10 ms·

An Omega-3 that’s poison for cancer tumors

255 points by elorant 5y ago

darkerside 5y ago
Does this lend credence to the rumored idea that putting the body into ketosis (or perhaps ketoacidosis) could actually have tumor fighting effects?
- actually_a_dog 5y ago
  There is some evidence that a ketogenic diet might be of benefit to cancer patients: > In KDs, the 4:1 ratio of high fat to low carbohydrates mimics the metabolic effects of starvation (Figure 2). These diets slow cancer by inhibiting insulin/IGF and downstream intracellular signaling pathways, such as phosphoinositide 3-kinase (PI3K)/protein kinase B (Akt)/mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR). Ketogenic diets also amplify adenosine monophosphate—activated protein kinase (AMPK), which inhibits aerobic glycolysis and suppresses tumor proliferation, invasion, and migration. Mouse models of metastatic cancer show that exogenous ketones themselves have direct cytotoxic effects on tumor viability.5 β-hydroxybutyrate can modify chromatin by binding to and thereby inhibiting histone deacetylase, ultimately repressing transcription and curbing cancer cell proliferation (Figure 1). [0]: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6375425/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6375425/ This same article also mentions that a ketogenic diet can promote weight gain in cancer patients, which is a concern because frequently such patients lose weight as a result of both their disease and the treatment for it. Although not a scientific paper, there is some suggestion in [1] that both fasting and keto can have benefits in terms of making chemotherapy both more tolerable and effective. The suggestion here is that driving down insulin and blood sugar may be the mechanism, which seems naively to mean it effectively "starves out" the cancer. Note however that both keto and fasting act on the insulin/IGF, AMPK and mTOR pathways, so there is a moderately large web of cellular/biological interactions to untangle here. As a side note, the insulin/IGF, AMPK, and mTOR pathways are frequently implicated in animal studies of general longevity as well. We don't know the extent to which this stuff transfers over to humans, but, if you're a mouse, we can extend your life dramatically by playing around with these metabolic pathways. --- [0]: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6375425/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6375425/ [1]: https://www.curetoday.com/view/early-evidence-shows-fasting-keto-diet-may-make-chemo-and-some-other-cancrer-treatments-more-effective-and-easier-to-tolerate https://www.curetoday.com/view/early-evidence-shows-fasting-...
- daniel_iversen 5y ago
  I think potentially so. There was a podcast episode with Tim Ferris or/and Kevin Rose once (maybe this one? [1]) where they talked about research from/with Valter Longo on this (and it’s likely in his book too). Also in Michael Mosley’s book “Fast 800” he talks about how once you’ve fasted for 12 hours your body triggers the “metabolic switch” and autophagy happens where your body starts dissolving/eating(?) unhealthy cells which are then later regenerated! [1] https://podcast.kevinrose.com/guests/dr-valter-longo/ https://podcast.kevinrose.com/guests/dr-valter-longo/
  - heymijo 5y ago
    The 12 hours is a guess. IPeter Attia has talked about this. We just don’t know when autophagy kicks in in humans as we have no direct measurements or bio markers to measure yet. I forget how they measure it in animals but I believe it results in animals no longer being among the living.
  - tacon 5y ago
    This second episode with Dom D'Agostino discusses potential cancer treatments with the ketogenic diet: https://tim.blog/2018/06/05/the-tim-ferriss-show-transcripts-dom-dagostino-the-power-of-the-ketogenic-diet/ https://tim.blog/2018/06/05/the-tim-ferriss-show-transcripts...
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- failwhaleshark 5y ago
  It makes intuitive sense that people who are overweight / too well-feed get more cancers than people who are subsistence farmers and don't get quite enough to eat. The evidence is the rate of cancers between countries. I would examine if keto / severe calorie restriction kills more precancerous and cancerous cells through stress. It's probably best to start calorie restriction before acquiring cancer to keep the population of precancerous down.
  - puchatek 5y ago
    That's hardly evidence. You have to control for all the other things that differ between developed and undeveloped countries. Since this is difficult you could at the very least find 1000 farmers in an undeveloped country and feed them 100g of fat a day I'm addition to what they eat, then monitor their health for a few decades. Then we'd know better
  - MrBuddyCasino 5y ago
    Don't you simply have more cells that can turn into cancer when you're fat? More tickets for the cancer lottery? As you usually loose weight on keto, maybe that explains the protective effect?
    - failwhaleshark 5y ago
      Not exactly. Fat cells primarily increase in volume in response to lipogenesis. One of the primary hypotheses behind chemotherapy is to halt all cell division to let stress kill off more cancerous cells than healthy ones. The idea being that cancerous cells are more fragile than healthy ones, even though they proliferate faster and don't execute programmed cell death themselves as readily.
- nabla9 5y ago
  No. The mechanism described absolutely not. The paper starts with the fact that tumor acidosis promotes disease progression through a stimulation of fatty acid metabolism in cancer cells. Instead of blocking fatty acids, they test a hypothesis that excess uptake of specific fatty acid could have antitumor effects.
- fpoling 5y ago
  In Mongolia especially in rural area local people eat only meat/fat from horses, sheep and camels and drink heavy fermented horse milk. They do not eat any fruits or vegetables (it is hard to grow those in a semi-desert). They also avoid fish even when it is plenty in nearby rivers or lakes. Mongolia is on top of the charts regarding death from liver and other cancers and from heart decease. So I very much doubt that keto-diet has a protection against cancer. On the other hand the life expectancy both absolute and conditional at a particular age of Mongolians either matches or within 2-3 years of that of Indians who eat mostly vegetarian diet. So if Mongolian have high prevalence of cancers, then they must have less prevalences of other deceases. So if keto diet has any protection, then it is against those other deceases, but not for cancer and heart ones.
elevenoh 5y ago
>The poison acts on tumor cells via a phenomenon called ferroptosis, a type of cell death linked to the peroxidation of certain fatty acids. The greater the amount of unsaturated fatty acids in the cell, the greater the risk of their oxidation. Normally, in the acidic compartment within tumors, cells store these fatty acids in lipid droplets, a kind of bundle in which fatty acids are protected from oxidation. But in the presence of a large amount of DHA, the tumor cell is overwhelmed and cannot store the DHA, which oxidizes and leads to cell death. By using a lipid metabolism inhibitor that prevents the formation of lipid droplets, researchers were able to observe that this phenomenon is further amplified, which confirms the identified mechanism and opens the door to combined treatment possibilities. Neat. Lipid metabolism inhibition to overload tumour cells w/ DHA which oxizides'em till cell death.
- trhway 5y ago
  Artemisinin being peroxide also acts through ferroptosis. Would be interesting to see it in that combo.
- loudtieblahblah 5y ago
  this is all above me and i'm not following it exactly. it was my understanding the polyunsaturated fats (3s and 6s alike) were both prone to oxidation far more so than saturated or monosaturated fats and it was this reason alone why there's correlation between high PUFA consumption and prostate cancer It was also my understanding, that this phenomenon is why astaxanthin an antioxidant found in certain algae and things that feed off that algae, such as krill, salmon, and to a small degree - shrimp, crab, and lobster, and noted for being more powerful than the antioxidants found in blueberries, green tea, and even CoQ10, as well as never flipping to a pro-oxidant, the way say.. VitC, E or reservatol can, is extremely useful when consuming Omega3s. Supposedly astaxanthin protects against the oxidation of PUFAs. So if preventing the oxidation of PUFA's is seen as vital to getting their benefits while avoiding the problems of oxidation - how is it, again, that oxidation of Omega3s is a good thing? Is this one of the cases where it's oxidation can result in both tumor cell death in one area but create it in another? Or am i misreading?
  - 5y ago
stevespang 5y ago
Most are unaware that cancer treatments have a similar result to pesticide application on food crops - - - you select for the resistant cells or organisms which then survive and multiply to become the new threat.
whyamihere1 5y ago
For those who want to dive deeper, the NIH has a great fact sheet: https://ods.od.nih.gov/factsheets/Omega3FattyAcids-HealthProfessional/ https://ods.od.nih.gov/factsheets/Omega3FattyAcids-HealthPro...
foxes 5y ago
If you are interested in adding Omega-3 to your stack, make sure it is molecularly distilled fish oil. Otherwise there is the risk of excess lead and mercury.
- opportune 5y ago
  You can also eat fish that are low on the food chain like sardines.
  - westurner 5y ago
    Fish don't synthesize Omega PUFAs, they eat algae (which unfortunately and inopportunely stains teeth) From "Warning: Combination of Omega-3s in Popular Supplements May Blunt Heart Benefits" https://scitechdaily.com/warning-combination-of-omega-3s-in-popular-supplements-may-blunt-heart-benefits/ https://scitechdaily.com/warning-combination-of-omega-3s-in-... : > Now, new research from the Intermountain Healthcare Heart Institute in Salt Lake City finds that higher EPA blood levels alone lowered the risk of major cardiac events and death in patients, while DHA blunted the cardiovascular benefits of EPA. Higher DHA levels at any level of EPA, worsened health outcomes. > Results of the Intermountain study, which examined nearly 1,000 patients over a 10-year-period, > “Based on these and other findings, we can still tell our patients to eat Omega-3 rich foods, but we should not be recommending them in pill form as supplements or even as combined (EPA + DHA) prescription products,” he said. “Our data adds further strength to the findings of the recent REDUCE-IT (2018) study that EPA-only prescription products reduce heart disease events.” Now they're sayin'; so I go look for an EPA-only supplement, and TIL about re-esterified triglyceride and it says it's molecularly distilled anchovies in blister packages. Which early land mammals probably ate, so.
    - mgcross 5y ago
      I found this comment too late... Already ordered a "kids" supplement that has a 2:1 ratio of DHA:EPA.
      - adrian_b 5y ago
aszantu 5y ago
Nobody ever stops to check if this Standard diet is making the tumors grow faster... instead they go like: mh if they get more of this (omega 3 = mostly animal fats) it grows slower. In nature mice would eat many different things, grain as well as insects... afaik Mouse Standard diet is high carb
- roywiggins 5y ago
  They found "an n-3 long-chain PUFA-rich diet significantly delayed mouse tumor growth when compared with a monounsaturated FA-rich diet." So the difference was feeding one set polyunsaturated fatty acids and the other set monounsaturated fatty acids. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1550413121002333 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S15504...
  - nomoreplease 5y ago
    Could you elaborate? What is the takeaway for humans here? To eat ONLY pufa when you have a tumor?
    - adrianN 5y ago
      The takeaway for humans here is that there seems to be an effect in mice so perhaps someone should fund a study with human subjects to check whether this effect also exists in humans.
      - wumpus 5y ago
        Thank you for remembering that "cancer cured in mice!!!" is a headline about once per week.
durpleDrank 5y ago
Is this limited to fish oil or can flax oil (Omega 3) and hemp oil (Omega 3, 6, and 9) be a substitute as well?
- mikedilger 5y ago
  Hemp oil doesn't contain EPA or DHA, but is does have 20% ALA. ALA converts into EPA and DHA in your liver, but in rather limited quantites (less than 15%). It'd be a poor choice for triggering this effect. http://www.hempoil.ca/efa-faq/ http://www.hempoil.ca/efa-faq/ https://ods.od.nih.gov/factsheets/Omega3FattyAcids-HealthProfessional/ https://ods.od.nih.gov/factsheets/Omega3FattyAcids-HealthPro...
  - bjelkeman-again 5y ago
    Thanks for the links. EPA and DHA being the key components, the following is often missed when discussing omega-3 fats. So fish fed on vegetable based feed don’t get the EPA and DHA. “DHA and EPA are present in fish, fish oils, and krill oils, but they are originally synthesized by microalgae, not by the fish. When fish consume phytoplankton that consumed microalgae, they accumulate the omega-3s in their tissues [3].“
    - adrian_b 5y ago
      Earlier, most fish from cultures contained negligible DHA and EPA, because they were not fed with their natural food. Now, there are fish farms that have cultures of algae that produce DHA and EPA, then they feed crustaceans or rotifers with the algae. The crustaceans or rotifers are added to the fish food, so in such farms the fish contain omega-3, like those grown in natural conditions. This is not done necessarily to improve the nutritional value of the fish, but to ensure that they reproduce for the next farming cycle, because fish deficient in omega-3 acids may fail to reproduce.
  - knuthsat 5y ago
    Flaxseed is superior. Drinking 20g of it will make even abysmal conversion rates sufficient.
doubtfuluser 5y ago
… in mice
henearkr 5y ago
This has me concerned that DHA could actually be harmful for non-cancerous cells as well while doing a water diet or a ketogenic diet. The lipid metabolism inhibitor was used to enhance the already present DHA toxicity mechanism for the cancerous cells, and the toxicity was provoked by the fact that metastasing cancerous cells place themselves in ketosis (=acidosis).
- MrBuddyCasino 5y ago
  This is what Ray Peat has been saying for years. He researches nutrition with a specific angle - does something inhibit metabolism or does it accelerate? His thesis is that nutrition should be optimized to make metabolism go as efficient as possible. I'm not sure how valid his ideas are, but it is definitely worth checking out. Whenever you see people warn about seed oils and PUFAs, they are usually basing their views on his research.
- adrian_b 5y ago
  It is very likely that all kinds of poly-unsaturated fatty acids, both the omega-3 and the omega-6, are harmful in too large quantities. Before being degraded easily like MUFA or saturated fatty acids, the PUFA must pass through various transformation reactions that can be performed by our body mainly in the liver and only with a limited rate. When the quantity of PUFA exceeds that which is needed for the maintenance of various cellular membranes by more than can be degraded in a given time, they accumulate and can be harmful. The problem, like for any other kind of food, is that it is extremely difficult to determine experimentally which are the minimum dose per day and the maximum dose per day outside which an omega-3 acid or any other substance becomes harmful instead of useful. The main difficulty is that those limits are not absolute, but they depend on the quantities of other substances eaten at the same time and on the kinds of activities that are performed. So it is not surprising that the results of various studies are contradictory. For omega-3, most studies that I have seen showed improvements up to 2-3 grams per day and no harmful effects that could appear in a short time up to a dose 2 or 3 times larger than that. While there is no doubt that you need both some EPA and some DHA, there is no certainty about which would be the right quantity of each per day. For example some studies have shown that for the brain and against some inflammatory conditions it is better to eat more DHA than EPA, other studies have shown that for the heart it is better to eat more EPA than DHA. It is impossible to know how much the results of such studies are influenced by whatever else the study subjects have eaten at the same time. Nevertheless, it is unlikely that the inferior limit and the superior limit for omega-3 consumption are very close. Therefore eating a few grams per day should be safe. I assume that for killing a tumor much higher doses are needed.
nate_meurer 5y ago
For those who want to take DHA/EPA supplements, but don't want to contribute to the destruction of fisheries (both oil fish and krill), look for vegan supplements. They're more expensive, but the price is coming down as volume grows. Vegan omega-3 supplements are made from algae, which are the original source of the oils for all fish as well.
- KitDuncan 5y ago
  Also less mercury contamination.
- TurboHaskal 5y ago
  Which ones are those? I know people are taking flaxseed and rapeseed oil but that's mostly ALA which is hardly converted to DHA by the body.
  - adrian_b 5y ago
    There are various unicellular organisms that are cultivated either for EPA extraction or for DHA extraction. Usually EPA and DHA coming from 2 different cultures are mixed into a commercial "algae oil", together with some vegetable oil. Most of those unicellular organisms are not algae, but there is no better name that could be understood by the general public. For example, EPA is extracted from thraustochytrids, which are non-photosynthetic unicellular distant relatives of the brown algae. The only problem with the "algae" oil is that for now it is very expensive. In Europe it is 8 times more expensive than fish oil. While I eat mostly vegan food, I make a couple of exceptions and one of them is fish oil. I have tried algae oil. It was good, but I could not afford to pay for an adequate daily dose of it. I do not know how much of this premium price is due to the cultivation costs and how much is due to vegans accepting to pay more for a vegan solution.
    - martimarkov 5y ago
      Do you think this is a normal price for them (and also actually real, good quality oil): https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07BRY1FRZ https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07BRY1FRZ I also saw normal fish oil in similar price range but that could just be Amazon inflating prices?
Cort3z 5y ago
Really interesting findings. There seems to be a lot of good health benefits from omega 3 and fish oil in general[1]. There is currently an interesting study underway in Norway with 70.000 participants to see if fish oil has an effect on covid-19[2], English translation is towards the bottom of the page. The study is partially funded by a producer of the fish oil, but the study is interesting to me nonetheless. 1: https://examine.com/supplements/fish-oil/ https://examine.com/supplements/fish-oil/ 2: https://oslo-universitetssykehus.no/om-oss/nyheter/kan-tran-forebygge-korona https://oslo-universitetssykehus.no/om-oss/nyheter/kan-tran-...
andy_ppp 5y ago
Crazy correlation (n of one etc.) but I find I’m worse at Chess if I take fish oil (it’s a good one from Nordic Naturals). I’m not sure for me it’s a good idea.
- cameronh90 5y ago
  N of 1 is still worthy of discussion if the data is reliable. Have you considered trying to get someone to perform a double blind placebo controlled test on you?
- treeman79 5y ago
  Food intolerances can cause brain fog. Various reasons. I have an autoimmune disorder and most food outside AIP diet cause mental sluggishness for me. Basically I eat bread and my immune system decides it’s a virus and decides my organs must die. So yea, If something bothers you, listen to your body, even if it’s being stupid.
- arthur_sav 5y ago
  Also not sure if correlation or causation but i have anxiety when taking fish oil. Usually i'm pretty chill but with fish oil i suddenly have problems even ordering a coffee.
throwzaway20102 5y ago
Go vegan!!!!!!

255 points by elorant 5y ago

Does this lend credence to the rumored idea that putting the body into ketosis (or perhaps ketoacidosis) could actually have tumor fighting effects?

actually_a_dog 5y ago
There is some evidence that a ketogenic diet might be of benefit to cancer patients: > In KDs, the 4:1 ratio of high fat to low carbohydrates mimics the metabolic effects of starvation (Figure 2). These diets slow cancer by inhibiting insulin/IGF and downstream intracellular signaling pathways, such as phosphoinositide 3-kinase (PI3K)/protein kinase B (Akt)/mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR). Ketogenic diets also amplify adenosine monophosphate—activated protein kinase (AMPK), which inhibits aerobic glycolysis and suppresses tumor proliferation, invasion, and migration. Mouse models of metastatic cancer show that exogenous ketones themselves have direct cytotoxic effects on tumor viability.5 β-hydroxybutyrate can modify chromatin by binding to and thereby inhibiting histone deacetylase, ultimately repressing transcription and curbing cancer cell proliferation (Figure 1). [0]: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6375425/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6375425/ This same article also mentions that a ketogenic diet can promote weight gain in cancer patients, which is a concern because frequently such patients lose weight as a result of both their disease and the treatment for it. Although not a scientific paper, there is some suggestion in [1] that both fasting and keto can have benefits in terms of making chemotherapy both more tolerable and effective. The suggestion here is that driving down insulin and blood sugar may be the mechanism, which seems naively to mean it effectively "starves out" the cancer. Note however that both keto and fasting act on the insulin/IGF, AMPK and mTOR pathways, so there is a moderately large web of cellular/biological interactions to untangle here. As a side note, the insulin/IGF, AMPK, and mTOR pathways are frequently implicated in animal studies of general longevity as well. We don't know the extent to which this stuff transfers over to humans, but, if you're a mouse, we can extend your life dramatically by playing around with these metabolic pathways. --- [0]: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6375425/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6375425/ [1]: https://www.curetoday.com/view/early-evidence-shows-fasting-keto-diet-may-make-chemo-and-some-other-cancrer-treatments-more-effective-and-easier-to-tolerate https://www.curetoday.com/view/early-evidence-shows-fasting-...
daniel_iversen 5y ago
I think potentially so. There was a podcast episode with Tim Ferris or/and Kevin Rose once (maybe this one? [1]) where they talked about research from/with Valter Longo on this (and it’s likely in his book too). Also in Michael Mosley’s book “Fast 800” he talks about how once you’ve fasted for 12 hours your body triggers the “metabolic switch” and autophagy happens where your body starts dissolving/eating(?) unhealthy cells which are then later regenerated! [1] https://podcast.kevinrose.com/guests/dr-valter-longo/ https://podcast.kevinrose.com/guests/dr-valter-longo/
- heymijo 5y ago
  The 12 hours is a guess. IPeter Attia has talked about this. We just don’t know when autophagy kicks in in humans as we have no direct measurements or bio markers to measure yet. I forget how they measure it in animals but I believe it results in animals no longer being among the living.
- tacon 5y ago
  This second episode with Dom D'Agostino discusses potential cancer treatments with the ketogenic diet: https://tim.blog/2018/06/05/the-tim-ferriss-show-transcripts-dom-dagostino-the-power-of-the-ketogenic-diet/ https://tim.blog/2018/06/05/the-tim-ferriss-show-transcripts...
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
failwhaleshark 5y ago
It makes intuitive sense that people who are overweight / too well-feed get more cancers than people who are subsistence farmers and don't get quite enough to eat. The evidence is the rate of cancers between countries. I would examine if keto / severe calorie restriction kills more precancerous and cancerous cells through stress. It's probably best to start calorie restriction before acquiring cancer to keep the population of precancerous down.
- puchatek 5y ago
  That's hardly evidence. You have to control for all the other things that differ between developed and undeveloped countries. Since this is difficult you could at the very least find 1000 farmers in an undeveloped country and feed them 100g of fat a day I'm addition to what they eat, then monitor their health for a few decades. Then we'd know better
- MrBuddyCasino 5y ago
  Don't you simply have more cells that can turn into cancer when you're fat? More tickets for the cancer lottery? As you usually loose weight on keto, maybe that explains the protective effect?
  - failwhaleshark 5y ago
    Not exactly. Fat cells primarily increase in volume in response to lipogenesis. One of the primary hypotheses behind chemotherapy is to halt all cell division to let stress kill off more cancerous cells than healthy ones. The idea being that cancerous cells are more fragile than healthy ones, even though they proliferate faster and don't execute programmed cell death themselves as readily.
nabla9 5y ago
No. The mechanism described absolutely not. The paper starts with the fact that tumor acidosis promotes disease progression through a stimulation of fatty acid metabolism in cancer cells. Instead of blocking fatty acids, they test a hypothesis that excess uptake of specific fatty acid could have antitumor effects.
fpoling 5y ago
In Mongolia especially in rural area local people eat only meat/fat from horses, sheep and camels and drink heavy fermented horse milk. They do not eat any fruits or vegetables (it is hard to grow those in a semi-desert). They also avoid fish even when it is plenty in nearby rivers or lakes. Mongolia is on top of the charts regarding death from liver and other cancers and from heart decease. So I very much doubt that keto-diet has a protection against cancer. On the other hand the life expectancy both absolute and conditional at a particular age of Mongolians either matches or within 2-3 years of that of Indians who eat mostly vegetarian diet. So if Mongolian have high prevalence of cancers, then they must have less prevalences of other deceases. So if keto diet has any protection, then it is against those other deceases, but not for cancer and heart ones.

elevenoh 5y ago

>The poison acts on tumor cells via a phenomenon called ferroptosis, a type of cell death linked to the peroxidation of certain fatty acids. The greater the amount of unsaturated fatty acids in the cell, the greater the risk of their oxidation. Normally, in the acidic compartment within tumors, cells store these fatty acids in lipid droplets, a kind of bundle in which fatty acids are protected from oxidation. But in the presence of a large amount of DHA, the tumor cell is overwhelmed and cannot store the DHA, which oxidizes and leads to cell death. By using a lipid metabolism inhibitor that prevents the formation of lipid droplets, researchers were able to observe that this phenomenon is further amplified, which confirms the identified mechanism and opens the door to combined treatment possibilities. Neat. Lipid metabolism inhibition to overload tumour cells w/ DHA which oxizides'em till cell death.

trhway 5y ago
Artemisinin being peroxide also acts through ferroptosis. Would be interesting to see it in that combo.
loudtieblahblah 5y ago
this is all above me and i'm not following it exactly. it was my understanding the polyunsaturated fats (3s and 6s alike) were both prone to oxidation far more so than saturated or monosaturated fats and it was this reason alone why there's correlation between high PUFA consumption and prostate cancer It was also my understanding, that this phenomenon is why astaxanthin an antioxidant found in certain algae and things that feed off that algae, such as krill, salmon, and to a small degree - shrimp, crab, and lobster, and noted for being more powerful than the antioxidants found in blueberries, green tea, and even CoQ10, as well as never flipping to a pro-oxidant, the way say.. VitC, E or reservatol can, is extremely useful when consuming Omega3s. Supposedly astaxanthin protects against the oxidation of PUFAs. So if preventing the oxidation of PUFA's is seen as vital to getting their benefits while avoiding the problems of oxidation - how is it, again, that oxidation of Omega3s is a good thing? Is this one of the cases where it's oxidation can result in both tumor cell death in one area but create it in another? Or am i misreading?
- 5y ago

stevespang 5y ago

Most are unaware that cancer treatments have a similar result to pesticide application on food crops - - - you select for the resistant cells or organisms which then survive and multiply to become the new threat.

whyamihere1 5y ago

For those who want to dive deeper, the NIH has a great fact sheet: https://ods.od.nih.gov/factsheets/Omega3FattyAcids-HealthProfessional/ https://ods.od.nih.gov/factsheets/Omega3FattyAcids-HealthPro...

foxes 5y ago

If you are interested in adding Omega-3 to your stack, make sure it is molecularly distilled fish oil. Otherwise there is the risk of excess lead and mercury.

opportune 5y ago
You can also eat fish that are low on the food chain like sardines.
- westurner 5y ago
  Fish don't synthesize Omega PUFAs, they eat algae (which unfortunately and inopportunely stains teeth) From "Warning: Combination of Omega-3s in Popular Supplements May Blunt Heart Benefits" https://scitechdaily.com/warning-combination-of-omega-3s-in-popular-supplements-may-blunt-heart-benefits/ https://scitechdaily.com/warning-combination-of-omega-3s-in-... : > Now, new research from the Intermountain Healthcare Heart Institute in Salt Lake City finds that higher EPA blood levels alone lowered the risk of major cardiac events and death in patients, while DHA blunted the cardiovascular benefits of EPA. Higher DHA levels at any level of EPA, worsened health outcomes. > Results of the Intermountain study, which examined nearly 1,000 patients over a 10-year-period, > “Based on these and other findings, we can still tell our patients to eat Omega-3 rich foods, but we should not be recommending them in pill form as supplements or even as combined (EPA + DHA) prescription products,” he said. “Our data adds further strength to the findings of the recent REDUCE-IT (2018) study that EPA-only prescription products reduce heart disease events.” Now they're sayin'; so I go look for an EPA-only supplement, and TIL about re-esterified triglyceride and it says it's molecularly distilled anchovies in blister packages. Which early land mammals probably ate, so.
  - mgcross 5y ago
    I found this comment too late... Already ordered a "kids" supplement that has a 2:1 ratio of DHA:EPA.
    - adrian_b 5y ago

aszantu 5y ago

Nobody ever stops to check if this Standard diet is making the tumors grow faster... instead they go like: mh if they get more of this (omega 3 = mostly animal fats) it grows slower. In nature mice would eat many different things, grain as well as insects... afaik Mouse Standard diet is high carb

roywiggins 5y ago
They found "an n-3 long-chain PUFA-rich diet significantly delayed mouse tumor growth when compared with a monounsaturated FA-rich diet." So the difference was feeding one set polyunsaturated fatty acids and the other set monounsaturated fatty acids. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1550413121002333 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S15504...
- nomoreplease 5y ago
  Could you elaborate? What is the takeaway for humans here? To eat ONLY pufa when you have a tumor?
  - adrianN 5y ago
    The takeaway for humans here is that there seems to be an effect in mice so perhaps someone should fund a study with human subjects to check whether this effect also exists in humans.
    - wumpus 5y ago
      Thank you for remembering that "cancer cured in mice!!!" is a headline about once per week.

durpleDrank 5y ago

Is this limited to fish oil or can flax oil (Omega 3) and hemp oil (Omega 3, 6, and 9) be a substitute as well?

mikedilger 5y ago
Hemp oil doesn't contain EPA or DHA, but is does have 20% ALA. ALA converts into EPA and DHA in your liver, but in rather limited quantites (less than 15%). It'd be a poor choice for triggering this effect. http://www.hempoil.ca/efa-faq/ http://www.hempoil.ca/efa-faq/ https://ods.od.nih.gov/factsheets/Omega3FattyAcids-HealthProfessional/ https://ods.od.nih.gov/factsheets/Omega3FattyAcids-HealthPro...
- bjelkeman-again 5y ago
  Thanks for the links. EPA and DHA being the key components, the following is often missed when discussing omega-3 fats. So fish fed on vegetable based feed don’t get the EPA and DHA. “DHA and EPA are present in fish, fish oils, and krill oils, but they are originally synthesized by microalgae, not by the fish. When fish consume phytoplankton that consumed microalgae, they accumulate the omega-3s in their tissues [3].“
  - adrian_b 5y ago
    Earlier, most fish from cultures contained negligible DHA and EPA, because they were not fed with their natural food. Now, there are fish farms that have cultures of algae that produce DHA and EPA, then they feed crustaceans or rotifers with the algae. The crustaceans or rotifers are added to the fish food, so in such farms the fish contain omega-3, like those grown in natural conditions. This is not done necessarily to improve the nutritional value of the fish, but to ensure that they reproduce for the next farming cycle, because fish deficient in omega-3 acids may fail to reproduce.
- knuthsat 5y ago
  Flaxseed is superior. Drinking 20g of it will make even abysmal conversion rates sufficient.

doubtfuluser 5y ago

… in mice

henearkr 5y ago

This has me concerned that DHA could actually be harmful for non-cancerous cells as well while doing a water diet or a ketogenic diet. The lipid metabolism inhibitor was used to enhance the already present DHA toxicity mechanism for the cancerous cells, and the toxicity was provoked by the fact that metastasing cancerous cells place themselves in ketosis (=acidosis).

MrBuddyCasino 5y ago
This is what Ray Peat has been saying for years. He researches nutrition with a specific angle - does something inhibit metabolism or does it accelerate? His thesis is that nutrition should be optimized to make metabolism go as efficient as possible. I'm not sure how valid his ideas are, but it is definitely worth checking out. Whenever you see people warn about seed oils and PUFAs, they are usually basing their views on his research.
adrian_b 5y ago
It is very likely that all kinds of poly-unsaturated fatty acids, both the omega-3 and the omega-6, are harmful in too large quantities. Before being degraded easily like MUFA or saturated fatty acids, the PUFA must pass through various transformation reactions that can be performed by our body mainly in the liver and only with a limited rate. When the quantity of PUFA exceeds that which is needed for the maintenance of various cellular membranes by more than can be degraded in a given time, they accumulate and can be harmful. The problem, like for any other kind of food, is that it is extremely difficult to determine experimentally which are the minimum dose per day and the maximum dose per day outside which an omega-3 acid or any other substance becomes harmful instead of useful. The main difficulty is that those limits are not absolute, but they depend on the quantities of other substances eaten at the same time and on the kinds of activities that are performed. So it is not surprising that the results of various studies are contradictory. For omega-3, most studies that I have seen showed improvements up to 2-3 grams per day and no harmful effects that could appear in a short time up to a dose 2 or 3 times larger than that. While there is no doubt that you need both some EPA and some DHA, there is no certainty about which would be the right quantity of each per day. For example some studies have shown that for the brain and against some inflammatory conditions it is better to eat more DHA than EPA, other studies have shown that for the heart it is better to eat more EPA than DHA. It is impossible to know how much the results of such studies are influenced by whatever else the study subjects have eaten at the same time. Nevertheless, it is unlikely that the inferior limit and the superior limit for omega-3 consumption are very close. Therefore eating a few grams per day should be safe. I assume that for killing a tumor much higher doses are needed.

nate_meurer 5y ago

For those who want to take DHA/EPA supplements, but don't want to contribute to the destruction of fisheries (both oil fish and krill), look for vegan supplements. They're more expensive, but the price is coming down as volume grows. Vegan omega-3 supplements are made from algae, which are the original source of the oils for all fish as well.

KitDuncan 5y ago
Also less mercury contamination.
TurboHaskal 5y ago
Which ones are those? I know people are taking flaxseed and rapeseed oil but that's mostly ALA which is hardly converted to DHA by the body.
- adrian_b 5y ago
  There are various unicellular organisms that are cultivated either for EPA extraction or for DHA extraction. Usually EPA and DHA coming from 2 different cultures are mixed into a commercial "algae oil", together with some vegetable oil. Most of those unicellular organisms are not algae, but there is no better name that could be understood by the general public. For example, EPA is extracted from thraustochytrids, which are non-photosynthetic unicellular distant relatives of the brown algae. The only problem with the "algae" oil is that for now it is very expensive. In Europe it is 8 times more expensive than fish oil. While I eat mostly vegan food, I make a couple of exceptions and one of them is fish oil. I have tried algae oil. It was good, but I could not afford to pay for an adequate daily dose of it. I do not know how much of this premium price is due to the cultivation costs and how much is due to vegans accepting to pay more for a vegan solution.
  - martimarkov 5y ago
    Do you think this is a normal price for them (and also actually real, good quality oil): https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07BRY1FRZ https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07BRY1FRZ I also saw normal fish oil in similar price range but that could just be Amazon inflating prices?

Cort3z 5y ago

Really interesting findings. There seems to be a lot of good health benefits from omega 3 and fish oil in general[1]. There is currently an interesting study underway in Norway with 70.000 participants to see if fish oil has an effect on covid-19[2], English translation is towards the bottom of the page. The study is partially funded by a producer of the fish oil, but the study is interesting to me nonetheless. 1: https://examine.com/supplements/fish-oil/ https://examine.com/supplements/fish-oil/ 2: https://oslo-universitetssykehus.no/om-oss/nyheter/kan-tran-forebygge-korona https://oslo-universitetssykehus.no/om-oss/nyheter/kan-tran-...

andy_ppp 5y ago

Crazy correlation (n of one etc.) but I find I’m worse at Chess if I take fish oil (it’s a good one from Nordic Naturals). I’m not sure for me it’s a good idea.

cameronh90 5y ago
N of 1 is still worthy of discussion if the data is reliable. Have you considered trying to get someone to perform a double blind placebo controlled test on you?
treeman79 5y ago
Food intolerances can cause brain fog. Various reasons. I have an autoimmune disorder and most food outside AIP diet cause mental sluggishness for me. Basically I eat bread and my immune system decides it’s a virus and decides my organs must die. So yea, If something bothers you, listen to your body, even if it’s being stupid.
arthur_sav 5y ago
Also not sure if correlation or causation but i have anxiety when taking fish oil. Usually i'm pretty chill but with fish oil i suddenly have problems even ordering a coffee.

throwzaway20102 5y ago

Go vegan!!!!!!