This is how I feel too.
People do not want to give up their comfort... and they do not want to jump into the unknown.. because it is freaking scary! But you can still do it... even if it is scary.

There are so many choices... and doors still to open up... we just have to see them........

 

What I get from you Yew, is that if we consider health to be an individual path, we need methods to test where we stand. then constantly experiment and measure what's right for us. with that feedback we can get better health over time. It's all just ideas to test.

 

Dogma is a bitch, isn't she?

 

60 cites versus 600 million years of evolutionary example is not even close......................unless you're lying to yourself.

 

600 millions years of evidence of DHA's presence on Earth, not 600 million year history of a seafood based diet being the end-all-be-all of dietary templates.

 

I hope people realize there are hundreds of millions of years of history behind other lipids, too.... lol. Considering how hot the planet has been before, how much carbon dioxide has been on Earth, and how much light the planet may have been exposed to under a "proto-saturn" history, it's likely the n7 and n9 fats, in addition to saturated fats, have been present for many hundreds of millions of years.

 

PUFA’s are volatile lipids, yes. But with volatility comes opportunity, and that seems to be what happened evolutionarily. The basic and evolutionary literature strongly support the idea that DHA has unique electrical properties that powerfully support signaling in the human nervous system. I think it therefore makes little sense to lump DHA together with the other PUFA’s, especially for humans. Although all eukaryotes use DHA, different organisms seem to have different abilities to control the power/risk aspect of this particular PUFA. Even mammals vary greatly in the way that they handle and incorporate DHA. It may even be that the ability to “handle DHA” is the most important molecular marker of evolutionary complexity, even among mammals.

Bowhead whales for example take in a tremendous amount of DHA from algae, but their gut bacteria actually act to hydrogenate it so that most of the lipid in their body ends up being monounsaturated. They live in intense cold and dark all their lives and are one of the longest lived mammals on earth. They essentially hibernate all the time and minimize their use of DHA. Some researchers have taken this to mean simplistically that “DHA causes aging,” since these whales “shun DHA” and live so long.

Mice actually have a lot of DHA in their nervous systems. And they have a very high metabolism and short life-span. Some researchers again use this to support the same “DHA theory of aging.” More DHA, shorter lifespan, so the story goes. But the difference between mice and humans is that on the cellular level, mice incorporate DHA indiscriminately into their mitochondrial as well as cell/axonal membranes in their nervous systems. This seems to have the effect of overpowering electron transport in mice contributing to their rapid aging by lipid perioxidation. (They are also nocturnal and have very different circadian biology which may also be a factor.)

But as the most evolved mammal, humans are unique and clearly more efficient in the way they handle DHA. DHA (ingested in seafood at least, not pills) seems to be selectively incorporated into neural cell and axonal membranes but excluded from the neural mitochondria. This allows harnessing of DHA’s electrical signaling power without overpowering the basic cellular machinery. Providing for human neural complexity as well as a relatively long life span in a warm, well lit environment.

So, healthy humans harness DHA’s turbo-power optimally and utilize multiple systems to contain its fallout, including sophisticated systems of antioxidation, selective membrane incorporation, and strategic waste breakdown pathways (maresins, protectins, etc). This is why humans are humans and not mice or whales. This is also likely why it is necessary to ingest DHA in its evolutionary package and sn-2 form, so as not to disturb the complex allocation and containment systems that humans have evolved to handle this “turbocharger.” Human complexity would seem to follow directly from the “DHA-turbocharged” brain and nervous system.

If all that is true, the next question becomes, is it possible for a human to become sick in a way that DHA allocation and containment is lost, thereby causing the DHA (stored or ingested) to breakdown in a toxic way? Well, I think it may be, especially in a unnatural optical environment. But even so, a strategy of avoiding all PUFA’s including DHA seems extremely counter-evolutionary to me. The only evolutionary correct answer to that for a human would be to try to replace the lost DHA by ingesting it in its environmental package while correcting the faulty optical environment thereby regaining containment and restoring complexity.

And Yew, I personally don’t think we can rely on those data regarding rates of turnover/incorporation of DHA in the human nervous system—I don’t think the technology exists to even begin to measure that in a meaningful way. The literature is based on multiple assumptions and paradigms and must always be interpreted in light of those assumptions. What is actually going in the human nervous system seems to be far more complex than can be explained by the current scientific paradigm.

 

Neil awakens.........it must Mardi Gras.

 

Again you missed the point after being told 4 times. 600 million years within the ENTIRE Eukaryotic tree.

 

@NeilBB
Do you see merit in blood testing for fatty acids?
If you do, how would you look at laboratory ranges?
Following dr Patricia Kane I assume mid-range as ,
ideal reference and change my diet aiming at that ideal.
------
In her book, The Body Bio Detoxx Book
she shows 23 examples of patients that she deals with.
Almost all examples have high to super high DHA levels and low AA levels.

It is not that correcting above would heal all those patients,
but it is big part of healing per her procedure.

.----------------------------
I have no doubt that DHA is very important today and historically,
but usually we are looking for some kind of balance.

///
One example

 

Personally I think there's some validity. #1 Smoking real, non-industrial, non-adulterated tobacco is not bad for you (and there are people that make the case that this is in fact true, some people whom Jack has cited before, probably not knowing they promote tobacco)

Not bad or at least not very bad and definitely not as bad as cigarette smoking, and perhaps also mitigated by outdoor physical activity promoting healthy lung function.

I'm guessing the modern day Inuits that are smoking are NOT smoking real unadulturated tobacco. It's not part of their traditional practices. So they're likely smoking cigarettes. A lot of cigarettes:

"Smoking is a major public health issue and a leading cause of premature death affecting smokers and non-smokers in Canada.Tobacco-related illnesses and diseases are urgent issues in First Nations and Inuit communities, where smoking rates are more than triple the rate for the rest of Canada.

Inuit do not practise the traditional or ceremonial use of tobacco." http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/fniah-spnia/substan/tobac-tabac/index-eng.php

I'll add what seems to me an important point: Jack's proposal of UV being protective. The Kitavans, Tokelauns and Masai are also in a high UV environment which additionaly and significantly mitigates their risk of illness while smoking. The Inuit are in a low UV environment and would not benefit from similar protection.

The positive effects of the diet don't seem all that great, but they don't seem all that bad either. In fact from the abstract of the study link: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2777478/

"Despite the tradition of a diet high in fish oils and abundant physical activity, coronary artery disease is increasing among Alaska Eskimos. Explanations for this observation include lifestyle changes.
...
Our data show that the traditional diet is related to a better profile of cardiovascular disease risk factors and should be encouraged."

This study also doesn't show mortality but rather risk factors.

Nonetheless, does it support the point that mortality is higher or equal for Inuit eating a traditional diet? I suppose one can go directly against the conclusion of the authors and say the traditional diet did not seem THAT much more protective by looking at the lab results. '

But going against the conclusion of the study doesn't seem like solid proof to me.

I'll keep looking more carefully at other studies cited that may support the idea that the traditional diet leads to higher or equal incidence of mortality due to CVD... that one is interesting in showing close levels of blood markers across groups but it nonetheless is an argument by the study authors for the opposite conclusion.

After the smoking info and the triple rates, I'm wondering if modern day Inuits are not smoking even while on a traditional diet, which would further confound the conclusions that could be drawn.

 

@yewwei.tan

Yew
given input (as on post 1141 ), would you be able to recreate output as shown on post above (1174)?
Specially the Indexes part.
.

 

The Inuits are now in a low UV environment that has increase the blue color temperature by 4 fold. Understanding through energetic considerations: as light becomes bluer (as it is today), the energy of its constituent photons increases (but not high enough to access the photoelectric effect which needs UV level light), and the number of materials which can be excited to a high energy state and usefully convert that energy to light diminishes rapidly in biology. So modern society has increase artificial light four fold and our biologic proteins in our eye that cause the blue light hazard have not changed one bit. There in lies the cause of the circadian mismatch through the central retinal pathways where DHA is needed to allow this retinohypothalamic tract work

 

Ive told Bio fractal the tribes he brought up are all strong UV zip codes and this is why they don't need a ton of DHA..........but he just refuses to see the linkage. His Peat beliefs outweigh nature's design and linkage.

 

It's very cool info about DHA and without knowing more myself I can appreciate that the idea of how it may work photoelectrically is awesome.

But this doesn't make the point that one needs to ingest said DHA, or base their diet around seafood.

And so the argument continues...

My personal subjective experience is: a regular several times a week craving for sushi during times spent indoors and at computers. As well as after first thing in the AM using the computer for a few hours , going downstairs and regularly scarfing down smoked salmon and rainbow trout for breakfast as an impulse -- this all many years ago and before being exposed to any information about DHA.

Less cravings for fish when exposed to more outdoor (UV?) conditions.

Jack has mentioned that a high UV/IR environment would lessen the need for DHA seafood consumption. And conversely there is MORE need for it when exposed to excessive blue light. Perhaps this is one reason why it doesn't test coherent for Yew now as he is in a high UV/IR environment...


Thinking now that even the Inuit may not necessarily be exposed to excessive blue light... so they may not even need as much as they are eating but that is what is available... so perhaps in excess it can indeed be 'too much' and not really offer enormous health benefits.

Jack has mentioned the 4:1 levels of Omega6 to Omega3 as ideal and if we take that at face value... perhaps a traditional Inuit diet would actual skew too far on the Omega3 from that.

 

I think that you are arguing about light conditions.
Eating more seafood will not change that.
Most of us likely have plenty of DHA, we need to work on delivering it to the right place.

/

 

Aha so maybe then it's not that the Inuits are NOT exposed to excesssive blue light, but rather that they ARE being exposed to it that now skews down their health numbers regardless of high DHA diet?

So that would suggest that regardless of how much DHA we eat, if we are using modern blue light we are F...d in a low UV environment

 

They are exposed........they now live indoors 98% of the time these days.

 

There is no argument.........never has been. When DHA is removed because of a poor optical environment it must be replaced and we cannot make it well. Humans can only get in sn-2 into their brains. So they must eat seafood or things like lamb. When you consider in 112 yrs we went from sunlight to light with 4 times the amount of blue and blue is known to turnover DHA massively in tissues there is no argument. When eukaryotes like us move from DHA in the evolutionary package we all get more ill. Its all very simple. The problem is guys like Peat and bio fractal cannot explain natures unfettered use because they don't understand the photoelectric effect............And that is the point.

 

This would suggest that the Inuit traditional seafood diet peoples would be better replacing DHA - (which would be massively turned over by the low UV, new blue light environment in peoples of all diets there) - and therefore should show much better health than the other peoples not replacing DHA...

why is much better health with dietary DHA replacement not show empirically in the study?


There has to be an explanation or else it's like asking people to ignore real life nature's results (the health of the people in this case)

in favor of the really cool theory of how nature works.