from Carbsane's blog:
Reader comment:
I am increasingly skeptical of the whole omega-6 demonization. Highly refined foods can be inflammatory in and of themselves and that may be the real issue with refined high omega 6 vegetable oils. But who can say with certainty what constitutes "too much" omega 6 in a cell? It all seems too simplistic. It's like saying excess iron is bad and therefore avoiding all foods high in iron, like beef, is good despite the carnitine, protein and other beneficial aspects of beef -- sort of throwing the baby out with the bathwater. I am also not convinced that cellular concentration of Omega 6 is solely related to diet. Barry Groves and Ray Peat have mentioned studies showing that climate alone can change fatty acid compostion. Groves cites an experiment where pigs where dressed in sweaters and found to have a higher concentration of saturated fat than without the sweaters despite no change in diet. Certain disease processes can also alter fatty acid concentrations. But assuming excessiive (anyone's guess what constitutes excessive for a given individual ) omega 6 is harmful, there are things in the diet like saturated fat, monosaturated fat, iodine and antioxidants that could counteract or obviate the alleged harm. Some of these things are contained in whole foods that happen to contain omega 6 such as for example, hazelnuts or almonds. They both contain vitamin e, saturated fat, omega 9s and fiber which necessarily makes the omega 6 less available to the body. If Omega 6 is so bad, why is Omega 3 supposedly so good? It's even more prone to rancidity than omega 6 and can lower immunity and sperm counts and cause bleeding issues when taken "in excess." That's why I prefer eating sardines and oily fish over supplements. It's also why I would think nuts and olives are preferable to eating refined oils made them. Question of the hour is what is excess? Just as with carbohydrate tolerance, one person's "excess" would necessarily differ from another person's based upon a multitude of additional factors. Just as some people need more carbs or less fat, why isn't it possible that some need more or less omega 6, omega 3, omega 9, saturated fat etc? |
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