Comments on: Essential fatty acids: not so essential after all

By: admin

admin — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 03:29:00 +0000

Hi James,

Thanks for sharing your story with us! I’m glad your mystery has come to a happy conclusion.

By: James Hofmann

James Hofmann — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 23:21:24 +0000

I’ve been looking for an explanation for a certain symptom I’ve become familiar with – a painful swelling resulting wherever skin was under pressure, mainly the extremities. Usually a mild swelling, but noticeable. I first noticed this – and realized that it had occurred off and on throughout my life – after trying a heavy omega-3 supplementation with both walnuts and fish oil. Having one or the other was tolerable, but if I had both in one day —- wow, my feet would be in so much pain by the evening that it could literally be difficult to walk. Ending supplements ended the problem, but I also saw similar symptoms resulting from oils high in omega-6 – including vegetable oils commonplace to baked goods, restaurant food, etc. That was the part that was hard to figure out: if it were a problem based on imbalance of one or the other, surely I would be getting different symptoms, not similar ones.
It took months to figure out first that it was the vegetable oils that were correlating to this symptom, and a few weeks on top of that to come up with the “crowding out” theory. So just now I googled “excess consumption of efa” and found this blog, confirming everything.
I’m pretty happy right now.

By: Chris

Chris — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 14:01:46 +0000

Paul,

I’m confused by your comment. It doesn’t reflect what I wrote in this article. Did you actually read the article?

I never said there’s a difference between DHA and EPA in cod liver oil and other fish oils. But there are significant other differences, such as a much higher level of vitamin A & D in cod liver oil than in most other fish oils.

I’d also point out that most fish oils, and most cod liver oils for that matter, are highly processed. The processing for almost every cod liver oil on the market removes the naturally occurring vitamins A & D and replaces them with synthetic variants. Synthetic vitamin A can be toxic to the body in high amounts. So, the commercial fish oils and most brands of cod liver oil are most certainly not like the Green Pastures brand of cod liver oil which uses traditional processing methods to retain the natural vitamins.

This post has nothing to do with the Weston A. Price Foundation. In fact, the recommendations made here for EPA consumption are lower than what the WAPF recommends. The whole point of the article is that our bodies’ requirement for EPA is much lower than almost everyone says it is.

By: Paul Symes

Paul Symes — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 09:03:38 +0000

What makes you call yourself a sceptic? You’ve swapped one dogma for another. The Weston Price foundation – which it sounds like you’ve been listening to – is no more nearer finding out what’s true than the rest of the fundamentalists out there. What makes you think the DHA and EPA in cod liver oil is different from that which is in other fish oil?