Article: Foods rich in omega-3 may not help the heart

[NW-Bound]

Penny Kris-Etherton, a professor of nutrition at Penn State University and vice chairwoman of the committee, said earlier studies may have shown ....

Every time I read weasel words like this (and nearly every single study and report uses them) I hear the sound of the medical industry blowing another load down its profit-seeking pantleg

I thought Kris-Etherton who was into nutrition was suggesting why good fats did not help as previously thought, i.e. people keep eating junk food while knocking down pills. She did not advocate people to take pills in lieu of following better nutritional measures.

PS. It remains indisputable that Japanese people have a much lower rate of coronary diseases than Americans, and that is attributed to the difference in diet. Japanese immigrants living in the US suffer the same coronary disease rate, so that rules out the genetic factor.

 

[SJ1_]

My nutritional guru continues to be Julia Child. She lived to 92 despite sugar, gluten, dairy, animal protein, fat, nightshade vegetables and wine, but alas, no chia seeds. Small portions, though.

Same with my mother in law. Lived to 94.5
Small portions and was very active physically and mentally

 

[razztazz]

I thought Kris-Etherton who was into nutrition was suggesting why good fats did not help as previously thought, i.e. people keep eating junk food while knocking down pills. She did not advocate people to take pills instead of following better nutritional measures.

meh, I might have tripped over the words "MAY HAVE" since they are flag words which, after yrs and yrs of being right about things the first time I might tend to stereotype when I see them. Especially in the field of "medicine".

PS. It remains indisputable that Japanese people have a much lower rate of coronary diseases than Americans, and that is attributed to the difference in diet. Japanese immigrants living in the US suffer the same coronary disease rate, so that rules out the genetic factor.

Urban legend. Japanese do not have "much lower" rates of HD. Almost none of this sort of thing has ever been traced in any major or repeatable way to diet. Words to the contrary bring me back to the "pantload" principle. A diet of "this" might be beneficial for one population but not for another. Also, the Japanese at least up until very very recently have smoked like locomotives. So has most of Europe compared to the US. And they keep telling me cheese eating, ciggie smoking, processed meat and liver eating French have fewer heart attacks. Ummm.. because with all tat they also drink more wine in a day than I drink in 2 years? Because they eat a statistically insignificant amount of fish per WEEK? Or tomatoes?

That Japanese immigrants have more HAs than people in the old country does not speak to diet. "Various studies show....." it's NOT their changed diet, it's their changed lifestyle. ie Living LIKE an American, whatever that means. It can't mean being selfish and driven and profit seeking and losing ones self to the conformity of "achievement" because the Japanese already outdo us in all those things back in the old country.

No, other than processed food, cigarettes, and stress are bad there is nothing else out there diet and lifestyle-wise that isn't designed to pimp drugs or other "wealth redistributive behavior".

 

[bUU]

My cousin is a nationally-recognized expert on nutrition. I haven't read his entire repudiation of the study, but I did read his opening comments: "... one major problem with this study is they did not look at any studies where the saturated fat intake was less than 7%, which is the level recommended by the AHA, let alone less than 5%, which is the level I recommend and the level one would achieve if following these recommendations."

... and his conclusion: "So, in general, I agree with the AJCN study, halfway measures and efforts to just lower saturated fat without truly lowering saturated fat and changing the total dietary pattern, will not prove beneficial."

It'll be interesting to see how this whole hubbub works out.

 

[bjorn2bwild]

The Inuit are often brought into the conversation in one way or another when discussing dietary fat. This study adds some interesting new information regarding omega -3 fats.

The traditional diet of Greenland natives — the Inuit — is held up as an example of how high levels of omega-3 fatty acids can counterbalance the bad health effects of a high-fat diet, but a new study hints that what’s true for the Inuit may not be true for everyone else.

“The original focus on fish oil and omega-3s came from studies of Inuit. On their traditional diet, rich in fat from marine mammals, Inuit seemed quite healthy with a low incidence of cardiovascular disease, so fish oil must be protective,” said project leader Rasmus Nielsen, a UC Berkeley professor of integrative biology. “We’ve now found that they have unique genetic adaptations to this diet, so you cannot extrapolate from them to other populations. A diet that is healthy for the Inuit may not necessarily be good for the rest of us.”

Nielsen noted that this is some of the clearest evidence to date that human populations are actually adapted to particular diets; that is, they differ in the way they physiologically respond to diets. Just as genome sequencing can lead to personalized medicine tailored to an individual’s specific set of genes, so too may a person’s genome dictate a personalized diet.

What the Inuit can tell us about omega-3 fats and ‘paleo’ diets | Berkeley News

 

[braumeister]

The traditional diet of Greenland natives — the Inuit — is held up as an example of how high levels of omega-3 fatty acids can counterbalance the bad health effects of a high-fat diet

I think I would call that a strawman argument.

IMHO, it's simply a matter of the high fat (especially saturated fat) diet not having "bad health effects" at all. Bringing omega-3 into it is an extraneous assumption and irrelevant.

My guess is that the last line of the study contains something to the effect of "more research is needed."

 

[LOL!]

The Science article also made the NYTimes and will probably be making the rounds for a few months. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/22/s...wist-to-omega-3-fatty-acids-health-story.html

While the science is about DNA sequencing and finding genes in specific metabolic pathways affected by evolution, folks need to be aware that genes can be affected over the short term by what one eats and how one exercises.

I don't think anybody is going to argue that exercising will make one a better exerciser. You know, you will be able to lift a heavier weight or run farther without breathing to hard. What happens is that some of your genes are expressed differently and your body adapts by turning on for longer some of the genes that encode for proteins and RNAs that are needed to help you lift heavier weights and run better.

OTOH, if you are a couch potato, then there is no need to have those genes turn on because it would waste the energy sources (your food) on some proteins (i.e. muscles) you didn't actually need or use.

This can be extended to diets, too. If you don't eat carbohydrates, the you don't need as many of the enzymes (proteins) to metabolize carbohydrates, so those genes are regulated to be expressed in lower amounts. If you eat only proteins, then the enzymes to metabolize proteins that you eat are up-regulated.

These adaptations do not occur instantly or even overnight, but may take weeks. Thus if your body is all tuned to subsist from mostly carbohydrates and you switch diets, then you will probably lose weight for a little while. Then when you body gets tuned to the new diet, weight loss can slow down or stop. Then you can switch diets again to a new diet that your body is not tuned to, and weight loss can happen until your body is tuned to the new intakes.

Anyways, the article in Science about the adaptation of the Inuits to what they eat is a great science and may help people from wasting their money on fadish pills.

 

[ERD50]

....

While the science is about DNA sequencing and finding genes in specific metabolic pathways affected by evolution, folks need to be aware that genes can be affected over the short term by what one eats and how one exercises. ...

In these discussions, some people tend to focus on one aspect of the diet "Inuits eat a lot of fat", and miss the big picture. From wiki, 'Inuit Diet":

emph mine

When a seal is brought home, the hunters quickly gather around it to receive their pieces of meat first. This happens because the hunters are the coldest and hungriest among the camp and need the warm seal blood and meat to warm them.[28] The seal is cut in a specific way directly after a hunt. Borré explains the cutting of the seal is this way "one of the hunters slits the abdomen laterally, exposing the internal organs. Hunters first eat pieces of liver or they use a tea cup to gather some blood to drink."[28] At this time, hunters may also chop up pieces of fat and the brain to mix together and eat with meat. ...

Remember, this is raw, freshly killed animal. ...

Women and children are accustomed to eating different parts of the seal because they wait until the hunters are done eating. Intestines are the first thing to be chosen and then any leftover pieces of the liver are consumed.

Hey, how come the Inuits don't get scurvy, like the British sailors- who became known as 'limeys' when it was discovered that you need citrus to get vitamin C to prevent scurvy (some northern Europeans and Koreans get their Vit C from uncooked cabbage - sauerkraut or kimchee) ?

Vitamins and minerals which are typically derived from plant sources are nonetheless present in most Inuit diets. Vitamins A and D are present in the oils and livers of cold-water fishes and mammals. Vitamin C is obtained through sources such as caribou liver, kelp, whale skin, and seal brain; because these foods are typically eaten raw or frozen, the vitamin C they contain, which would be destroyed by cooking, is instead preserved.[26]

So maybe there is no benefit unless you go 'whole hog' (or whole caribou as it were)? No cherry-picking (raw seal liver picking?) allowed.

Now, I'd like to see someone produce a best-seller book that recommends raw seal brain, whale skin, walrus eyes (raw, of course), and year old fermented whale blubber. Hmmmm.

-ERD50

 

[HFWR]

This can be extended to diets, too. If you don't eat carbohydrates, the you don't need as many of the enzymes (proteins) to metabolize carbohydrates, so those genes are regulated to be expressed in lower amounts. If you eat only proteins, then the enzymes to metabolize proteins that you eat are up-regulated.

Proteins?

Digestive enzymes are classified based on their target substrates:

• proteases and peptidases split proteins into small peptides and amino acids.
• lipases split fat into three fatty acids and a glycerol molecule.
• amylases split carbohydrates such as starch and sugars into simple sugars such as glucose.
• nucleases split nucleic acids into nucleotides.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digestive_enzyme

 

[haha]

PS. It remains indisputable that Japanese people have a much lower rate of coronary diseases than Americans, and that is attributed to the difference in diet. Japanese immigrants living in the US suffer the same coronary disease rate, so that rules out the genetic factor.

I see that the geographic factor might rule out genetics as the difference, but I do not see that it rules in diet as the relevant factor. There are many lifestyle, cultural, and environmental differences between Japan and the US other than diet.

Ha

 

[razztazz]

PS. It remains indisputable that Japanese people have a much lower rate of coronary diseases than Americans, and that is attributed to the difference in diet. Japanese immigrants living in the US suffer the same coronary disease rate, so that rules out the genetic factor.

Why do people thing it can only be diet that matters in these cases? A "Study" said so? BS. The Japanese smoke like chimneys too. I guess it's not a risk factor for them?

 

[bUU]

Found this: "Possible explanations for this difference in risk include a more toxic cigarette formulation of American manufactured cigarettes as evidenced by higher concentrations of tobacco-specific nitrosamines in both tobacco and mainstream smoke, the much wider use of activated charcoal in the filters of Japanese than in American cigarettes, as well as documented differences in genetic susceptibility and lifestyle factors other than smoking." [Cite: Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev. 2001 Nov;10(11):1193-9.]