Latest / Beyond Labels Premium / Episode #144: Does Fish Oil Cause Heart Disease & Stroke in Healthy People?

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Episode #144: Does Fish Oil Cause Heart Disease & Stroke in Healthy People? · Beyond Labels Premium

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: This latest fish oil finding, like this this is the basis of what I want to get across.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_00: This latest fish oil finding is just the latest in a long line of scientific disagreements about the health effects of food and supplements.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_00: We've talked about this regarding things like eggs and red meat and salt.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_00: This is just one more that you can add to the list.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so we're gonna take a little deeper dive here.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_01: Hi, everybody.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome to another episode of Beyond Labels, the podcast with yours truly, Joel Salatin, the farmer, and our best researcher, Dr.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_01: Cena McCullough.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_01: There's been a lot of press just lately about omega-3 oils, specifically fish oil, possibly increasing the risk of heart disease.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_01: Fish oil has been a mainstay of the natural food movement, of a lot of things for a long time, and immunological function.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_01: And so this, of course, has has hit the stage in a pretty big way.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_01: And here to drill down on it is our famous leader, uh Dr.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_01: Cena.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_01: So Cena, what have you what have you concluded about this?
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so this was a very interesting study.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_00: This study came out uh just about a week ago in uh the British Medical Journal, and it did conclude that among healthy people consuming fish oil, it could actually increase your risk of atrial fibrillation and stroke.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_00: So, as you can imagine, people are shocked, and this is you know making headlines everywhere, um, but they're not really diving into the story.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_00: You know, they're not really giving you the explanation of why they are seeing this or are other studies seeing this.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_00: So I thought we could dive into a little bit now because it's really causing feuding and uh among scientists and confusion among consumers, you know.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_00: I know a lot of people in our audience consume fish oil, a lot of them consume it daily.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and so we do want to know is is there validity to this new claim?
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_00: Or what I've realized, it's actually not a new claim, but we'll get into that.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_00: So there have been uh feuding fish oil studies for years now, right?
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_00: Scientists have been debating the pros and cons about this.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_00: It's not uh an like open-close case like like the media presents it.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_00: Scientists have been debating this for a long time.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_00: Um, there's contradictions everywhere in the literature, and we'll just go through a little bit about it.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_00: So this latest fish oil finding, like this, this is the basis of what I want to get across.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_00: The this latest fish oil finding is just the latest in a long line of scientific disagreements about the health effects of food and supplements, right?
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_00: We've talked about this regarding things like eggs and red meat and salt.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_00: This is just one more that you can add to the list.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so we're gonna take a little deeper dive here.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_00: The reason why this is so important is because um cardiovascular disease kills a person in the US every 33 seconds, right?
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_00: So this is a rampant disease in our country.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_00: Because of that, doctors and dietitians have been recommending omega-3 fatty acids to reduce uh cardiovascular events like heart disease, heart attack, and stroke.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_00: And following their recommendation, Americans and people worldwide have listened.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_00: Fish oil is actually now one of the most used non-vitamin, non-mineral supplements in the US.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_00: Now, as I said, in spite of this popularity, the outcomes have actually been contentious from nearly the beginning.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_00: So let's start with this study and then we'll roll into what other ones say.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_00: This study basically was trying to resolve this ongoing debate.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_00: And the way that they thought to do that was we're gonna actually examine the consumption of fish oil across the different stages of cardiovascular disease.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_00: So a lot of studies will look at one stage.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_00: So they might look at the effect of cardiovascular disease on heart attack and like stroke, right?
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_00: And then like a death outcome.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_00: This study, what they did was they looked at over 400,000 people.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_00: They were aged 40 to 69, and they said, okay, we're gonna start with these healthy people who are consuming fish oil already.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_00: And we're gonna follow them.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_00: They follow them for almost 12 years, and they said, we're gonna ask a couple questions.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_00: We're gonna say, okay, primary prevention, right?
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_00: Primary prevention is when you have somebody who's healthy already.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_00: And let's say this fish oil, if those healthy people took it, it's it prevented them from developing um cardiovascular um events like a heart attack or atrial fibrillation.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_00: So what they did was they said, in these healthy people who are taking fish oil already, does it affect the development of cardiovascular disease?
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_00: And then they said, people who already have markers of cardiovascular disease who are taking fish oil, does it affect the progression of cardiovascular disease?
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_00: And they had different outcomes they were measuring, like atrial fibrillation, which that's an irregular heart rhythm.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_00: Um, that can lead to blood clots in the heart.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_00: If you have atrial fibrillation, they're saying that you can have an increased risk of stroke and heart failure.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so aphib or atrial fibrillation, we call that aphib.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_00: A fib was like the starting point.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_00: And then you would progress to to either like a stroke, a heart attack, heart failure, and eventually death.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so these subjects are these, sorry, these researchers are tracking people along this continuum.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_00: So they um they basically have, like I said, over 400,000 subjects and classified them into users official and non-users of fish oil and follow them for about 12 years.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_00: Are you ready for the results?
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_00: This the results are a mixed bag of benefits and risks.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so I'm gonna say that from the beginning.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, for the people who were healthy, the use of fish oil regularly led to a 13% increased risk of developing atrial fibrillation.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_00: So this is where they get the headline that you'll see all over the news now of increasing risk of first-time heart disease.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, that's a that's a marker of heart disease, atrial fibrillation.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_00: So 13% increased risk of developing atrial fibrillation, 5% increased risk of developing stroke.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_00: So it did show an 8% reduced risk of um developing heart failure and no effect on heart attack.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_00: So the this is what the researchers concluded.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_00: It says, okay, that so the increased risk of this first-time heart disease and stroke among healthy people led them to caution against the use of fish oil for primary prevention, that means in healthy people, without clear evidence of its benefits.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_00: They say our findings suggest caution in the use of fish oil because of the uncertain cardiovascular benefits and adverse effects.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_00: So that's quite stunning because oftentimes, you know, scientists don't want to come out and make these sweeping recommendations or suggestions, right?
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_00: Especially because this is this is potentially going against like American Heart Association and whatnot.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_00: So it was significant enough that they came out and said that they suggest caution.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so that was amongst healthy people.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_00: Now let's go to participants who already had atrial fibrillation.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_00: For this group, it actually showed a protective effect.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_00: So for um heart attack, there was a 15% decreased risk.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_00: And for heart failure, there's a 5% decreased risk, but no effect on stroke.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_00: So the conclusion was that fish oil supplement could help to manage cardiovascular disease if you already have atrial fibrillation.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_00: Um, then for the ones the last category was people who already had like so if somebody already had, let's say, a heart attack or a stroke or heart failure, um, they they're showing that this is interesting.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_00: If you already had heart failure, there was a protective effect of fish oil.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_00: You had a 9% decreased chance of dying from heart failure, from from a recurring uh, you know, from cardiovascular disease, a recurring heart failure.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_00: If though you had had a heart attack, consuming fish oil increased your risk of death by 3%.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_00: And if you had had a stroke, it increased your risk of death by 4%.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_00: So the conclusion here was fish oil might benefit people who had had heart failure, but could actually pose a risk for people who had had a stroke or a heart attack.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_00: So, I mean, sounds kind of shocking, right?
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_00: Like this is this is not this is not what the advisory boards are saying.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_00: Like, you know, the American Heart Association, they don't say this.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_00: We've not had a study so far.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_00: Like, this is one of the reasons why this study was um so important, is because this this study did break it down into categories.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_00: So instead of generalizing people, right, as just people with cardiovascular disease versus healthy people, it broke it down into categories.
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_00: And now we can start seeing the nuances that are involved in quote unquote disease progression, right?
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_00: For how we identify and categorize disease.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_00: It is not a one size fits all.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_00: And we're seeing that even something that we think of as healthy, like a fish oil, omega-3 fatty acids, can have different effects based on your health status, your individual health status.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_00: So before I go on, Joel, did that make sense?
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_00: Should I sum up one more time who should be supplementing with who with what based on this this study?
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_00: Or you think did I explain that as sufficiently?
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_01: I I think I think you explained it sufficiently.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, I'm I'm real curious about about where you're gonna go with this.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_01: Now, I'm I'm assuming um I'm assuming cod liver oil is is is this all fish oils?
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_01: Did they lump they didn't care about about source, they didn't care about anything?
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_01: Did they did they suss out any of that?
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, excellent question.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_00: And you would think we had this planned because that's where I was going next.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_00: Like I think you you know me so well.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so this is this is the deal.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_00: One of the big limitations of this study is first of all, it's an observational study.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_00: So you can't actually establish a causal relationship.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_00: You can't say that the fish oil caused atrial fibrillation in healthy people, for instance.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_00: You can say there's an association.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, it is a large study over 14,000 people, so it has a strong um association, but is not cause and effect.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_00: They did not look at the dosage people were taking or the formulation, right?
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_00: So all the questions that you asked, they did not look at that because this is a longitudinal study.
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_00: It's not an intervention study.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_00: That's a limitation for it.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_00: We still draw conclusions as scientists based on these studies, but it is not an intervention study.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_00: So, what so what that means is okay, you have to look at the other literature that is available in the database.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_00: So you can see, you can compare for yourself and ask, do these conclusions hold up?
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_00: So that's where I want to go next.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_00: That's what I did here, comparing with previous studies.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, and I have to admit, I had a little bit of bias because when I looked at who funded this study, it was Bill and Melinda Gates.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_00: So I was like, oh, they're out to get us to stop eating fish now, right?
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_00: You know what I mean?
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it just creeps in there.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_00: We all have bias, but I'm happy to say I was able to put the bias aside and really look into, okay, what's happening here?
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_00: Because I was I was looking into different studies to compare this one to.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_00: Believe it or not, Joel, there are now drug companies, pharmaceutical companies, they are making um what they're calling purified, like uh EPA, for instance.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_00: So fish oil has both EPA and and DHA.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_00: These are two different um um omega-fatty acids.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_00: And so what's happening is these there's drug companies that are actually taking these oils and they're purifying them.
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_00: So they're they're they may call them like pure forms of EPA, for instance.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_00: And so now a lot of these studies are using pure forms, which are pharmaceutical grade.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_00: So they're sold by company by pharmaceutical companies.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_00: You got to get a prescription for them, and they are funding a lot, some of these studies.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_00: If you look at some of these studies and you look at um conflicts of interest, some of them, some of these researchers have numerous pharmaceutical companies backing them.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_00: It's just this long drawn-out list of companies backing them.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_00: So, anyhow, confounding variable.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_00: So I pushed past that and I said, let me look at the results to see if we're seeing the same thing.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_00: Let's start with the healthy population with AFib.
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_00: Now, this surprised me.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_00: There are many studies that showed that there's an increased risk of AFib among healthy people consuming fish oil.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_00: This was surprising to me.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_00: Again, I thought that there might have been an ulterior motive, but in some of these studies, they were, they were using the pharmaceutical grade fish oil by the sponsoring pharmaceutical company, right?
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_00: They were using the pharmaceutical grade fish oil from the funding source.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_00: So you would think there'd be biased toward having a positive result, right?
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_00: Having no negative results because they're getting funded by the pharmaceutical company.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_00: And that's not what we see.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you'd think they'd actually be uh be having one group fed the purified and some the more raw form to compare the two, so that, you know, oh, the purified is going to be better.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_01: So we need to we need to put this on a prescription, on a prescription so it'd be better.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_00: That's right.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_00: That's right.
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_00: And they didn't do that, they just wanted to prove that this purified form was great.
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_00: So what you see over and over in these studies is that, okay, we gave them this form and it had positive effects, but it did in fact increase the risk of AFib in healthy people.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_00: It's one after the next.
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_00: Even like it's called the strength trial.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_00: And this was in 2020.
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_00: This is this is a huge, huge trial that was done for cardiovascular disease risk.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_00: And it showed a 69% increased risk of developing AFib if you are healthy.
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_00: There was a meta-analysis done in the journal Circulation from 2021.
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_00: It showed a 25% higher risk of developing AFib if you were healthy and supplementing.
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_00: Another meta-analysis that looked at 38 different randomized control trials showed show similar findings.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_00: So these are not, these are not longitudinal studies now that I'm talking about.
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_00: I'm now talking about randomized controlled trials that they looked at.
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_00: And these trials, these intervention studies, showed an increased risk of AFib in healthy people who were supplementing with fish oil.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_00: Now, when I looked further into it, two of the top trials, these are two of the biggest trials that we've had looking at cardiovascular disease from 2018 and 2020.
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_00: One's called the reduce it trial and one's called the strength trial.
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_00: In both of these, they showed that in people who already had cardiovascular disease, there was an increased risk of AFib.
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_00: So that was a new finding.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_00: The first study, the breaking study that I mentioned, they did not find that in this longitudinal study.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_00: These other two huge studies, huge trials, found AFib risk increase even amongst people who already had cardiovascular disease.
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_00: And this is what, this is what the study, the study uh authors, the researchers of the strength trial, this is what they concluded.
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_00: Quote, there is some uncertainty whether there is net benefit or harm with administration of any omega-3 fatty acid formulation, given that two large clinical trials have now demonstrated a higher incident rate of atrial fibrillation with a high dose omega-3 fatty acid administration.
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_00: The mechanisms underscoring this observation require additional investigation.
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_00: So two of the large clinical trials showed this, um, in addition to the other ones that I just mentioned.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_00: So there does seem to be some sort of connection between consuming fish oil supplementation and developing AFib.
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_00: Now, um, let me show you.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_00: Let me let's get into the nuances in just a minute.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_00: But to wrap that section up, let me say there are other studies that reported a reduced risk of death, um, you know, amongst people that have cardiovascular disease.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_00: That that in in the most part matched up with this new groundbreaking study.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_00: But there's also studies like the vital rhythm study that showed there was no effect.
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_00: And I want to say that that study was a placebo-controlled trial, an intravention trial, looking at almost 26,000 men and women in the United States.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_00: And they found no effect on cardiovascular disease, um, like improving the risk factors for cardiovascular disease uh following supplementation.
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_00: So it's all over the board here.
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_00: And I want to get into why I think that is, why I think this is all over the board, and then everybody's gonna have to make their own conclusion based on what I'm about to tell you.
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_00: So one problem is there's a dose, dose-dependent effect.
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_00: We don't we don't seem to know what dose is right.
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_00: And if you look, American Heart Association has a recommended dosage, for instance.
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you you can just Google it.
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_00: What's the recommended dosage?
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_00: And it's all over the place, right?
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_00: Some are like, oh, a gram a day.
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_00: Some are like, you need two grams a day.
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's it's really all over.
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_00: When you look at the studies, what you see is that the higher doses seem to be associated with AFib, increased risk.
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_00: So the reduced trial, the strength trial, they gave four grams per day, and that increased the risk of AFib.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_00: Then it gets complicated because then you have these uh meta-analyses, which are basically people looking at a collection of studies, right?
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_00: So there's more power in that.
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_00: So you have these meta-analyses set showing that if they consumed greater than one gram, there was the increased risk of AFib, but not when you consumed less than one gram a day.
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so more than one gram, they're showing uh increased risk, but less than one gram they're not.
• 20:17
  SPEAKER_00: But here's the thing: then you look at okay, less than one gram, maybe that's okay.
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_00: Well, what is the dosage that's required to have a positive effect?
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_00: Right, right.
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_00: So when you look at that, you'll have one of those largest, the large trials that I mentioned, they said it required at least a gram.
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_00: Um, a second study said at least a gram.
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_00: But then another study said no benefit with one gram.
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_00: And then another study said it has to be more than one gram.
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, another meta-analysis said it has to be more than one gram.
• 20:57
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and then the reduced and the strength trial, those were the two biggest trials that I mentioned.
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_00: They didn't find an effect, uh, they found an effect with four grams, which is obviously in the range of eliciting AFib.
• 21:12
  SPEAKER_00: So there's really no middle ground here.
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_00: There's no uh one size recommendation that they're coming away with.
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 21:21
  SPEAKER_00: Now, aside from this dose discrepancy, there's composition discrepancy.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_00: And this is because some of these studies are using fish oil, which obviously contains both EPA and DHA, DHA.
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_00: Others are using EPA alone, and others are using a formulation that combines EPA and DHA, right?
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_00: And then some are using, like I said, the highly purified form of EPA.
• 21:49
  SPEAKER_00: So it's all over the place.
• 21:51
  SPEAKER_00: And when you look at that, so if you're just looking at what are the effects on the different types of omega-3 supplements that they're Using okay, there's a large meta-analysis and studies that are saying that EPA alone is more effective.
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_00: And here's a study that from 2021 that says EPA was effective, but not the DHA.
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_00: When the EPA was combined with the DHA, the DHA blunted the beneficial effects of the EPA of the of the EPA.
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so then if you go to that strength trial I mentioned, they had four grams of EPA plus DHA and that showed no effect.
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_00: And then I found a 2013 study that was actually just using fish oil, like we would buy from the store, and they showed no benefit with one gram, and that combines EPA and DHA.
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_00: So even between just looking at the composition between these different studies, we're not getting a clear picture.
• 22:55
  SPEAKER_00: The fish oil alone didn't do it.
• 22:57
  SPEAKER_00: Um, the EPA definitely seems to be more effective than the DHA.
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but some are showing that there wasn't an effect at all when you had the EPA plus the DHA.
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_00: So you see what I'm saying?
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_00: It's like when the more you looked into it, the more it's like, we know nothing.
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_00: Like there's so many individual caveats to this.
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_00: One more caveat I'm gonna throw in here, talking about the fish oil sources, it's the omega-3 sources itself, is the high incidence of rancidity.
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, omega-3 supplements are highly susceptible to oxidation, going rancid.
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_00: There's no requirement for researchers to use non-rancid oils.
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_00: They're not most of them.
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_00: I've I've actually not come across a study yet where they're testing the oil for rancidity and then they're administering it to humans, right, to see what happens.
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_00: I do know that there have been independent lab tests done and there have been studies done on what is the level of rancidity in fish oil supplements that are available on the market.
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_00: And they've come around anywhere between uh like 20% of them have are rancid and all the way up to 92% of the products that they tested were rancid.
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, rancidity can is often also masked by the flavoring.
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_00: You know, fish oil doesn't taste good to most people, so they add flavoring, and that can make it difficult for you to detect if it's actually rancid or not.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_00: And that's a problem if you're consuming a rancid omega-3 supplement, because we know that when fats are oxidized, basically when fats become rancid, uh, it's involved with contributing to human disease.
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_00: Um, we've seen this in animal studies that consuming these oxidized fats lead to inflammation, cancer, and all kinds of autoimmune and chronic conditions.
• 24:54
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so there's actually been a call to action among some scientists.
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_00: This was in a 2022 editorial where they're recommending that the researchers now start independently verifying that an oil that they're going to use in their study is not rancid.
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_00: They're also calling for scientists to start verifying that what is said on the label is accurate.
• 25:22
  SPEAKER_00: So, like the quantity of omega fats that they're claiming is actually in that bottle, right?
• 25:28
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, go figure, right?
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I see the just just to make sure I understand, because um, in in full disclosure, um I don't take any fish oil.
• 25:39
  SPEAKER_01: So uh aren't doesn't isn't aren't most fish oils taken as um as swallowable swallowable gel caps?
• 25:48
  SPEAKER_00: A capsule, yeah.
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yes.
• 25:51
  SPEAKER_01: So you don't you don't you don't taste anything?
• 25:53
  SPEAKER_00: Well, so some, but there's some so like if somebody is really imbalance in omega-3s and sixes, which we can get to in a minute, there are there are some products out there that are liquid.
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_00: So especially for kids, it's easier to give them liquid formula than have them swallow a capsule, or elderly people who tend to have a harder time swallowing things.
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_00: So there are liquid forms available.
• 26:16
  SPEAKER_00: Um, capsules is definitely a better way to go, but even then I've seen um flavorings added to the capsule version, you know, it's crazy.
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and you know, I was able to find one study that said that they purchased um omega-3 supplements from a store in the United States and they compared the level, the claimed level of omegas uh on that label.
• 26:44
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, they compared it to running it through a lab test, and they showed that between 40 and 54 percent of all those products that they tested had less omega-3s in it, like significantly less omega-3s than what the label claimed.
• 27:01
  SPEAKER_00: So this is a huge confounding variable, too, when you add this to studies.
• 27:05
  SPEAKER_00: So that's why the the researchers are now saying you not only have to verify that it's not an oxidized fat that you're giving people, which will potentially confound your study results, right?
• 27:17
  SPEAKER_00: It's gonna potentially lead to more cardiovascular disease progression, but you also have to now test for purity to make sure you're actually giving them the right quantity.
• 27:28
  SPEAKER_00: Because how are we supposed to make recommendations or draw conclusions from studies if we don't even know the doses that we're giving people, right?
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_00: So, so they're actively calling for this.
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I do want to and I'll stop on on this next point and we can discuss this more, but one of the confounding variables is always diet, right?
• 27:47
  SPEAKER_00: And there's two things I wanted to add to this to just throw out there.
• 27:51
  SPEAKER_00: One of them is most studies that I have read, and you know, this is my field, right?
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_00: Um PhD in nutrition, this is what we study.
• 28:00
  SPEAKER_00: Most studies don't actually control for the overall diet.
• 28:04
  SPEAKER_00: So they'll do like dietary questionnaires and maybe dietary recall, and there's they'll summarize that.
• 28:11
  SPEAKER_00: Some don't do that at all, right?
• 28:13
  SPEAKER_00: But some will summarize that now and give rough percentages of what the population in the study is actually consuming.
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_00: Rarely do you find a study where they're actually controlling for the food, like providing the people with that food, for instance, or giving them menus that they have to follow.
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_00: So what happens is in our culture, we have an omega imbalance.
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_00: So there's omega-3s and there's omega-6s, okay?
• 28:42
  SPEAKER_00: In general, and this is really dumbing it down, but in general, we say that the omega-3s are anti-inflammatory and the omega-6s are pro-inflammatory.
• 28:52
  SPEAKER_00: Again, that is not technically accurate, but just for ease in this discussion, let's just go with that.
• 28:59
  SPEAKER_00: So these fats have to be obtained through our diet, right?
• 29:03
  SPEAKER_00: They're essential.
• 29:04
  SPEAKER_00: We don't actually make them.
• 29:05
  SPEAKER_00: So what happens is you need a certain balance in your body in order to control that um that balance of inflammation and not having inflammation, right?
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_00: Because you need some inflammation to be able to do things like get rid of dead cells or dying cells or cancer cells, right?
• 29:27
  SPEAKER_00: That's an inflammatory process.
• 29:28
  SPEAKER_00: So you need some, it's not like it's all bad.
• 29:31
  SPEAKER_00: You need a balance.
• 29:32
  SPEAKER_00: Well, the recommended ratio of the diet is is two to one, right?
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_00: Uh a two to one, omega-six to omega three.
• 29:41
  SPEAKER_00: Americans, we consume a ratio that is over 20 to 1.
• 29:48
  SPEAKER_00: So 20 omega-6s to one omega-three.
• 29:52
  SPEAKER_00: Grossly imbalanced, right?
• 29:55
  SPEAKER_00: That imbalance is what you'll hear researchers talk about that can contribute to chronic and autoimmune diseases, right?
• 30:03
  SPEAKER_00: It because these omega fats, for instance, get incorporated into your cell membranes.
• 30:08
  SPEAKER_00: And so they change your immune response, right?
• 30:10
  SPEAKER_00: They change the way the cell responds to microorganisms in your environment, for instance, or toxins that might come in.
• 30:16
  SPEAKER_00: So if you have that imbalance, you're going to be tilted towards more of an inflammator, an over exaggerated inflammatory response.
• 30:24
  SPEAKER_00: So, what does that mean when we're looking at these diets in the when we're looking at these studies and trying to compare them?
• 30:31
  SPEAKER_00: It means if they're not controlling for diet, we don't know how many omega-6s these people are consuming, right?
• 30:38
  SPEAKER_00: And we don't know how many other omega-3s that they're consuming.
• 30:41
  SPEAKER_00: So if you're consuming, you know, 20 to 1 omega-6s to omega-3s, and then somebody gives you an omega-3 supplement, even if it is like a high dose supplement, it may not be enough to compensate for the high level of omega-6s that you are consuming.
• 31:01
  SPEAKER_00: You may your body may be inundated with the omega-6s, and there's rate limiting steps in the body where these two fatty acids can compete against each other.
• 31:10
  SPEAKER_00: So you know the omega-6s are going to outcompete.
• 31:13
  SPEAKER_00: They're in a much larger quantity.
• 31:15
  SPEAKER_00: So one of the confounding variables is they're not testing for the subject's diet, like what how many omega-6s and threes are they getting in their diet?
• 31:25
  SPEAKER_00: And they don't know the subject's baseline level of fatty acids in their body, right?
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_00: I can't find any study that's actually testing the baseline level first, and then based on that subject's baseline, giving them a personalized omega-3 protocol to follow, right?
• 31:45
  SPEAKER_00: And the reason I say this is because we talked about how if they're consuming too many omega-6s and you give them some omega-3 study, it may have no effect because there's too many omega-6s.
• 31:58
  SPEAKER_00: But the flip side is true too.
• 32:01
  SPEAKER_00: If somebody is already adequate, like if they already have an adequate level of omega-3s in their body relative to the sixes, and then you give them more omega-3 supplement, it could be damaging.
• 32:14
  SPEAKER_00: We have some studies that show that um in in humans, they consumed omega-3 fatty acids for eight weeks, and it led to a 22% increase in blood sugar levels in people with type 2 diabetes.
• 32:29
  SPEAKER_00: And increased blood sugar levels are associated with increased risk of cardiovascular disease.
• 32:34
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 32:34
  SPEAKER_00: We've also we also know if you oversupplement with omega-3s, it can decrease your ability to clot, you know, for due blood clotting.
• 32:41
  SPEAKER_00: So all of this, oh go ahead.
• 32:49
  SPEAKER_01: How if the average American is one to 20, how would an American have too much omega-3?
• 33:00
  SPEAKER_01: What what would it what would what would a person in our country have to be eating to have too much omega-3?
• 33:08
  SPEAKER_00: Well, so there are actually healthy people.
• 33:13
  SPEAKER_00: Like the 20 to 1 is the typical American, right?
• 33:16
  SPEAKER_00: Um, when we heal, so basically, when we help people reverse or heal diseases, one of the components we're looking at is flipping that ratio, right?
• 33:26
  SPEAKER_00: So we're bringing them down from the 20 to one, you know, down to the to the two to one.
• 33:32
  SPEAKER_00: And it's actually not as difficult as you think to do that, because what you really need to do is work on getting the omega-6s down, right?
• 33:43
  SPEAKER_00: And so if you start um taking out, like if you don't eat processed foods, for instance, so if you're eating like a whole food diet and you're consuming healthy sources, like, you know, wild caught salmon, like fresh trout, you know, I mean, like if you're if you're consuming these things and you're consuming um healthy things like organ meats and whatnot, and you're you're not consuming like refined products, you're not consuming refined, refined sugar or the highly, you know, the ultra-processed foods, um, all of those without even taking an omega-3 supplement will will start to flip your ratio.
• 34:22
  SPEAKER_00: So it's it's actually not a hard thing.
• 34:25
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I say it's not a hard thing, meaning in theory, right?
• 34:29
  SPEAKER_00: Like on paper, it is not difficult to flip that that ratio.
• 34:33
  SPEAKER_00: In practice, it is because people like their crackers and their chips and their cookies, and you know what I mean?
• 34:40
  SPEAKER_00: So it's it's more of a through dietary modification, you can do it.
• 34:44
  SPEAKER_00: And so if somebody is already doing that, and let's say, let's say they're already eating um fatty oily fish like twice a week, they may already have adequate levels of omega-3.
• 34:57
  SPEAKER_00: So then you add that supplement on top of that, they can have a pro it can have like a prooxidant effect in their body, is what I'm saying.
• 35:07
  SPEAKER_00: So, again, this all comes down to you have to take a personalized approach.
• 35:12
  SPEAKER_00: Like in the study, that's what these studies are all coming down to.
• 35:16
  SPEAKER_00: This is the bottom line of all of these studies we talked about today, and every study, by the way, is that there is no cookie cutter.
• 35:24
  SPEAKER_00: There is no one size fits all.
• 35:26
  SPEAKER_00: Organizations have these recommended guidelines because that's what they're paid to do.
• 35:31
  SPEAKER_00: And people look to them for coming up with these personal with these um generalized dietary guidelines because people are looking externally for some kind of quote unquote expert or quote unquote expert organization to guide them in this process.
• 35:45
  SPEAKER_00: But what I'm trying to establish here through uh this through taking you through tediously these different studies is that we actually don't know what the recommendation should be and we don't know who it should be for.
• 36:00
  SPEAKER_00: That's why I'm saying you have to take a personalized approach.
• 36:05
  SPEAKER_00: You if you want to start taking an omega supplementation, uh, I'm not opposed to that.
• 36:10
  SPEAKER_00: All I'm suggesting is I would have my levels tested first, you know, have your levels tested so you know where you're starting from, and then you can personalize it.
• 36:21
  SPEAKER_00: I would also make sure that I was, I would first and foremost try to consume it from food, right?
• 36:26
  SPEAKER_00: Before I went to a supplement.
• 36:28
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, sure, good knows.
• 36:30
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, some of these supplements are made in China.
• 36:32
  SPEAKER_00: Like, you know, come on.
• 36:33
  SPEAKER_01: Like well, uh if uh I I think I'm right on this that um that eggs from chickens that are running out on pasture uh have a really good or a really good source of omega-3.
• 36:47
  SPEAKER_01: That that that dark orange yolk is really high in omega-3.
• 36:52
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I'm thinking of of you know, just regular food sources.
• 36:57
  SPEAKER_01: Um all of us aren't aren't Tom Brady.
• 37:00
  SPEAKER_01: We can't always eat salmon, you know, three, four times a week.
• 37:04
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 37:05
  SPEAKER_00: Well, it's also in other oily fishes as well.
• 37:09
  SPEAKER_00: But um, but so let me see, let me run you through.
• 37:12
  SPEAKER_00: So mackerel is a good source of omega-3.
• 37:15
  SPEAKER_00: We said salmon.
• 37:16
  SPEAKER_00: You talked about, well, cod liver oil is a supplement, but that is one of the better supplements.
• 37:21
  SPEAKER_00: Herring, oysters, uh, sardines, anchovies.
• 37:27
  SPEAKER_00: And actually, um, I like to have sardines on, you know, instead of having the cracker, because you don't want to eat it like with a processed food, right?
• 37:35
  SPEAKER_00: So I actually take cucumbers and slice them up so that they're like crackers.
• 37:41
  SPEAKER_00: And then I put the sardine on that.
• 37:43
  SPEAKER_00: It's actually, oh, I like it.
• 37:45
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but if you don't want to eat the fish, you can also get it from flaxseed, chia seeds, walnuts contain omega omega-3s, um, soybeans, you know, so there's a lot of other foods that you can consume.
• 38:00
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I mean, you can make a little trail mix with different types of nuts, including like the walnuts in it, you know, throw some chia seeds in there, and there you go.
• 38:09
  SPEAKER_00: So so what I like to do, I don't like to take supplements when I don't have to.
• 38:15
  SPEAKER_00: You know, even and as you know, I worked in the supplement industry, and that is a main reason as to why I don't consume the supplements.
• 38:23
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I say that nicely.
• 38:25
  SPEAKER_00: So, so I like to consume it in the ways that God gave us.
• 38:29
  SPEAKER_00: So for me, I would test my levels first to see, you know, do I need this?
• 38:35
  SPEAKER_00: And then come up with, and then you can create a personalized program for yourself.
• 38:39
  SPEAKER_00: What levels do you actually need based on what's in your body already?
• 38:43
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 38:43
  SPEAKER_00: And if it's not too imbalanced of your ratio of omega sixes to threes, you can do this through food, right?
• 38:50
  SPEAKER_00: You take, you remove sources of omega sixes and you add in some of these other omega-3 sources.
• 38:55
  SPEAKER_00: If you can't do that, if you need a supplement, then there are supplements out there that are testing for oxidation.
• 39:01
  SPEAKER_00: So at least at least source a supplement.
• 39:04
  SPEAKER_00: Um, that like if it's fish, it was wild caught, and it's been tested for like levels of rancidity.
• 39:10
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but that's just my two cents.
• 39:12
  SPEAKER_01: So well, that that's great.
• 39:15
  SPEAKER_01: That's great.
• 39:16
  SPEAKER_01: We're we're um we're about out of time.
• 39:18
  SPEAKER_01: Uh this has been uh really uh really fascinating, and it just shows how how um yeah, how cookie cutter we're different, we live in different places.
• 39:32
  SPEAKER_01: When you start looking at all the variables here that were not addressed in the study, it just makes you say, throw up your hands and say, Well, why even do the study?
• 39:42
  SPEAKER_01: If if there's that much variable in it, it's a it's a joke.
• 39:46
  SPEAKER_01: And uh, and it's it's it's amazing that people knock down such huge uh salaries doing uh doing things like this that are so meaningless, meaningless in the bottom line.
• 40:00
  SPEAKER_01: It's crazy.
• 40:01
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's one of the reasons why I got out of academia because I was like, this is futile.
• 40:07
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I can't draw any conclusions on this, and yet we do, you know, and I I said I even found some intervention trials, they're showing the same thing.
• 40:17
  SPEAKER_00: So that does add strength to the conclusion, right?
• 40:20
  SPEAKER_00: It give it does give me pause.
• 40:22
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but I was already in the camp that there should be no blanket statement about who needs to supplement or not, you know.
• 40:30
  SPEAKER_00: But I'm hoping this does show this does come up with a as a wake-up call for people.
• 40:35
  SPEAKER_00: Another example as to there are no blanket recommendations, right?
• 40:41
  SPEAKER_00: You are an individual.
• 40:43
  SPEAKER_00: And also if you stress more, that's gonna increase your need, right?
• 40:48
  SPEAKER_00: For for more omega-6s.
• 40:50
  SPEAKER_00: So there's just so many different variables.
• 40:52
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and Joel, you're and you're absolutely right.
• 40:54
  SPEAKER_00: I I'm really to the point where I'm like, can we use our money towards something else?
• 41:00
  SPEAKER_00: Like, you know, if they're gonna be taking my taxpayer money, you know, let's use it toward like growing more ecologically friendly food, as you would say, right?
• 41:10
  SPEAKER_00: Something that would directly benefit us, not just cause more confusion.
• 41:14
  SPEAKER_00: And now they're gonna do more studies to figure out, well, why did this one result like this?
• 41:19
  SPEAKER_00: And that's more taxpayer dollars.
• 41:21
  SPEAKER_00: In the meantime, those organizations that are creating these, you know, blanket guidelines, they're not gonna change anything.
• 41:30
  SPEAKER_00: So, what's it what is it for?
• 41:32
  SPEAKER_00: It's just another document in the it's another news article in the news cycle to keep us confused and kind of scared in a way.
• 41:40
  SPEAKER_00: Like now, what do we do?
• 41:41
  SPEAKER_00: And so they want so we will tend to go toward those quote-unquote experts to guide us.
• 41:47
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 41:48
  SPEAKER_01: Great.
• 41:48
  SPEAKER_01: So we got our question for the day.
• 41:50
  SPEAKER_01: So the question is the question is do you think about omega six and three in your diet?
• 41:56
  SPEAKER_01: And if you do, what do you do to bring the sixes down and the threes up?
• 42:03
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, that that's generally where we have to go, right?
• 42:06
  SPEAKER_01: Uh as Amer as Americans, with all of our you know, taco chips and and um all that stuff.
• 42:12
  SPEAKER_01: So um, so um we'd be love to hear your response and your thinking about that.
• 42:18
  SPEAKER_01: This is a this is a little of a deeper question than we normally ask, but uh we we want to, you know, from time to time we want to uh whatever uh push everybody and and um and we we understand that our our base here is um is above average.
• 42:35
  SPEAKER_01: So we ask above average questions.
• 42:38
  SPEAKER_00: That's right.
• 42:38
  SPEAKER_00: And you can spark ideas for other people, right?
• 42:41
  SPEAKER_00: Post post what you're doing, and you can help somebody else, right?
• 42:44
  SPEAKER_00: They can start changing their diet too, based on what you're doing that works.
• 42:48
  SPEAKER_00: All right, great question.
• 42:49
  SPEAKER_00: If you're watching the video, leave a comment below.
• 42:52
  SPEAKER_00: If you're listening to this episode, click the link below that's titled Watch and Discuss, and you can leave your comment there.
• 42:58
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much for joining us again this week.
• 43:01
  SPEAKER_00: We hope it's been enlightening and fun, and we'll see you again next week.