Did not read the paper but did not find any reference to omega 6 nor the ratio of omega 6 to 3. There are studies showing that the ratio is more important than the amount of omega 3 [1]. Because humans typically eat 16:1 (6 to 3) increasing 3 is actually just making the ratio more even which is what matters. A good food for this is flaxseed which is 1:3.5 which is less than fish which can be 1:30 or higher but does not come with the problems of consuming fish. In this reference frame, one can think of avoiding bad ratio foods instead of eating fish. Turns out that basically the most common oils and red meat have ratios of 20:1 (the wrong way) and so just avoiding oil and red meat ends up accomplishing the same goal. As always, nutrition causality is hard to establish, but trying to cut way back on oils and red meat is going to pay much larger dividends than eating more fish.
Omega-3 index is better correlated with overall health than O3/O6 ratio. Also, flaxseed is a source of ALAs whereas early all O3 health benefits come from DHA/EPA. A great source of info is Dr Rhonda Patrick's interviews w/ Dr Bill Harris. Here is a short clip - https://share.descript.com/view/2w6WidsYZlT
Yes, I know, we can keep going down this rabbit hole. Turns out that a completely vegan diet, which has no DHA, is completely sufficient to sustain the body [1]. The human body is incredibly adaptive and increases its efficiency of converting ALA to DHA/EPA. This conversation I think will shake down how the heme iron/non-heme iron efficacy research. A study long ago showed that non-heme uptake was much poorer than heme iron and so the conclusion was something like "you need to eat 10x the non-heme iron" which has since become "conventional" wisdom. When you remove heme iron (stop eating meat), your body is able to absorb non-heme iron at the same rate. We call this a "smart drug" which changes uptake based on concentration levels. Basically, the study participants at the time ate so much meat that their iron levels were so high that non-heme iron is not processed.
Edit: The other thing I wanted to say is 1 tbsp of flaxseed has 2.4g of ALA and that the adequate intake of ALA is 1.6g and 0.3g of DHA/EPA. If we assume a 10% conversion rate for both (depends on many factors and a tad high), you get 0.24g of DHA/EPA. So, 2 tbsp of flaxseed and you're good. I put it in my smoothie in the morning.
The study linked by you has shown that the concentrations in blood of DHA and EPA for vegans were less than half of those for omnivores.
Therefore this study is also one of the many which have shown that the human body has only a limited capacity of converting ALA into DHA and EPA, so that the nutritional supplements with DHA and EPA are beneficial for vegans (e.g. from oil of Schizochytrium, a non-plant non-animal unicellular living being, which is falsely named as "algae" by vendors, to sound more like a vegetable to vegan ears, if the cheaper fish oil is deemed to be unacceptable).
This study certainly does not support your claim that "a completely vegan diet, which has no DHA, is completely sufficient to sustain the body".
Yes, it is enough to have ALA in your food to avoid a quick death, but ALA is not enough to ensure a good health and a long life.
>e.g. from oil of Schizochytrium, a non-plant non-animal unicellular living being, which is falsely named as "algae" by vendors, to sound more like a vegetable to vegan ears
You seem to be implying here that Schizochytrium is not a vegan product, even though "non-animal" is completely sufficient to meet that criterion.
I agree that, as you say, being non-animal is sufficient.
Nevertheless, I find it funny that the vendors have felt the need to use the word "algae" for marketing this product.
It is true however that while "algae" is incorrect, there is no appropriate word to name them that would be easily understood by the general public.
At most they might be called "protists", as in many biology manuals, which is a word that I strongly dislike as meaningless.
("Protists" means "the first", but among which and according to what ordering criterion? "Protist" is a word normally used with the meaning "unicellular eukaryote" a.k.a. "unicellular nucleate", but one should better use the words that are meant.)
They say this and then don't address the elephant in the room: the huge fall-out rate concerning vegans going ex-vegan.
Additionally, "completely sufficient to sustain the body" is about the lowest barrier to entry one can set. People aren't interested in sustenance alone, even if you take away cultural factors.
I have known a few vegans who developed weird health problems after a year or two of vegan diet, but I believe that this happened precisely because they had a careless attitude about the necessity of supplementing a vegan diet.
I have also transitioned to a vegan diet, but only after studying very carefully all the available information, so besides food made from vegetables I take 10 chemical substances about which there is reasonable certainty that they are either necessary or beneficial for vegans, because the plants either do not contain them or they contain them in too small quantities, and the human body either cannot make them or it can make them only in too small quantities.
Just curious, do you take creatine? It's typically a workout supplement but vegans tend to be deficient in it and can really notice measurable cognitive and physical improvements.
Just as you say, there is evidence that it is beneficial in certain circumstances, e.g. for increasing the capacity of anaerobic effort of the vegans who train for sports competitions, but it is not clear if it is beneficial unconditionally.
The evidence is very clear that it's beneficial if you have a dietary deficiency (which you almost certainly do). If not for the proven physical benefits, the cognitive benefits alone are likely worth it. Where the evidence is ambiguous is how beneficial it is for someone who meets minimum daily dietary intake to then supplement it.
I have no doubt about the effects of a creatine supplement on the muscles, as there the action mechanism is well understood, but I am more skeptical about the claimed cognitive effects, because the mechanism for such effects is not known yet.
Moreover, for substances like creatine, which can be produced in limited quantities by the human body, like also for DHA, EPA, choline or taurine, there may be large differences between individuals. Some people might not need supplements for one or more of these substances, at least when they are young, while for others supplements may be indispensable, at least when they become old.
In general, it is much more prudent to take a supplement, even when its necessity is not certain, than to not take it, because in the first case if your choice was wrong it just does not have any useful effect, while in the second case if your choice was wrong it could cause serious health problems.
I have already thought that I should try sometime in the future a creatine supplement, to see if I notice any change, but for now I cannot not see any cognitive differences between present and how I was before switching to an 100% vegan diet.
Yes it can, in very small amounts. You'd have to eat a ton of the synthesis precursors as a vegan to obtain anywhere near the optimal amount or to approach what a meat/fish-eater gets in their regular diet.
The complete list includes 4 mineral salts, sodium chloride (yes, the common salt belongs here, because salt may be not necessary for those who eat enough animal food, but an adequate amount, neither too low, nor too high, e.g. 4 to 5 g/day is mandatory for vegans), calcium citrate, potassium iodate (or iodide) and sodium selenate, then 3 fatty substances, DHA, EPA and cholecalciferol (a.k.a. vitamin D3), then finally 3 organic compounds of nitrogen, which happen to be abundant in liver, choline bitartrate, taurine and cobalamine (a.k.a. vitamin B12).
All these have been shown to have significantly lower levels in the body of the vegans who do not take the corresponding supplements.
Especially the need for a calcium supplementation is often overlooked, which leads to a higher risk of fractures.
if you really take care of your health, independent of eating meat or not, being vegan is about supplementing b12 and that is all, for the most cases.
animals on livestock are supplemented with nutrients (specially grain fed) just like you could supplement yourself
now about calcium intake, if you really take a look, most of the claims are hypothetical and require further studies to comprove, as well some findings like this;
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19350341/
Thanks for the link, but even this study, which claims to have not found large differences between vegans and omnivores, still reports that e.g. the prevalence of osteoporosis in the femoral neck (which increases the risk of hip fracture) was 1/7 among omnivores, but more than 1/6 among vegans.
A vegan does not need a large amount per day of calcium supplementation, but all the studies, including this one, demonstrate that a small amount of additional calcium is necessary to reduce the risk of bone fractures to the same level as for omnivores.
what are you doing to worry about hip fracture? are you a rock climber?
despite all the advantages of a strictly vegetarian diet, like better stamina, endurance etc. worrying about calcium intake is a bit mislead. as there is a big difference of having a slight lower bone density than omnivores and getting worried about having your bones broke.
it is like the argument of omega-3 content of flaxseeds and chia being poor translated into useful chains of acid like DHA… all you have is to increase your intake on the ballpark of 160% rather than 100% from animal sources… which translate in having to eat the enormous amount of 3 tbsp of chia per day, so you can overcome the “inefficiency”
plus not even getting into who are the vegan people being researched on osteoporosis rate. there is vegans who survive out of pasta and soda (which contributes for osteoporosis) and those who eat a superb healthy varied diet; plus vegans who do not exercise (which contributes for osteoporosis) and those who do ETC.
Those numbers are ridiculously high when considering institutes are starting to push veganism but conveniently skip the fact veganism is difficult to maintain even for upper middle class people with almost everything available to them.
It's like the Scrum/Agile debate all over again, but in the form of diets. Yes, that means the diet itself may not be the problem, but good luck changing the environment.
You can get DHA from algea sources and still eat vegan.
There is also a sex-linked difference between ALA conversion to DHA/EPA, with women, and women who are pregnant or brestfeeding converting significantly more ALA to DHA than men. Men were converting far less than 10% while women were converting more than 10%.
>" Turns out that a completely vegan diet, which has no DHA, is completely sufficient to sustain the body [1]. "
Massive claim with only one little study for a source. You are behaving like the strawman vegan right now, making ludicrous claims on nitpicked data; you are not furthering your cause by spreading disinformation online.
At least they made an effort to support their statement. I don't see why you should go through the trouble of contradicting it without providing any sources yourself.
It happens for men, just that it is a low conversion rate. The conversion rate is even higher for women who are pregnent or breastfeeding, which makes sense from an natural adaptation point of view. You can also elevate the level of DHA in chicken eggs (up to a point) by feeding the chickens flax seed in their diet. Seems like DHA is nutritious for any young, growing brains.
The key thing about the ALA conversion in women is that you're not going to OD on it. Having too much DHA gives you insomnia (though, that is not such a bad thing if by circumstances, you are already sleep deprived).
I havn't seen any papers on it, but my personal experience is that the ratio of DHA to EPA is also important for mental health. EPA seems to help with smoothing out burnout and protect against spiraling into depression.
I think there is almost no debate that eating sea food twice per week is good for you especially from high quality sources. Now you can get decent Omega 3 supplements from plankton but largely the only way these days is from fish; eggs and meat also used to be higher in Omega 3s but we feed them the wrong diets - grass fed beef is good for this too.
I think this comment conflates health arguments with vegetarian morality arguments which is unfortunate. The article is specifically talking omega 3s something the vast majority of vegetarian and vegan diets are low in (no Flax seeds don’t count). Morally speaking maybe Vegans should consider farmed oysters twice per week, they are high in Omega 3 and have no central nervous system or brain to stress out about their delicious end.
There are 3 kinds of commercial nutritional supplements with DHA and EPA: fish oil, krill oil and oil of Schizochytrium.
Fish oil, either from oily fishes or from cod liver is by far the cheapest. In Europe, a typical price is around $0.20 per gram of DHA+EPA.
Krill oil is much more expensive than either fish oil or oil of Schizochytrium, so it is a choice that does not make sense.
The oil of Schizochytrium qualifies as a vegan oil. When it has appeared on the market some years ago, it contained only DHA and a negligible quantity of EPA. Some vendors still sell this old kind of Schizochytrium oil. Then it seems that either other strains of Schizochytrium have been discovered, or they have been genetically modified, and an improved oil of Schizochytrium began to be produced, with a proportion 2:1 between DHA and EPA.
Now the only remaining disadvantage of the oil of Schizochytrium is the price. However, in the last 2 years the price of the fish oil has remained constant, while the price of Schizochytrium oil was reduced by more than 2 times, so it can be hoped that in a few years improvements in the cultivation methods might cause the price of the Schizochytrium oil to match the price of the fish oil. In Europe, the price of the Schizochytrium oil is now around $0.80 per gram of DHA+EPA, sometimes a little less than that.
Whoever buys omega-3 nutritional supplements, regardless of what kind, should better take care to always compute the price per gram of DHA+EPA. There is a huge number of shameless supplement vendors whose products have similar prices with the good products, but which contain very low concentrations of the active substances, so that the effective price per gram of DHA+EPA may be even 10 to 15 times higher than at the decent vendors.
I live in Europe, where the prices may be different.
I have selected vendors just by using Amazon and searching for "Schizochytrium" and also for "vegan omega 3", and then studying the specifications and computing the prices per gram of DHA+EPA.
After eliminating all those with outrageous prices and those where the exact content of DHA and of EPA were not specified, for the remaining I have also checked the Web sites of the producers to see if they are credible, e.g. if they show detailed chemical analyses of their products made by independent laboratories.
I prefer to buy pure oil (in bottles) instead of capsules, and that is usually a little cheaper than capsules, while also having no useless excipients.
Even if someone does not like a faint sea food flavor, the oil containing omega-3 can be mixed with another cooking oil, e.g. with olive oil, and added to a salad or any other food that is not heated after the oil is added. In that case any flavor will be masked.
Examples of brands available in Europe (which have similar prices, of about half of the $1.63/g that you pay): SinoPlaSan, Norsan, Arctic Blue, Spoon of Change.
Your supplement appears to be the old kind of vegan omega-3, including only DHA and negligible EPA. Now there are better vegan supplements where EPA is about half of DHA, which is a good ratio.
I get Nordic Naturals and just eat the oil, it actually tastes pretty nice and you can taste if it’s rancid and not consume it. Sure it’s very slightly fishy but not in a horrible way and mostly is somehow quite enjoyable with the lemon flavour they add. It’s a lot easier getting 2-4g daily than loads of pills too and much much cheaper.
You'll have to be more precise about what kind of seafood. Afaik eating larger fish is thought to overall be a negative for you due to heavy metal accumulation.
meat can be a good source of omega-3, but the animal should be fed from pasture strictly, as their unequal ratio of o3/6 comes from their food, which is mainly corn and soybeans, which are very high in o6 and not o3… you can identify grass feed meat by looking at a yellow colour spectrum in their fat… but again, vegetables are way more healthier, cheaper and _rants-in-vegan_
Not sure if you are a troll or a "hardcore" vegan. I am a vegan and I think people like you are the reason why people take issue with veganism and make fun of it. Animals shit on the ground to make manure. Guess we can't eat the plants that benefit from animal labor. Oh wait, that's organic fertilizer.
The difference between being a vegetarian and being a vegan is that the latter avoids using any animal products, no matter how trivial the amount.
Glyphosate doesn’t make vegetables non-vegan, the animal fat used in its sprayable formulations does that. Vegetables and grains come with a slight coating of animal fat that is then mixed in with whatever food is made using those ingredients.
"Veganism is a philosophy and way of living which seeks to exclude—as far as is possible and practicable"
The important part being "as far as is practicable". Nobody is a perfect vegan, as that is close to impossible, but you can get very close and prevent a lot of unnecessary suffering and lower your carbon footprint.
Certainly, if one can adhere to a non-animal diet, one can also adhere to an organic non-animal diet. It’s not like it’s an impossible choice to make; the produce and products are there.
You are getting into territory where there isn't a consensus on whether it's "vegan" or not. The surface area of vegan practices is large and complex, and only certain core principles are shared by virtually all vegans. You probably won't find a lot of agreement from most vegans with your statement. Even organicly grown food uses organic pesticides, which could arguably be called not vegan due to killing insects. And there is organic meat after all.
A certain percentage of soil is made up of decomposed animals, so anything grown is not vegan by some arbitrarily strung out standard. Where do you draw the line?
not that insects do not deserve respect, as even if tiny, their brain structures are pretty complex but ha-ha-ha!
organic usually do not have any regulation and they use pesticides and herbicides and fungicide etc. plus the vast majority of organic farms underpaid labour that is a whole new treat to discuss! [0]
not even their efficiency on large scale to feed a 7 billion human population
[0] i volunteered for about a year in programs like WWOOF
edit: and ah, huge farms are using fertilizers from rocks for the vast majority of the time, it would be a big treat to spread manure over thousands of hectares/acres and not even considering the secondary treat of having to shake it from time to time so it can be good absorbed in soil… and regarding organic farms using manure etc. please, i prefer you eating meat than supporting organic farmers overexploiting poor people thinking they have sacred asses that are helping the planet that is heating less than ~1 degree Celsius each 10 years with humans at full rage in industry :]
2ndEdit: not that i am happy or not caring about global warming; i am fine being vegan for years now and my options of cycling and using the public transport, not having children etc.
but it is just about a short time (i hope) to politics roll laws about sustainability and the stuff can be more green again. as hoping on citizens being is just suicide. people are too static on their conformity of modern life, you know… what a disgrace changing excessive meat intake for some beans and 4 seat cars for some cycling and unpleasant fun on trains or buses
> Turns out that basically the most common oils and red meat have ratios of 20:1 (the wrong way) and so just avoiding oil and red meat ends up accomplishing the same goal.
It’s inaccurate and misleading to group red meat and oils together.
Beef, and grass fed beef in particular, is generally 5:1 ratio. Or less. Chicken has more omega 6 than beef. And seed oils (not all oils) have many times that. Some >50:1. Thanks for the vegan propaganda though.
>A good food for this is flaxseed which is 1:3.5 which is less than fish which can be 1:30 or higher but does not come with the problems of consuming fish
May I ask what problems there are with eating fish?
Availability - whether for the poor in many areas, or at scale, due to overfishing and the collapse of many fisheries. (Then there's the knock-on environmental damage of commercial fishing & overfishing & ...)
Thats true for most fish, but not all -- sardines have much lower levels of heavy metals, and are gererally more sudtainable. Canned sardines have been a cheap, easy way to add health fish to my diet, with (relative to salmon, etc...) has minimal environment impact.
It's of course true that eating apex predators like tuna is worse than eating sardines, but by fishing sardines you're greatly reducing the available food for species that eat sardines. The fundamental problem that we take out too much fish remains. That's also why krill oil is only a little better than fish oil: krill is an important part of the food chain and we're fishing too much of it.
[1] - https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12442909/