What Are Your Thoughts On Omega 3s?

zarrin77

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Interesting study.
The difference of thyroid hormone concentration is indeed significant, although one cannot be sure whether in this case a high concentration of T3 is indicative of a high thyroid function (metabolic rate).
Peat writes in "Unsaturated Vegetable Oil: Toxic": "Unsaturated oils block thyroid hormone secretion, its movement in the circulatory system, and the response of tissues to the hormone. "
So one would have to verify that the chickens with the flax seed oil diet had a higher metabolic rate.
The size of the fat pad could be an indicator, however the difference between the tallow and oil group is not really significant and even if it was, one would have to control for the absolute amount of food consumed.
I am not saying this study is meaningless, just trying to find an explanation from Peat's perspective.
Maybe others will chime in.

I understand this critique, but to be fair, this is the usual critisism here. Animal fat will never be just saturated fat, so that’s what we are going to be eating in the real world. Virgin coconut oil is different, and I do not believe it has the negative effects that other forms of saturated fat have due to the chain length, so it also cannot be studied and generalized to all saturated fat.

Anyway, here you go:

Diet-induced Thermogenesis Is Lower in Rats Fed a Lard Diet Than in Those Fed a High Oleic Acid Safflower Oil Diet, a Safflower Oil Diet or a Linseed Oil Diet
Diet-induced Thermogenesis Is Lower in Rats Fed a Lard Diet Than in Those Fed a High Oleic Acid Safflower Oil Diet, a Safflower Oil Diet or a Linseed Oil Diet - PubMed

“Rats were meal-fed for 12 wk an isoenergetic diet based on lard, high oleic acid safflower oil, safflower oil or linseed oil, and norepinephrine turnover rates in brown adipose tissue were then estimated. Whole-body oxygen consumption after the meal indicated that diet-induced thermogenesis was significantly lower in rats fed the lard diet than in those fed the other diets. The norepinephrine turnover rate in the interscapular brown adipose tissue was also significantly lower in the lard diet group than in the other diet groups. The carcass fat content was significantly higher in the lard diet group than in the other diet groups, whereas the abdominal adipose tissue weights were the same in all diet groups. These results suggest that the intake of animal fats rich in saturated fatty acids, compared with the intake of vegetable oils rich in monounsaturated or polyunsaturated fatty acids, decreases diet-induced thermogenesis by a decline of sympathetic activity in brown adipose tissue, resulting in the promotion of body fat accumulation.“

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This isn’t a one-off finding. Lard and palm oil diets *consistently* get negative results compared to unsaturated fats in animal and human research.

I am also a proponent of a lower fat diet, and a whole-food diet.

Edit: Also, this “postprandial thermogenesis” is very likely correlated with thyroid hormone:

Postprandial Thermic Effect of Chicken Involves Thyroid Hormones and Hepatic Energy Metabolism in Rats - PubMed

Thermogenic Effect of Glucose in Hypothyroid Subjects

https://journals.physiology.org/doi/abs/10.1152/ajpendo.1985.249.5.E519

Norepinephrine can also stimulate thermogenesis, but norepinephrine decreases after a meal. So basal thermogenesis has multiple driving hormones (norepi and thyroid for example), but the change in thermogenesis from a meal is mostly thyroid-driven.
 
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zarrin77

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No,dairy maybe,depending on Worldregion and animalchow given.Coconut is very Omega 6 heavy.

Worrying about the omega 6 in coconut oil is definitely missing the forest for the trees.
 

rei

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Lard is not saturated fat. What you are seeing are the effects of a high PUFA diet.

/The other group seems to be high in PUFA too since they use standard rat chow. So this is not exactly ANTI peat as you say, since Peat was always a proponent of low fat diets.
When something goes against what peat says it is time to look for the trick they used to publish said study. I would have expected forum members at this point realize the oldest trick in the book, using pig fat and calling it saturated group. Zarrin probably owns a flax farm.

I see flaxseed oil as a medicine. It has a definitive effect that can be desirable in certain circumstances, but i would not classify it as a preferential food. Because like all medicine it will have side-effects.
 

Mito

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“Omega−6 fatty acids are not essential and never were, and of course should be strictly avoided. However, humans do have a requirement for trace amounts of either DHA (22∶6ω−3) or its precursor α-linolenic acid (18∶3ω−3). Failing to discriminate between individual fatty acids is not helpful, and making sweeping statements about all polyunsaturated fatty acids is dubious in every instance. Even when speaking about peroxidation, things such as conjugation and bis-allyl hydrogens need to be considered. The differences between the hormonal and chemoattractant properties of each fatty acid subtype is even more extreme. We can make polyunsaturated ω−9 fatty acids de novoi.e. Mead acid (20∶3ω−9)—and we desaturate stearic acid all the time. I would never recommend fish oil, but without DHA we would all most certainly be dead. These are facts.“
Is Omega-3 Fish Oil Bad?
 
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DHA and Arachidonic Acid are essential, but the true amounts are unknown.
 

Jib

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Whole foods or go home. IMO. I would not mess with omega 3 supplements at all. The actual need (if there is one) for omega 3 is probably more than sufficiently met by eating oily fish like sardines regularly.

I'm trying to be more careful with supplements in general. The potential for throwing the body out of balance is pretty significant. Whole food is simply easier to regulate and has normal amounts of nutrients so you're much less likely to create an imbalance.

I've had periods where I craved large amounts of fish. I just craved it. That lasted a few weeks and then I just was over it for months. Then a craving might come back again. I think it's wise to listen to the body's instincts, within reason. There were other times in the past I craved peanut butter but I was simply in a caloric deficit and any number of other healthier low PUFA options would have been fine.

The other day I had 4 cans of sardines after working out. Just craved it. I don't know what it was. Could have had beef or anything else but I was just craving those sardines. I didn't overthink it and it tasted amazing. Have had other times I overdid it and had to stop eating them for months because the thought of it made me nauseous. The body has interesting mechanisms.
 

SOMO

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I used to take Omega 3s for back acne and it worked.

I don't think this is a +1 for benefits of O3s, but rather a -1 for harm of O6s and the displacing effects of O3.
 

SOMO

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Whole foods or go home. IMO. I would not mess with omega 3 supplements at all. The actual need (if there is one) for omega 3 is probably more than sufficiently met by eating oily fish like sardines regularly.

I'm trying to be more careful with supplements in general. The potential for throwing the body out of balance is pretty significant. Whole food is simply easier to regulate and has normal amounts of nutrients so you're much less likely to create an imbalance.

I've had periods where I craved large amounts of fish. I just craved it. That lasted a few weeks and then I just was over it for months. Then a craving might come back again. I think it's wise to listen to the body's instincts, within reason. There were other times in the past I craved peanut butter but I was simply in a caloric deficit and any number of other healthier low PUFA options would have been fine.

The other day I had 4 cans of sardines after working out. Just craved it. I don't know what it was. Could have had beef or anything else but I was just craving those sardines. I didn't overthink it and it tasted amazing. Have had other times I overdid it and had to stop eating them for months because the thought of it made me nauseous. The body has interesting mechanisms.

I think we have to be careful to avoid lumping seafood and fish and "Omega-3's together." Here's a short list of some seafood items and their Fat/O3 content

Low-Fat & Low-Omega 3:
-Tuna
-Cod
-Tilapia
-Halibut
-Shellfish
-Octopus/Squid



Moderate-Fat/Moderate O-3
-Sole/Flounder (still pretty low-fat/low-O3, but higher than the previous items)
-Swordfish
-Shark

High-Fat/High-O3
-Sardines
-Salmon
-Carp
(high fat, medium O-3, high MUFA)
---



Canned Sardines/Anchovies are unique among seafood options because you are consuming the WHOLE animal - thyroid, eyes, organs, etc. and even though sardines are considered "high PUFA" or high in Omega-3s, I think they are a better option than a salmon filet.

I personally consumed such massive amounts of sardines in my life that they no longer interest me, but I will say that they are delicious, albeit stinky.
 
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Jib

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@SOMO

True. I think sardines are also better for having much lower levels of mercury. I'm always on and off with them, but definitely burned out on them for a while.

Very convenient too. Sometimes I do have to work up quite an appetite to eat a bunch of them. They do stink and if you're not in the mood for them they can be a little stomach turning. Just because they have such a distinct scent. I like putting hot sauce on them or some other condiment like mustard. Sometimes I get lazy and get the ones with hot sauce or mustard or olive oil and spices, but best is just to get them in water and pick your condiments separately, to avoid gums and other BS.

Made a horrifying mixture the other night, white rice with soy sauce/ketchup/curry sauce and a bunch of sardines, mashed together like dog food. I am not a picky eater I guess. Either that or I might be pregnant.
 

Torf

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There has been quite a bit of discussion on the status of PUFAs so far, most of it insightful. I just want to add on that even in contemporary discussion of PUFAs they are generally regarded to be conditional essential fatty acids. That is for a number of factors, among others because not all of them are essential, and those that are essential can likely be partially synthesized from sixteen carbon homologues that are found in our diet (for example dark green leafy vegetables). The actual requirements for PUFAs seem to be very low, the traditional requirements are shown to be overstated, and that is even in the absence of research that would look at whether or not the deficiencies observed in the absence of dietary PUFA are actually due to PUFA deficiency and not due to perhaps a related vitamin or trace mineral deficiency resulting from a heightened metabolism. In any case, in any practical diet this will never occur, as PUFAs are in minimal amounts included in most foods we consume and we should never run into danger of being "deficient". Furthermore, the contemporary advocation of consumption of omega-3 fatty acids, in particular from marine sources, is quite confused. Most of it results from observational studies that look at populations which already consume huge amounts of omega-6s in their diet, and it is by now understood that this leads to inflammatory effects. The consumption of greater amounts of omega-3s, especially ALA and EPA, seems to counterbalance this, due to much of the inflammatory action resulting from LA competing with ALA for an enzyme that allows for the formation of EPA where it is needed in anti-inflammatory processes. However, trivially what should be the answer is to simply minimize the consumption of omega-6s and not elevate omega-3 consumption to the level of omega-6 consumption.

This leads to the second point I want to make: Often times the consumption of marine food, especially fatty fish, is argued to be healthy based on epidemiological data. Populations that lived very long are observed to have (sometimes falsely, such as in the case of the Okinawa people) consumed fish in decent amounts and it is extrapolated from this that clearly fish must have protective factors, especially in light of the aforementioned, whereby protective interventional effects are observed from administering omega-3s to populations with high omega-6 consumption. However, if you look at more in-depth studies, we find an interesting circumstance that in popular news and science reporting is still underappreciated: different populations metabolize food differently. Of course, this is due to genetic adaptions to their environment. The Inuit people, which Peat has mentioned before, have for example developed a genetic mutation to counteract the very high intakes of PUFAs in their diet, as they traditionally relied a lot on seafood. Their body seems to want to prevent the further formation of PUFAs at any cost and seeks to metabolize PUFAs which are present in their diet as safely as possible. For Europeans, this is not the case (only 2% of the European population shares this mutation). To conclude then, there are important differences in the metabolization of food and PUFAs between populations, and this is also the case for fatty fish. This is also reflected in the epidemiological data when we break it down by regional differences: while fatty fish seem to have a generally protective effect for Asian populations, this is not the case for European populations. It seems to be protective, but only in small amounts, and there seems to be a strict dose-dependent U-relationship. For example, this meta-analysis finds that roughly more than 40 g of fish per day seems to be actually harmful for European populations. Fish consumption and risk of all-cause and cardiovascular mortality: a dose-response meta-analysis of prospective observational studies - PubMed
 

DANIEL

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The insides of my knees and elbows were extremely dry until I started increasing Omega 3 intake.

Tried B6, Zinc, Biotin for the scaly skin to no avail. Only n-3 PUFA fixed it.

I think Peat is right about a lot of things but EFA isn't one of them.
 

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