WEBVTT
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I don't really care why people are
taken Omega threes. As far as I'm
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concerned, if they take it to
grow hair, that's fine with me,
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because it's going to do they're going
to do good things all over the body.
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They're going to do good things for
the brain and the heart. Hello
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and welcome to the science and the
story behind Omega three, a podcast brought
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to you by Wiley companies, where
we explore one of the most research nutrients
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on the planet. Listen in as
Global Omega three experts and researchers translate the
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science, reveal personal insights and share
their stories of discovery while navigating the see
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of Omega three science. Thanks for
joining us today. Now here's your host,
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Greg Lindsay. Welcome back to another
episode of the Science and the story
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behind Omega three, where we talk
with experts from all over the world.
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My guests today is a lipid chemist
who is in the trenches of Omega three
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research. Is Professor of pediatrics,
of chemistry and of nutrition at the Dell
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Medical School and the College of Natural
Sciences at the University of Texas at Austin.
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He is also only the fourth person
to receive both the Osborne and Mendel
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Award for Outstanding Basic Research and the
Robert Herman Memorial Ward for contributions to clinical
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nutrition, searched from the American Society
for nutrition. Please, welcome to our
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program Dr Tom Brenna. But Dr
Brenna, thank you so much for being
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with us today. We are so
excited for you to help us weave together
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some of the news we hear about
a Maga three. But before we dive
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in, I just want to ask
you. You've had a thirty plus year
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career and Lipid Chemistry and a megathree
nutrition. What is kept you interested or
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intrigued by this work? Well,
Greg it's a combination of the depth and
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many layers that the megathree story has
and a general interest in incorporating very technical
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aspects of chemical analysis that I can
apply to the Maga three story. So
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the kinds of things we do in
the laboratory tend to be a bit different
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than what a lot of amigathree people
do, and so we get insights that
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maybe are not as common, and
so there's kind of an endless, endless
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levels of uncertainty and interest that keeps
us engaged over the years. I can
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always find some other thing to look
at and and I tend to be a
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very curious person also, we we
we usually think it they make a three
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story as the kind of stuff we
see in the in the in the press
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with make it three effects on cardiovascular
disease and a few of the things like
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that and taking fish oil pills or
whatever something along those lines. Well,
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we have applied some of these basic
science concepts to, for instance, ecology
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and understanding whether whether wild birds require
magathrees and how well they do in the
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nest and things like that. That's
just really endlessly interesting stuff. So that's
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what's kept me engaged over the years
and this is not the only thing I
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do. So it's always fun to
come back to it, though. So
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you referenced it. So, Dr
Brend we easily hear about a MAKEA threes
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in context of a disease like cardiovascular
or function associated with an organ like neurocognitive
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development in the brain. Why isn't
the big picture, or really the whole
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body in phasized? It's a bit
of the way we do science. So
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when a cardiologist does a study and
they've Minister Maga threes and they look at
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some outcome of cardiology outcome. So
they might look at cholesterol levels or they
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might look at cardiovascular events, so
major events such as a heart attack.
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They then write up the paper in
that context and the press picks it up
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and it says is Omegathrees do this
or do that for cardiffascular disease, and
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we tend to implicitly ignore all the
other things going to Maga threes do.
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So it really is an issue that
we that we don't look at the big
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picture. I mean I at various
times in sometimes in frustration when one sees
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two or three studies that don't come
out as as a way we expect and
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and I think what people are in
actually studying the important thing. And I
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say, well, you know,
I don't really care why people are taking
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to Maga threes. As far as
I'm concerned, if they take it to
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grow hair, that's fine with me, because it's going to do they're going
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to do good things all over the
body. They're going to do good things
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for the brain and the heart and
in the joints and and and and so
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forth. So that's a perspective that
people should always bear in mind when they
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reading one isolated study. That's a
that's a great point. If we talk
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about specifics, so EPA DH are
the key forms of a megathree in fish,
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seafood and fish oil. Maybe you
can explain the difference between EPA and
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Dha, and I realize this is
just the question. That could be an
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entire podcast, but I'd love for
you to give listeners just maybe the basic
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differences between EPA and Dha. EPA
and Dha are two different, to make
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it three fatty acids. They have
different chemical structures that but they're very closely
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related from a metabolic point of view. One can be converted into another.
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We know that. But we also
know that metabolically there are barriers of converting
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EPA to Dha and Dacha back to
EPA. So that's why the two of
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them actually are separate and appear separately
in in tissue and are distributed differently in
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tissue. They also, in tissue, have different functions. Some of them
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are overlapping functions, but they they
will appear differently in membranes and they and
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they have their own distinct functions.
Where is Dha found in the body?
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Dha is found in essentially all neural
tissue. So it's very high in the
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brain, in the neural parts of
the retina, which really is a part
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of the brain. It's high in
the peripheral nervous system, that is,
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the part of the nervous system that's
outside the skull, and it's high in
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some specific places. In example,
Bill would be the test. He's it's
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it's high, and the tests those
are the biggis. There are other pockets
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of Dha in various places, but
those are the ones that always come to
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mind. That is fascinating. Some
going to jump to a topic that's been
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very, very high profile because of
heart health month, and that is we
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hear a lot about a Maga threes
for cardiovascular health and I dislike to understand
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your opinion of why people got interested
in a Maga threes for cardiovascular health,
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if you could maybe give us a
little background and how that that came about.
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Yeah, so back when I was
an aspiring scientist, or perhaps even
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before that, it was in really
the nine s that a pair of researchers
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from Denmark went to Greenland and studied
the natives of that area and their cardiovascure
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disease and found they had very low
cardio of ascot disease, and then connected
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that to their intake of marine foods, specifically fish and and marine mammals,
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and they also showed that a very
high amount of intake of these mega threes
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from fish caused a very high amount
of EPA in the blood and that very
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high amount of EPA and blood,
and very high relative to let's say Americans,
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and that very high level reduced the
tendency of blood to clot. The
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tendency of blood to clot is closely
related to CARDIOVASCAR disease. So that was
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actually the s and there was a
series of four papers, let's say,
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that really got people going on a
cardiovascular story and at that time EPA was
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the one that everyone was emphasizing for
cardiovascar disease. That's gone back and forth
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over the I got I got involved
in science probably well in the late s
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and I was an Undergrad and nutrition
major and worked in a lipids labin and
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learned about a lot of the stuff
and I've kind of watched it go from
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EPA being the really good guy to
Dha being a really good guy, to
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EPA being the good guy, and
it just kind of goes back and forth.
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People switch between the two and and
occasionally they throw in another Ramaga three
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called DPA, but will won't get
into that one. At any rate,
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it's been it's kind of been like
that. So that's really the origin of
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the cardiovascular story. There is another
part of the cardiovascular story that's relevant,
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which is the reduction in the tendency
of the heart to stop beating upon a
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heart attack. So we call that
eventricular a Rhythmia, and those events.
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So so when a person has a
heart attack, the heart can stop beating
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and if a shock is not administered, then you get sudden death. That's
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why people die of sudden death at
heart attack. Well, it was shown
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in roughly around one thousand nine hundred
and ninety that an infusion of a megathrees
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could make the heart much more robust
to that phenomena and and that that was
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replicated in human studies afterwards. And
so there's really two things. One is
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that you don't have as many heart
attacks. The second as you don't die
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of the heart attack as as often
when EPA Dah a are higher in the
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Diet. Like what you hear so
far, make sure you never miss a
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show by clicking the subscribe button now. This podcast is made possible by listeners
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like you. Thank you for your
support. Now back to the show.
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Just to make a three in hard
health is such an important topic and I'd
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love to explore that more, but
we have limited time today. So I
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want to jump to the brain or
neurocognitive health, and I know that's a
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big leaf from cardiovascular health, but
curious. Why did people suspect that a
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make it three had a row a
neuro cognitive health? Yeah, that's a
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great question and it actually has a
fairly simple answer. Why did people suspect
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that calcium had something to do with
bones? Because calcium's always found in bones.
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That's why. So the reason that
people thought that Omega three is had
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something to do with neurocognitive health is
that Omega three, and specifically Dacha,
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is always found in brain tissue and
even from the from the earliest days.
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The discovery of Dha came from a
sample of pig brain. Actually that's where
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it was first isolated and then characterized
later on. Studies in the s among
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many species, thirty forty species of
animals, found that Dha levels are virtually
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the same in all species, while
other fatty acids are very different. And
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there and and Dha levels are different
in other organs from species of species,
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but all species have about the same
amount of dacha in their brains. So
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okay, that's beginning to sound a
lot like calcium, isn't it? Calcium
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in the bones. You can't make
good bones without calcium. You can't make
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good brains without Dha. So that's
what got people really interested in the first
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place. So what is the best
evidence then, for the role of a
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mega three in neurocognitive health? Well, I would cite that first bit of
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evidence, that Dha is always present
in neural tissue, and I would second
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site what I would call preclinical data. We talked about preclinical data. That
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would be animal studies that show that
when a megathrees are reduced in the Diet
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and when there's an a megathree deficiency, you get all manner of neurocognitive abnormalities.
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Anything you could measure, from the
biochemical to the running of mazes,
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to sensitivity to neurotoxins, to you
name it, is messed up in the
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offspring. So if you make a
if you make a pregnant animal deficient in
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the Magathrees, you you can look
anywhere you want and you find a mess
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and so some of that is number
one, that really says look, this
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thing is that these are megathrees are
critical for brain development. And and then
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we have numerous studies that show that
adding DH A to, let's say,
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infant formulas, and that was one
of the areas that was studied early on
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in the S, improves cognitive performance
in infants. But importantly, also in
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some of the most compelling data is
on vision, where vision, visual development
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is accelerated in infants. And we
think of vision as a separate thing from
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the brain, but it really isn't. The the the the neural part of
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the retina is the part of the
brain that we can see. We can
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see it and it's the part of
the brain that's looking out on the world,
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and so it really is a part
of the brain and there are certain
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aspects of that. They can be
measured much more conveniently than deep brain structures,
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and so there's this is very good
evidence on that and, in my
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opinion, showing that more DHA is
associated with faster visual development. A lot
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of great information. So I question
what happens if we do not have enough
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a mega three in our bodies.
Well, attention has turned in recent years
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away from the early days of what
we used to call acute deficiency conditions,
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that is, keeping an animal alive
and apparently healthy, to to simply look
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at let's say in normal activity levels, to considering Omega threes as a specific
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case of a nutrient and their role
in both development and neural developments is not
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an easy thing to measure, and
also for the reduction of chronic disease risk.
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So we talked about that also as
a requirements and in in recent years
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we've come to clarify that Omega threes, at least against the background of our
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current we call them Western diets,
let's just say, the American food supply.
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But I think this applies all over
the world. It's really beginning to
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apply in in some developing countries that
adequate to Maga three is required for forces,
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for lowering of chronic disease and for
for Nero Development, for reasons that
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we've discussed. Dr Brand I read
an article recently and, knowing you were
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going to be with us today,
I wanted to ask the question. We
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hear about genes. What's known about
genes and a megathree? Oh My,
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so, Greg people have been studying
genes in a mega three for several years
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now. There's a considerable amounts that
is known about the interindividual variability in the
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use and the metabolism of Omega threes
and Omega Sixes, because that's we talked
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about a magathrees a lot at that's
a subject of this conversation. But from
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a metabolic point, if you they
make a sixes are in there and we
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know that among the the strongest influences
that the genome has a nutrients and nutrient
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utilization is actually on these mega threes
in a Maga sixes as they come into
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the body. And now these are
still relatively early days. I mean we
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like to say that we've sequenced the
genome and it sounds like we know everything
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there is to know about it.
Don't believe any of that. We've sequenced
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a lot of the genome, but
but we haven't sequenced all of it.
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We've sequenced the genes that code for
proteins. We've sequenced but we don't know
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what a third of those proteins do. We don't know how a lot of
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them are regulated. We and and
there's layer upon layer of subtlety about how
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this all works. And and and
my head spins when I read the literature
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and and and see yet another thing
that has popped up that affects metabolism and
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points to yet another set of genes
that I might have to look at in
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order to understand exactly what's going on. So let's just say that we've got
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a pretty good idea. In fact, I think it's a lock that some
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of the most important influences of the
genome on human metabolic status and nutritional status
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operate at the level of these.
These are megathrees in a mega sixes Dr
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Burn. I think the last question
I want to ask you today is there's
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so many conflicting reports than the news
about a megathree. How do our listeners
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make sense of all this information?
Right? So there's a bit of background
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that that one ought to think about
when you when you when you think about
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a study. So almost all studies
are designed where there is an experimental group
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in a control group and and you
would minister or Maga three to one group
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or more magathree two to one group
and then and none or less to a
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control group, and you compare an
outcome. So that outcome could be visual
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acuity, it could be depression,
it could be some aspect of cardiovascular health.
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Okay, and your hypothesis typically will
be that the Amegathree group will be
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superior to the control group. Okay, fair enough. What we talk about
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almost exclusively is we say that the
study was positive if it confirms the hypothesis,
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or at least as consistent with the
hypothesis, that a Magathree has a
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positive influence on the on the upcome, or we say that the study was
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and often people will apply the word
negative when there wasn't any difference. But
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what that ignor is is a very
important subtlety that that never makes it into
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the into the news stories, which
is that those studies could just as easily
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find that there's a negative effect of
a megathrees. So it's so there are
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really three outcomes. One is positive, one is neutral, much better word,
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no difference, and one is negative. You almost never see negative.
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I really have to scan my memory
banks to even think of anything that's ever
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been seen that was negative. So
so one thing to remember is that the
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studies almost universally are either positive or
neutral. Now that points to a positive
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overall effect. And so so what
you can have confidence in, at the
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very least in reading these studies is
to understand that the emegathrees aren't going to
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do harm, the amegathrees are going
to have a positive effect, or at
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least do no harm. And but
on net one expects that there's going to
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be a positive effect, and there's
subtle reasons why that's the case. We've
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seen a lot of studies, clinical
studies, where a megathrees are administered to
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individuals regardless of their megathree status.
So this is a little bit like administering
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vitamin C to people who are not
vitamin C deficient. So if you're not
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deficient in the in the nutrient,
then administering it to you, giving it
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to you, isn't going to help
anything if you're not deficient. I mean
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a friend of mine likes to say
that in frustration over one of these things.
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He says, yes, it is
true that Omega three did not improve
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depression in people who are not depressed. So and so we actually see a
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fair amount of that. And so
if you have a study where half two
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people have no Omega three deficiency and
have two people do have some kind of
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an a megathree deficiency, the ones
that have no Amaga three deficiency are going
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to be averaged in with the others
and you may end up when the n
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result. So that's a subtlety that
layman, your listeners may not really get,
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but it really is there. And
some of the sages in this field,
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I have in mind the late great
she'll in us of the Vancouver Canada,
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and she had wrote several papers towards
the end of her life that pointed
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out that maybe ten percent of people
might be deficient for a particular outcome.
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But then you have everybody in,
everybody thrown into the group and it just
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washes out the effect. And so
we need to design our studies better.
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That's actually part of it and some
people are starting to do that. And
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so when you say, well,
I'm only going to measure the people that
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are in the in the in the
bottom half, that come in in the
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bottom half of the megathree status in
my among my participants, and and when
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you do that you begin to see
much more significant effects, actually so so
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in that sense you can think of
it a little, a little like a
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vitamin, where I mean people think
about a vitamin, is they they don't.
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They're not taking a multi vitamin because
they think they're deficient to know all
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vitamins. They're taking a multi vitamin
because they think they may not be getting
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enough of this or enough of that
and it's not going to hurt so so
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I might as well take it at
there's a little bit of mindset like that
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that that really does apply, and
I think that's it's a reasonable way to
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think about it as a layman.
Thank you so much for addressing that question
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and for something that up so well
and for really helping this makes sense of
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all this today. I'm going to
put you on the spot and ask you
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to come back for another podcast,
because I feel like we're just hitting the
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tip of the iceberg on all the
great information that you have. Oh,
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I'll be glad to do that anytime
and and I want to thank you again,
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Dr Brenna, and thank you to
our listeners and, as always,
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be healthy, be well and fight
the good fight. This has been the
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science and the story behind Omega.
Three thanks to our sponsor, whiley companies.
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00:24:10.660 --> 00:24:15.859
You can find them and more information
about our show at while Cocom podcast.
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00:24:17.660 --> 00:24:21.940
If you enjoyed today's episode, don't
forget to subscribe wherever you get your
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podcasts. Thanks for listening and we'll
catch you next time. Any statements on
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00:24:32.289 --> 00:24:36.049
this podcast are the opinion of the
scientific guest and or author and I've not
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00:24:36.089 --> 00:24:38.519
yet been evaluated by the FDA.
The information we may provide to you,
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00:24:38.599 --> 00:24:42.599
as designed for educational purposes only,
is not intended to be a substitute for
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00:24:42.720 --> 00:24:47.920
informed medical advice or care. This
information should not be used to diagnose,
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00:24:48.000 --> 00:24:52.359
treet or prevent any health issues or
conditions without consulting a healthcare professional. If
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00:24:52.359 --> 00:24:55.950
you are experiencing a health issue are
condition, we suggest you consult with your
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healthcare professional.
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I don't really care why people are
taken Omega threes. As far as I'm
2
00:00:04.639 --> 00:00:07.000
concerned, if they take it to
grow hair, that's fine with me,
3
00:00:07.750 --> 00:00:11.949
because it's going to do they're going
to do good things all over the body.
4
00:00:11.949 --> 00:00:16.070
They're going to do good things for
the brain and the heart. Hello
5
00:00:16.510 --> 00:00:23.260
and welcome to the science and the
story behind Omega three, a podcast brought
6
00:00:23.300 --> 00:00:28.420
to you by Wiley companies, where
we explore one of the most research nutrients
7
00:00:28.620 --> 00:00:34.780
on the planet. Listen in as
Global Omega three experts and researchers translate the
8
00:00:34.939 --> 00:00:41.289
science, reveal personal insights and share
their stories of discovery while navigating the see
9
00:00:41.530 --> 00:00:48.450
of Omega three science. Thanks for
joining us today. Now here's your host,
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00:00:48.929 --> 00:00:56.880
Greg Lindsay. Welcome back to another
episode of the Science and the story
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00:00:57.039 --> 00:01:00.600
behind Omega three, where we talk
with experts from all over the world.
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00:01:00.320 --> 00:01:04.150
My guests today is a lipid chemist
who is in the trenches of Omega three
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00:01:04.189 --> 00:01:10.230
research. Is Professor of pediatrics,
of chemistry and of nutrition at the Dell
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Medical School and the College of Natural
Sciences at the University of Texas at Austin.
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He is also only the fourth person
to receive both the Osborne and Mendel
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Award for Outstanding Basic Research and the
Robert Herman Memorial Ward for contributions to clinical
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nutrition, searched from the American Society
for nutrition. Please, welcome to our
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program Dr Tom Brenna. But Dr
Brenna, thank you so much for being
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with us today. We are so
excited for you to help us weave together
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some of the news we hear about
a Maga three. But before we dive
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00:01:46.090 --> 00:01:49.000
in, I just want to ask
you. You've had a thirty plus year
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career and Lipid Chemistry and a megathree
nutrition. What is kept you interested or
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intrigued by this work? Well,
Greg it's a combination of the depth and
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many layers that the megathree story has
and a general interest in incorporating very technical
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aspects of chemical analysis that I can
apply to the Maga three story. So
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the kinds of things we do in
the laboratory tend to be a bit different
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than what a lot of amigathree people
do, and so we get insights that
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maybe are not as common, and
so there's kind of an endless, endless
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levels of uncertainty and interest that keeps
us engaged over the years. I can
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always find some other thing to look
at and and I tend to be a
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very curious person also, we we
we usually think it they make a three
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story as the kind of stuff we
see in the in the in the press
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with make it three effects on cardiovascular
disease and a few of the things like
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that and taking fish oil pills or
whatever something along those lines. Well,
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we have applied some of these basic
science concepts to, for instance, ecology
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and understanding whether whether wild birds require
magathrees and how well they do in the
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nest and things like that. That's
just really endlessly interesting stuff. So that's
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what's kept me engaged over the years
and this is not the only thing I
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do. So it's always fun to
come back to it, though. So
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you referenced it. So, Dr
Brend we easily hear about a MAKEA threes
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in context of a disease like cardiovascular
or function associated with an organ like neurocognitive
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development in the brain. Why isn't
the big picture, or really the whole
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body in phasized? It's a bit
of the way we do science. So
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when a cardiologist does a study and
they've Minister Maga threes and they look at
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some outcome of cardiology outcome. So
they might look at cholesterol levels or they
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might look at cardiovascular events, so
major events such as a heart attack.
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They then write up the paper in
that context and the press picks it up
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and it says is Omegathrees do this
or do that for cardiffascular disease, and
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we tend to implicitly ignore all the
other things going to Maga threes do.
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So it really is an issue that
we that we don't look at the big
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picture. I mean I at various
times in sometimes in frustration when one sees
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two or three studies that don't come
out as as a way we expect and
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and I think what people are in
actually studying the important thing. And I
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say, well, you know,
I don't really care why people are taking
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to Maga threes. As far as
I'm concerned, if they take it to
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grow hair, that's fine with me, because it's going to do they're going
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to do good things all over the
body. They're going to do good things
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for the brain and the heart and
in the joints and and and and so
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forth. So that's a perspective that
people should always bear in mind when they
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reading one isolated study. That's a
that's a great point. If we talk
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about specifics, so EPA DH are
the key forms of a megathree in fish,
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seafood and fish oil. Maybe you
can explain the difference between EPA and
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Dha, and I realize this is
just the question. That could be an
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entire podcast, but I'd love for
you to give listeners just maybe the basic
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differences between EPA and Dha. EPA
and Dha are two different, to make
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it three fatty acids. They have
different chemical structures that but they're very closely
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related from a metabolic point of view. One can be converted into another.
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We know that. But we also
know that metabolically there are barriers of converting
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EPA to Dha and Dacha back to
EPA. So that's why the two of
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them actually are separate and appear separately
in in tissue and are distributed differently in
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tissue. They also, in tissue, have different functions. Some of them
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are overlapping functions, but they they
will appear differently in membranes and they and
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they have their own distinct functions.
Where is Dha found in the body?
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Dha is found in essentially all neural
tissue. So it's very high in the
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brain, in the neural parts of
the retina, which really is a part
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of the brain. It's high in
the peripheral nervous system, that is,
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the part of the nervous system that's
outside the skull, and it's high in
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some specific places. In example,
Bill would be the test. He's it's
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it's high, and the tests those
are the biggis. There are other pockets
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of Dha in various places, but
those are the ones that always come to
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mind. That is fascinating. Some
going to jump to a topic that's been
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very, very high profile because of
heart health month, and that is we
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hear a lot about a Maga threes
for cardiovascular health and I dislike to understand
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your opinion of why people got interested
in a Maga threes for cardiovascular health,
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if you could maybe give us a
little background and how that that came about.
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00:08:00.459 --> 00:08:07.379
Yeah, so back when I was
an aspiring scientist, or perhaps even
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before that, it was in really
the nine s that a pair of researchers
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from Denmark went to Greenland and studied
the natives of that area and their cardiovascure
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disease and found they had very low
cardio of ascot disease, and then connected
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that to their intake of marine foods, specifically fish and and marine mammals,
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and they also showed that a very
high amount of intake of these mega threes
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from fish caused a very high amount
of EPA in the blood and that very
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high amount of EPA and blood,
and very high relative to let's say Americans,
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and that very high level reduced the
tendency of blood to clot. The
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tendency of blood to clot is closely
related to CARDIOVASCAR disease. So that was
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actually the s and there was a
series of four papers, let's say,
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that really got people going on a
cardiovascular story and at that time EPA was
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the one that everyone was emphasizing for
cardiovascar disease. That's gone back and forth
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over the I got I got involved
in science probably well in the late s
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and I was an Undergrad and nutrition
major and worked in a lipids labin and
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00:09:31.440 --> 00:09:35.200
learned about a lot of the stuff
and I've kind of watched it go from
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EPA being the really good guy to
Dha being a really good guy, to
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EPA being the good guy, and
it just kind of goes back and forth.
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People switch between the two and and
occasionally they throw in another Ramaga three
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called DPA, but will won't get
into that one. At any rate,
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it's been it's kind of been like
that. So that's really the origin of
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the cardiovascular story. There is another
part of the cardiovascular story that's relevant,
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which is the reduction in the tendency
of the heart to stop beating upon a
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heart attack. So we call that
eventricular a Rhythmia, and those events.
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So so when a person has a
heart attack, the heart can stop beating
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00:10:16.730 --> 00:10:22.000
and if a shock is not administered, then you get sudden death. That's
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why people die of sudden death at
heart attack. Well, it was shown
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in roughly around one thousand nine hundred
and ninety that an infusion of a megathrees
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could make the heart much more robust
to that phenomena and and that that was
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replicated in human studies afterwards. And
so there's really two things. One is
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that you don't have as many heart
attacks. The second as you don't die
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of the heart attack as as often
when EPA Dah a are higher in the
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Diet. Like what you hear so
far, make sure you never miss a
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00:11:00.700 --> 00:11:05.090
show by clicking the subscribe button now. This podcast is made possible by listeners
120
00:11:05.169 --> 00:11:09.009
like you. Thank you for your
support. Now back to the show.
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Just to make a three in hard
health is such an important topic and I'd
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love to explore that more, but
we have limited time today. So I
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want to jump to the brain or
neurocognitive health, and I know that's a
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big leaf from cardiovascular health, but
curious. Why did people suspect that a
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make it three had a row a
neuro cognitive health? Yeah, that's a
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great question and it actually has a
fairly simple answer. Why did people suspect
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that calcium had something to do with
bones? Because calcium's always found in bones.
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That's why. So the reason that
people thought that Omega three is had
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something to do with neurocognitive health is
that Omega three, and specifically Dacha,
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is always found in brain tissue and
even from the from the earliest days.
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The discovery of Dha came from a
sample of pig brain. Actually that's where
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it was first isolated and then characterized
later on. Studies in the s among
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many species, thirty forty species of
animals, found that Dha levels are virtually
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the same in all species, while
other fatty acids are very different. And
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there and and Dha levels are different
in other organs from species of species,
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but all species have about the same
amount of dacha in their brains. So
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okay, that's beginning to sound a
lot like calcium, isn't it? Calcium
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in the bones. You can't make
good bones without calcium. You can't make
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good brains without Dha. So that's
what got people really interested in the first
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place. So what is the best
evidence then, for the role of a
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mega three in neurocognitive health? Well, I would cite that first bit of
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evidence, that Dha is always present
in neural tissue, and I would second
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site what I would call preclinical data. We talked about preclinical data. That
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would be animal studies that show that
when a megathrees are reduced in the Diet
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and when there's an a megathree deficiency, you get all manner of neurocognitive abnormalities.
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Anything you could measure, from the
biochemical to the running of mazes,
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to sensitivity to neurotoxins, to you
name it, is messed up in the
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offspring. So if you make a
if you make a pregnant animal deficient in
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the Magathrees, you you can look
anywhere you want and you find a mess
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and so some of that is number
one, that really says look, this
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thing is that these are megathrees are
critical for brain development. And and then
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we have numerous studies that show that
adding DH A to, let's say,
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infant formulas, and that was one
of the areas that was studied early on
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in the S, improves cognitive performance
in infants. But importantly, also in
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some of the most compelling data is
on vision, where vision, visual development
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is accelerated in infants. And we
think of vision as a separate thing from
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the brain, but it really isn't. The the the the neural part of
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the retina is the part of the
brain that we can see. We can
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see it and it's the part of
the brain that's looking out on the world,
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and so it really is a part
of the brain and there are certain
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aspects of that. They can be
measured much more conveniently than deep brain structures,
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and so there's this is very good
evidence on that and, in my
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opinion, showing that more DHA is
associated with faster visual development. A lot
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of great information. So I question
what happens if we do not have enough
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a mega three in our bodies.
Well, attention has turned in recent years
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away from the early days of what
we used to call acute deficiency conditions,
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that is, keeping an animal alive
and apparently healthy, to to simply look
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at let's say in normal activity levels, to considering Omega threes as a specific
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case of a nutrient and their role
in both development and neural developments is not
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an easy thing to measure, and
also for the reduction of chronic disease risk.
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So we talked about that also as
a requirements and in in recent years
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we've come to clarify that Omega threes, at least against the background of our
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current we call them Western diets,
let's just say, the American food supply.
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But I think this applies all over
the world. It's really beginning to
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apply in in some developing countries that
adequate to Maga three is required for forces,
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for lowering of chronic disease and for
for Nero Development, for reasons that
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we've discussed. Dr Brand I read
an article recently and, knowing you were
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going to be with us today,
I wanted to ask the question. We
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hear about genes. What's known about
genes and a megathree? Oh My,
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so, Greg people have been studying
genes in a mega three for several years
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now. There's a considerable amounts that
is known about the interindividual variability in the
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use and the metabolism of Omega threes
and Omega Sixes, because that's we talked
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about a magathrees a lot at that's
a subject of this conversation. But from
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a metabolic point, if you they
make a sixes are in there and we
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know that among the the strongest influences
that the genome has a nutrients and nutrient
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utilization is actually on these mega threes
in a Maga sixes as they come into
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the body. And now these are
still relatively early days. I mean we
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like to say that we've sequenced the
genome and it sounds like we know everything
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there is to know about it.
Don't believe any of that. We've sequenced
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a lot of the genome, but
but we haven't sequenced all of it.
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We've sequenced the genes that code for
proteins. We've sequenced but we don't know
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what a third of those proteins do. We don't know how a lot of
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them are regulated. We and and
there's layer upon layer of subtlety about how
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this all works. And and and
my head spins when I read the literature
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and and and see yet another thing
that has popped up that affects metabolism and
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points to yet another set of genes
that I might have to look at in
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order to understand exactly what's going on. So let's just say that we've got
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a pretty good idea. In fact, I think it's a lock that some
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of the most important influences of the
genome on human metabolic status and nutritional status
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operate at the level of these.
These are megathrees in a mega sixes Dr
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Burn. I think the last question
I want to ask you today is there's
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so many conflicting reports than the news
about a megathree. How do our listeners
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make sense of all this information?
Right? So there's a bit of background
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that that one ought to think about
when you when you when you think about
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a study. So almost all studies
are designed where there is an experimental group
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in a control group and and you
would minister or Maga three to one group
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or more magathree two to one group
and then and none or less to a
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control group, and you compare an
outcome. So that outcome could be visual
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acuity, it could be depression,
it could be some aspect of cardiovascular health.
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Okay, and your hypothesis typically will
be that the Amegathree group will be
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superior to the control group. Okay, fair enough. What we talk about
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almost exclusively is we say that the
study was positive if it confirms the hypothesis,
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or at least as consistent with the
hypothesis, that a Magathree has a
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positive influence on the on the upcome, or we say that the study was
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and often people will apply the word
negative when there wasn't any difference. But
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what that ignor is is a very
important subtlety that that never makes it into
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the into the news stories, which
is that those studies could just as easily
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find that there's a negative effect of
a megathrees. So it's so there are
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really three outcomes. One is positive, one is neutral, much better word,
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no difference, and one is negative. You almost never see negative.
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I really have to scan my memory
banks to even think of anything that's ever
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been seen that was negative. So
so one thing to remember is that the
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studies almost universally are either positive or
neutral. Now that points to a positive
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overall effect. And so so what
you can have confidence in, at the
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very least in reading these studies is
to understand that the emegathrees aren't going to
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do harm, the amegathrees are going
to have a positive effect, or at
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least do no harm. And but
on net one expects that there's going to
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be a positive effect, and there's
subtle reasons why that's the case. We've
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seen a lot of studies, clinical
studies, where a megathrees are administered to
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individuals regardless of their megathree status.
So this is a little bit like administering
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vitamin C to people who are not
vitamin C deficient. So if you're not
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deficient in the in the nutrient,
then administering it to you, giving it
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to you, isn't going to help
anything if you're not deficient. I mean
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a friend of mine likes to say
that in frustration over one of these things.
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He says, yes, it is
true that Omega three did not improve
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depression in people who are not depressed. So and so we actually see a
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fair amount of that. And so
if you have a study where half two
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people have no Omega three deficiency and
have two people do have some kind of
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an a megathree deficiency, the ones
that have no Amaga three deficiency are going
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to be averaged in with the others
and you may end up when the n
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result. So that's a subtlety that
layman, your listeners may not really get,
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but it really is there. And
some of the sages in this field,
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I have in mind the late great
she'll in us of the Vancouver Canada,
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and she had wrote several papers towards
the end of her life that pointed
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out that maybe ten percent of people
might be deficient for a particular outcome.
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But then you have everybody in,
everybody thrown into the group and it just
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washes out the effect. And so
we need to design our studies better.
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That's actually part of it and some
people are starting to do that. And
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so when you say, well,
I'm only going to measure the people that
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are in the in the in the
bottom half, that come in in the
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bottom half of the megathree status in
my among my participants, and and when
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you do that you begin to see
much more significant effects, actually so so
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in that sense you can think of
it a little, a little like a
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vitamin, where I mean people think
about a vitamin, is they they don't.
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They're not taking a multi vitamin because
they think they're deficient to know all
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vitamins. They're taking a multi vitamin
because they think they may not be getting
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enough of this or enough of that
and it's not going to hurt so so
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I might as well take it at
there's a little bit of mindset like that
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that that really does apply, and
I think that's it's a reasonable way to
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think about it as a layman.
Thank you so much for addressing that question
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and for something that up so well
and for really helping this makes sense of
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all this today. I'm going to
put you on the spot and ask you
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to come back for another podcast,
because I feel like we're just hitting the
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tip of the iceberg on all the
great information that you have. Oh,
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I'll be glad to do that anytime
and and I want to thank you again,
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Dr Brenna, and thank you to
our listeners and, as always,
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be healthy, be well and fight
the good fight. This has been the
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science and the story behind Omega.
Three thanks to our sponsor, whiley companies.
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00:24:10.660 --> 00:24:15.859
You can find them and more information
about our show at while Cocom podcast.
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If you enjoyed today's episode, don't
forget to subscribe wherever you get your
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podcasts. Thanks for listening and we'll
catch you next time. Any statements on
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this podcast are the opinion of the
scientific guest and or author and I've not
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yet been evaluated by the FDA.
The information we may provide to you,
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as designed for educational purposes only,
is not intended to be a substitute for
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informed medical advice or care. This
information should not be used to diagnose,
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treet or prevent any health issues or
conditions without consulting a healthcare professional. If
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you are experiencing a health issue are
condition, we suggest you consult with your
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healthcare professional.
