Ray Peat on the Dark Side of Fish Oil Supplementation

[dj]

Speaking as one who has taken fish oil in generous amounts daily for 3 or 4 years, I've not seen any clinical downside to it yet. My fat profile shows a bit of omega-3 dominance, at least over what's considered "normal" but nothing in an extensive battery of lab tests show up any problem areas. And I seem to rarely catch a cold or flu anymore. (Paleo eating helps that, too)

I'm taking 1 to 2 ounces daily, right from the bottle (it's not as horrid as you might think). More than anything else I've done, this seems to be the one thing that has kept my meniere's symptoms from flaring up. I've gone at least 3 years without any major symptoms - which is practically a miracle in my book. I recently had a 3 week flare-up of symptoms but that seems to have abated (I upped my dose of fish oil for a few weeks, that may have helped resolve the flare-up - and also started taking fairly high doses of antioxidants).

Since the fish oil just keeps the meniere's at bay, not curing it, I assume it's the anti-inflammatory properties that are the main reason I'm seeing benefit from it. I had hoped the fish oil and phosphotidyl choline would help build better cell membranes which might fix the problem, but I wasn't that lucky.

As for Ray Peet, he surely puts out a huge amount of data to more or less support his point, but I think more evidence has been left out than included. From my readings on fish oil, it looks like his data is pretty much cherry picked to support his bias.

His article points out nice and clearly how finding truth amidst the vast quantity of research papers is surely a task needing ariadne's thread to follow. So much of research data now is bogus - as SOTT articles keep showing us.

What I'm seeing in his article is the use of micro-data points to support a macro position -- uhh, let me try to explain that. Some, or even all, of the research he relies upon may be accurate in a specific context, but in the big picture, ie the clinical effects on human health - it won't be relevant. For example, you can make a fuss over lipid oxidation, but oxidation is essential to continue living. If oxidation isn't balanced with antioxidants to keep the cycle of life going, then yeah, you develop problems - but oxidation isn't bad in and of itself.

OK, I didn't argue that too well, but hopefully you see what I mean. I've been trying to sort out truth from disinfo in the area of health and medicine for years and it's just astounding how how complex the disinfo is. It's no wonder Ray Peet might have misled himself, even if he had the best of intentions (which is questionable).

Based on what I've read, and what I've seen of Ray Peet's article, I don't see any reason not to supplement with a good quality fish oil. Be aware, though, that the BP Gulf oil spill chemicals will get right into the fats of any fish exposed to it - and I think that means many fish in the north atlantic. Also be aware that the radiation from fukushima (and elsewhere) is spreading rapidly through the north pacific ocean - I expect radiation to start showing up in this years salmon catch.

[SeekinTruth]

His reasoning is something along the lines of fructose having an insulin suppressing effect, ...

We know that fructose does not suppress insulin, but that it does not cause extra insulin because it goes directly to the liver and gets stored as liver fat. So his claim may be true, but not useful.

... and therefore taking in sugar, (which is half glucose and half fructose), will keep insulin lower than starch, (which is all glucose). By this reasoning, he says starch incourages fat storage more than sugar does.

Carbs get stored as fat. Some (fructose) are stored in the liver, the rest in other places. Why is it helpful to eat carbs (fructose) that end up as fat in the liver? Is liver fat beneficial?

Carbs get stored as fat more easily than other macronutrients. Other carbs also end as fat in the liver, depending on the cellular/physiological signaling. Fat in the liver will end up oxidated to generate energy for the organ. However there seems to be some evidence that excess carbs and disrupted insulin signaling are the precursors of Non-Alcoholic Fat Liver Disease ( Non Alcoholic Steatosis), that is the abnormal deposit of excess fat in the liver, leading to generalized cell death, and eventually failure of the organ, due to the toxicity of the excessive quantity of fatty acids.

Here's Gary Taubes in an article on SOTT:

http://www.sott.net/articles/show/245313-Why-the-Campaign-to-Stop-America-s-Obesity-Crisis-Keeps-Failing

Left unsaid is the fact that sucrose and high-fructose corn syrup have a unique chemical composition, a near 50-50 combination of two different carbohydrates: glucose and fructose. And while glucose is metabolized by virtually every cell in the body, the fructose (also found in fruit, but in much lower concentrations) is metabolized mostly by liver cells. From there, the chain of metabolic events has been worked out by biochemists over 50 years: some of the fructose is converted into fat, the fat accumulates in the liver cells, which become resistant to the action of insulin, and so more insulin is secreted to compensate. The end results are elevated levels of insulin, which is the hallmark of type 2 diabetes, and the steady accumulation of fat in our fat tissue - a few tens of calories worth per day, leading to pounds per year, and obesity over the course of a few decades.

Last fall, researchers at the University of California, Davis, published three studies - two of humans, one of rhesus monkeys - confirming the deleterious effect of these sugars on metabolism and insulin levels. The message of all three studies was that sugars are unhealthy - not because people or monkeys consumed too much of them, but because, well, they do things to our bodies that the other nutrients we eat simply don't do.