 in thinking I was doing her a favour. She died of liver cancer.
 
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lvysaur

lvysaur

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jyb said:
lvysaur said:
If what Peat says is really true, then krill oil should be much worse than fish oil, and would explain my predicament

What sort of predicament you got which you think is specific to that fish oil?

Lethargy, light sensitivity, and hair shedding while taking it. I was also eating high fat at the time, quite a few avocados, and sometimes fasting.

As of now, the light sensitivity is mostly gone, and the others vary day by day.
 

SQu

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Light sensitivity has also gone for me, I don't use sunglasses anymore. It's surprisingly liberating.
 

narouz

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lvysaur said:
If what Peat says is really true, then krill oil should be much worse than fish oil...

This is the truly devilish twist.
We were encouraged to pay more to buy the freshest n-3 available.
When, from a Peatian view, we were actually paying more
to buy the primo most effective poison:
fresh enough not to have pre-decayed before entering our mouths.

Seems like Peat might've one time said
that fish oil was worse than vegetable oils,
but then explained that it's already rancid
so we're only subject to the less poisonous breakdown products
of those fish oils.
 

BingDing

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Too funny, "mental masturbation" is usually applied to academics and federal regulatory bureaucracies and the lawyers who feed off them. This isn't even close, there is an answer.

When pufas are oxidized in the body they are reacting with free radicals/reactive oxygen species (ROS). What CIconoclast didn't completely explain is that the oxidized fatty acid molecule then becomes a free radical/ROS itself and looks for another polyunsaturated fatty acid to oxidize, starting a chain reaction of oxidative damage which continues until an antioxidant quenches it. So whether a pufa is oxidized by lipid peroxidation in the body or exposure to light, air and heat in the kitchen, it has changed from a nutrient to a toxin.

Not to flog a dead horse, but the astaxanthin in krill oil is a very small band-aid. Minimizing pufa intake and supporting the wide range of antioxidants is the way forward.

If the question is did taking krill oil instead of fish oil result in a better condition today, we might as well believe it did, no?
 
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lvysaur

lvysaur

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BingDing said:
Not to flog a dead horse, but the astaxanthin in krill oil is a very small band-aid. Minimizing pufa intake and supporting the wide range of antioxidants is the way forward.

One thing I noticed while taking krill oil is that my skin was without a doubt much better looking. I'm not sure how much this was actually due to the krill oil though, as I was also taking MSM, and eating relatively low carb/slight fasting.

My skin had a pinkish tone, and part of me thinks that might have been due to astaxanthin. Do you think it's worth taking separately as a supplement?
 

Blossom

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I'm not sure about astaxanthin but I found this quote from Peat on the subject of fish oil. In the May 2008 newsletter entitled The GABA system, defenses, and tissue renewal Ray wrote:
Fish oils and other omega 3 oils are being promoted as a treatment for many diseases, especially heart disease, arthritis, and other inflammatory diseases, and depression. They do have an inflammatory effect, at least in the short term, partly associated with their inhibition of prostaglandin synthesis, but their anti-inflammatory effects have been found to result from their oxidized products, which have many toxic effects. Although claims are made regarding their beneficial effect on the circulatory system, there are good reasons to think they contribute to atherosclerosis. And they suppress the immune system and thyroid function.
 

BingDing

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I read some favorable remarks about astaxanthin a couple years ago and tried it. It seemed fine, which is about all I know. There isn't much in the RP world about it but I think it has been around long enough that some general research should be informative.

In RP's article on coconut oil he writes

The unsaturated oils in some cooked foods become rancid in just a few hours, even at refrigerator temperatures, and are responsible for the stale taste of left-over foods. (Eating slightly stale food isn't particularly harmful, since the same oils, even when eaten absolutely fresh, will oxidize at a much higher rate once they are in the body, where they are heated and thoroughly mixed with an abundance of oxygen.)

I'm think what he means by the part I bolded is that it's all bad, so don't worry if you eat some stale food. I'd also like to hear the interview. Maybe he meant that dietary oxidized fats don't get absorbed into cells to affect the mitochondria like regular pufas do. That could, conceivably, be seen as a benefit.

FWIW, he continues on in the coconut oil article about the chain reactions, etc.

Coconut oil that has been kept at room temperature for a year has been tested for rancidity, and showed no evidence of it. Since we would expect the small percentage of unsaturated oils naturally contained in coconut oil to become rancid, it seems that the other (saturated) oils have an antioxidative effect: I suspect that the dilution keeps the unstable unsaturated fat molecules spatially separated from each other, so they can't interact in the destructive chain reactions that occur in other oils. To interrupt chain-reactions of oxidation is one of the functions of antioxidants, and it is possible that a sufficient quantity of coconut oil in the body has this function. It is well established that dietary coconut oil reduces our need for vitamin E, but I think its antioxidant role is more general than that, and that it has both direct and indirect antioxidant activities.
 

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