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Benefits of using Udo's oil?
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Funny you should mention snake oil - chinese (water?) snakes have decent levels of EPA in them, which is why their oil was used as an anti-inflammatory. When the practice moved continents, other snakes had lower amounts, and the product wasn't any good any more..!
My background is sciencey too - BSc Hons in Biochemisry with Molecular Biology here @ leeds, original plan was to become a doctor, but to be frank, uni was so unstructured for me, I didn't achieve what I should of. Anyway, that's another story!
There is certainly alternative medicine that works, and alternative medicine that doesn't work. If you think the same isn't true for western medicine, you need to look at the figures again. From a personal perspective I was set to have 150mg Diclofenac every day for as far in the future as I can imagine (the joys of ankylosing spondylitis) - then I sprained my foot and it refused to heal thanks to the anti-inflammatories. In sheer anoyance I did an intollerance test, dropped eggs from my diet as a result, and started my oil & soup breakfast regime. I haven't had to have any NSAIDs since May - bar when on holiday a dish I orderred came stuffed full of egg, and I decided "bugger it, worth a test" - ow is all I'll say for the next day. I'm still waiting for my june follow-up apppintment (!) - I'm sure when I finally do get to see the doc she will be a bit surprised/confused.
Goldacre can look for similar "golden standards" that are set out by pharma companies, and mock things that don't reach them, but the context and economics is the problem. A pharmaceutical company can make billions out of a drug it develops. The R&D expense of say 20 million is therefore likely recoupable. Then look at a health food producer. If their product makes millions over it's lifetime they are delighted. Scale the investment and you're now looking at 20 grand - not enough to cover the research by a country mile. You also have the issue that nature isn't patentable, so no big pharma company will invest, unless it can manipulate things so that it can be patented.
Whilst the system that is in place does obviously have it's benefits, it means that alternative approaches rarely get a fair crack. A natural approach to cancer has recently become the first to actually be allowed (!) to carry out human trials - the patients they can test on are a group of children with a form of cancer that is 100% fatal in 6 months. So in order for this natural treatment to prove it's worth, it has to be able to impact a form of cancer that the best drugs, chemo, etc, in the world can't touch. Doesn't sound all that fair to me.
I'll end the conspiracy theory there...!
sure, there lots of customer testimonials etc but they hold little weight with scientists who like hard data (I'm also a biochemist by degree)
like GA I am somewhat cynical about alternative medicine - especially the real quackery end of the market like homeopathy, crystal healing, witchcraft and the like - but I do know there is some useful stuff out there as well.
I take lysine on a daily basis to help reduce the incidence of shingles and cold sores. it seems to work for me but there is no scientific data to back it up but I keep taking it. maybe it's the placebo effect!
and ankylosing spondylitis - ouch! good luck with controlling it
Fat Budda - You'll be happy about what EFSA are doing at the minute then - basically EU legislation is tightening up massively for teh supplement industry. Dossiers had to be produced for any specific health related claims that you wanted to use, and these were put forward for review. To date nearly every single dossier has been rejected... A lot of this is from the dossiers not being put together properly rather than the science - e.g. the nutrient in question is not sufficiently defined - but it's all gone a bit handbags if you ask me. Big companies who have spent big money and got good research are essentially falling foul on technicalities. Still,it is progress.
I agree fully with BS claims though - "51% of 12 women agreed that their skin felt smoother and fresher" - cosmetic industry is toatlly self regulated, don't see that ever changing
Interestingly Udos is a food, which puts it in more of a grey area. Still, we don't say anything we don't feel we can back up, as we don't want the ASA / traading standards on our back, just not in our ethos.
Thanks, fortunately I'm currently nearly 100% symptom free at the moment
Timeout - series 1 prostaglandins come from DGLA, which is upstream of LA conversion. Series 3 come from EPA. series 1 are anti-inflammatory, and series 3 prevent the release of AA from membranes to create pro-inflammatory series 2.
Quick glance at pubmed under "efa anti-inflammatory" - CLICKY- "Some of these long-chain metabolites not only form precursors to respective prostaglandins (PGs), thromboxanes (TXs), and leukotrienes (LTs), but also give rise to lipoxins (LXs) and resolvins that have potent anti-inflammatory actions."
The issue is control and balance of the inflammation - too little n3 in the diet slants it towards n6, which in turn slants the inlfammatory state. Blocking eveything with NSAIDs is a great way to ruin the body in the long run. Millions has been spent on trying to prove that NSAIDs were good for muscular recovery becuase of the reduced inflammation - the exact opposite was unfortunately proven. Compare and contrast this with a balanced prostoglandins system that the body is meant to use.
Nice to meet some biochem folk too - been a while!!!
Without getting into a big long discussion about this. I think it's a shame that good science and health products get lumped into the same bag as dodgy ones. i.e. homeopathy and changing your diet by including more EFA's. To a lot of people, both these 'issues' will be classes as alternative. However one is total bullshit and one is science.
Nip into your local health food store and you will see the good mixed in with the bad and your helful sales assistant pedaling the line 'oh yes try this it's meant to be great for (insert symptom of choice)'.
I don't like people being sold sugar pills and being led to believe that it will somehow cure all ails and at the same time i think people reject sensible, easy changes to lifestyle and diet that could revolutionise their wellbeing. i am totally biased however as i have seen a relative's health destroyed by alternative medicine as she rejected mainstream treatment in favour of quacks and homeopaths.
Yeah I agree and Tony, your info's been really useful in helping me understand aspects of my course.
Agree on the fine line Gymaddict! Sorry to hear about your relative, I'm glad to of not seen to much of that side of things, and certainly nothing within my family - in fact closest is my other half moaning about herbal toothpastes (dental nurse). You point on simple lifestyle changes is spot on - billions of NHS money would be saved each year if people changed a few simple things, the NHS guidelines on some things are finally approaching reality, and their way of communicating is certainly improving.
Regarding the balance, it's about correcting a typical diet. Flax oil is ~ 4:1 omega 3:6 - for people eating an otherwise reasonably low fat diet, this can push too far towards omega 3 - leading to omega 6 deficiency (skin issues, skipped heartbeats, etc). Assuming that your diet already contains more omega 6 than 3, and then assume that the omega 6 is usually from damaged sources, then adding in a mix can re-balance it. So diet has 1g n3, and 10g n6 in it (simplified!) - adding in 20g of n3 would give you a 2:1 of omega 3:6 - which is too omega 3 heavy. Add in 20g of n3 and 20g of n6 and you've got 21:20 or ~ 1:1 of omega 3:6. Anywhere between 1:1 and 1:4 of omega 3:6 seems best.
If anyone wants to put up their daily diet, I can do the numbers and let you know where you are at. My calculator is mainly set up for bodybuilding foods, so I might have to search out the figures for anything new!
Cheers Mike & Parklife
oh yesh
diet, smoking, exercise, alcohol, stress - just a few changes here can save squillions but modern life being what it is too many people trust that the NHS will bail them out when they fall ill. the key is to avoid falling ill in the 1st place
curry
chips
cheap white wine from Tesco
occassional Kebab
Thanks Tony - that's very interesting. Will need to give it some further thought as I have been happily supplementing with n3's for years.
You are undoubtedly right about damaged sources.
Its also unfair to say no studies have been done on nutritional supplements. While small supplement companies should not be expected to foot the bill, extensive goverment funded studies have been done, just because of the reasons stated in FB's post above.
On the topic of this thread EFAs a quick scan of pubmed identifies a numerous studies, perhaps the most interesting in terms of review of the literature being a 2006 meta-analysis of over 46 serperate studies looking at the effect of EFAs on cardiovascular disease (prevention and treatment).
EFAs and CVD
Interestingly this review seems to support FB's use of fish oil supplements above AHA's from plant sources. As they show a protective effect of EPA and DHA but no such effect for AHA. I think everyone should be able to see teh article as I beleive the journal is free online, but I may have managed to get it through my university account. If that is the case and anyone wants to read it send me a mail and I'll send you the PDF.
Regarding the point of ratios I would also say that the total amount of EFA in your diet is also important. As unlike say vitamin C were if you take too much you'll just end up with supplemented urine EFAs will end up stored as fat in a different form again. Copying from the editorial on the above article:
the American Heart Association and several international health agencies recommend intakes of
1 g EPA+DHA/d for patients with known CVD and of 4–500 mg EPA+DHA/d (
2 servings of oily fish/wk) for those without CVD.
As for the overall effect of diet on health massive studies have been done, theres an interesting New Scientist article about it here
Studies on diet
Apparently a world health authority review of over 400 articles concluded there are only 10 convincing pieces of evidnce on how we can reduced chronic diseases such as heart disease and cancer. These were
"All the report could say for sure was that eating too much fat and salt will increase your risk of cardiovascular disease while fruit, vegetables and oily fish reduce it; salted fish raises your risk of nasopharyngeal cancer; and if you're over 50 and want to avoid osteoporosis, you should increase your calcium and vitamin D intake. That's it." (copied from above article)
So studies have been done and with a little searching people can find them. But I guess teh question is should those sellig supplements have to reference the best evidence? Then who defines what the best evidence is?
maybe WHO???
TO - some good stuff there but one of the big problems is getting this over to Joe Public who either don't have the brains needed to understand it, or in the majority of cases just CBA to take it on board........they're happy living their own lives in their own shells and having to think for themeselves is something they just can't do.
That first study is interesting, but limited by the studies it was looking at. The volume of data for fish oils is massive by comparison to seed, and this was displayed by the relative small amount ALA information. Glancing through ALA intake in all studies appears low, and no mention of control for LA, nor quality of ALA/LA (I have seen studies using baked goods FFS - n3's are hardly stable!!). If you have studies that show 5-10% ALA conversin to EPA, and 2-5% to DHA, then coming to the conclusion that ALA can't provide the benefits of EPA/DHA simply means you're either not putting enough into the system, or you're ratios are all cocked up.
By and large I'm not a fan of meta-analysis - unless they are combining a dozen studies that all had the same protocol, there is always going to be an issue with any interpretation.
A limited study on Udos with athletes saw huge improvements in LDL:HDL, reduction in triglycerides, etc, but by no means was it a full on research document that would get published.
EFAs can be stored as is in adipose tissue - and women stockpile their converted ALA as EPA/DHA for baby time. You can also see variances accross populations depending on their diet.
Only glanced at that new scientist article, and got angry at the food pyramid..!! Better one
That water recommendation is funny too - it dates back to the 50s or 60s when scientists came up with an amount of water that it would take to process 1kcal- the answer, about 1ml. So a 2000kcal diet would need 2l of water, hence 8 glasses. Problem is basically ALL food already has water in it, especially fruit/veg which are also light on calories. So a good diet means actual glass of water intake needs only be a fraction of that. Any exertion, etc, that invokes sweating obviously increases the need.
Yes, the burden of proof aspect can start getting a bit chicken and egg. Without wanting to start a religious debate (my experience is forums do not liked these) it can be akin to proof against creationalism. Every time a new series of fossils shows the link, a creationalist will ask for even more links between the fossils. The result is that someone who dislikes the theory, will continue to push the requirements for proving it.
In the health food trade the pharma boys dislike the theories, and have the power to move legislation to make it harder to prove it, as is now being experienced with EFSA.
Still, it's all a challenge, and I agree everyone should be as best enabled as possible to prove their results, it's just hard at times to please everyone. A recent example is NKO krill oil - millions spent on it as it has a patented extraction method, fabulous clinical research, and already having issues with what can be said about it.
Fat Budda - hmm, maybe, it's never going to be easy for us whoever gets it, so I guess global regulation would at least make sense
Breaking a message down to it's simplest form for joe public is often the cause of the problem:-
Fat = bad. Net result, people dodge fat, get fat and ill.
Polyunsaturated fat = good. People think refined cooking oil is now good for you. Fat, ill, etc!
and so on!!
I remeber standing in Holland and Barrat while a lady asked for a supplement to help her daughter. Apparently she suffered from terrible bloating every time she ate pasta.
honestly i nearly burst out laughing. Once she left the sales assistant looked at me and said 'I know I know - why doesn't she just stop eating pasta - but believe me i have tried saying that and they don't want to know'
"creationalism"
it's creationism and hence creationists......
you can drop al
carry on though - best thread for ages and even I'm learning something at my advanced years
Ooops, you're not wrong!!
Ben Goldacre, creation(al)ism analogies...
Yes this thread's got very interesting. (Oh go on, start a creationism/evolution debate, why dontcha!
)
It's a 2:1:1: of 3 : 6 : 9 : sats - with a lot of the sats being MCTs from coconut oil - i.e. just energy.
When you look at your diet, and it's say 100g of fat, and you want to make sure you're getting it right, would adding 1-5g of EPA/DHA in capsules make much of a dent when you thik about damaged fats/ratio imbalance?
If you reduce your additional fat sources (direct and indirect) and stick in 30g of unrefined oils, you can improve the basic foundation of your fat intake.
Even if you do not reduce your other fat intake, you will again improve both the ratio of 3:6, and improve the ratio of undamaged fats : damged in your diet, both positives.
There is no upper limit on ALA and LA daily intake, the control is on the overall ratio. Getting it 100% right every day isn't needed, but as an average over time.
Total fat intake is of little consequence - the only reason we have higher refined carbohydrate intakes these days is because of war rationing... gave the cereal makers a nice spring board! When it comes to glycogen stores, etc, that's obviously another question entirely. We also had a bunch of very poor research into fat intake that pointed the heart disease finger at it - in hindsight the combination of high fat with high refined carbs was the issue, but government is slowly altering it's advice to closer match the actual evidence.
This is a great thread (although I am going to have to get the biologist-mrs to translate the science babble!). Can't believe you've even got FB to listen
As a minor aside, TB, you mentioned earlier about smaller companies meeting the costs of research compared to the big pharmaceuticals' R&D investments. You are aware that for every £100 you spend on R&D, you can recover 175% of this cost from your taxable profit? So, if you spent £20k as mentioned (and assuming you qualify as as an SME), you could claim a tax deduction of over £7k or, if you're loss making, surrender those costs for a 14% (around £5k) tax credit.
Daft thing is, despite the mega millions the big companies make out of their products, they're entitled to similar allowances, albeit it at a lower percentage.
Dagnamit - I had an important point to make when I started this rant. M'yeah, it'll come to me....
Yes, I know everyone has gone to sleep now - but one of my roles is to make people aware of this and to get money back off the Gov. Just thought it may be useful for your company.