@adssx - you know how companies pay researchers to bias their studies in favor of their drug/supplement, or have conflicts of interest (ahem, Bill Harris). Well, I think soon the opposite may happen with the companies selling fishoil - they may have to pay you off $$$ big time, because you are destroying their business, lol !!!
If one day Antoine suddenly says “never mind, DHA is the healthiest thing around, take all you can!”, and also coincidentally moves into a newly purchased big mansion in Belgravia, you will know what happened …
Same, I keep thinking about Kaiberlein’s repeated warnings that supplements are real medicine, and not necessarily harmless. If we aren’t deficient in something, we shouldn’t take it just because some influencer touted it’s benefits. And unknown interactions could also be less than beneficial.
I think the idea is only taking things you are deficient in is simple minded and inadequate. Something that an influencer would say to a non scientific audience
The human body doesn’t require 124 ug of a substance daily and that is the perfect number. This rabbit hole has been debunked time and time again. Vitamin D deficiency causes rickets but that doesn’t mean the level of vitamin D after preventing rickets doesn’t correlate with 1000 other disease states. And it doesn’t mean you can fix things by taking a pill either.
Arguably, most westerners are deficient in Omega 3s. Why? Because there is a marked difference in dementia rates and CVD based on blood levels. That deficiency doesn’t make omega 3 supplements a slam dunk either.
What defines a deficiency state is 100% in the eye of the beholder. The general term “deficiency” mostly just means avoiding a specific disease state when we do not understand what molecules impact health beyond these specific disease states. Literally no one thinks the purpose of vitamin D in the body is just to prevent rickets. There are vitamin d receptors in almost every tissue yet the defined deficiency states are bone related.
The fact is there are RCTs showing impact of various supplements beyond deficiency and disease states. Are some of these industry financed and questionable? Sure. But dismissing 100% of these studies because some are questionable is not the right answer either.
No one has truly defined most deficiency states so we are all flying somewhat blind except for rickets and beriberi and the like. Health is a continuum not strictly an avoidance of disease states.
I agree that people shouldn’t take something just because some influencer claimed it’s good for them. But I have a problem with the statement that if you aren’t deficient in something you shouldn’t take it. That all depends on the definition of deficiency. As an example.you can be not anemic at all, and as such not overtly deficient in iron, yet have subclinical deficiency that only effects functions that need iron for lower priority things in the body.
Also some vitamins/minerals are required for tons of different things in the body. It’s very possible to have enough of it for most of them but not enough for others.Take magnesium as an example. It is a co-factor for over 300 enzymes in the body. There is no test that can tell you whether some of these enzymes are “deficient” in magnesium despite the majority being not at a certain magnesium intake. Sometimes taking a bit of extra of various vitamins/minerals that act as enzyme cofactors can act as a safeguard against potential minor deficiencies that don’t show up on typical tests or give clear symptoms of deficiency. This may be more important with aging as many enzymes get damaged with aging or perhaps their production declines. Sometimes that can be compensated for partially by having more of the cofactor around.
To be fair to the deficiency argument, iron is well established to be about more than red cell count.
While that isn’t completely sorted out, there are well known issues with iron deficiency including restless legs, fatigue and hair loss. This is fully accepted by standard medicine.
Not to bring up the ADNI paper again, but was looking at some papers on Terazosin. Terazosin activates PGK which increases ATP production in the brain. It seems counterintuitive, but you see a reduction in brain FDG-PET uptake due to more efficient metabolism/energy production in the brain. Interestingly the ADNI study also showed a reduction in FDG-PET activity, but with O-3 rather than Terazosin. They assumed this was a negative finding, but at least in the setting of Terazosin it doesn’t seem to be. The critiques of the study remain large - poor control of numerous factors that cause Alzheimers, lack of reference to the previous ADNI paper showing benefit, lack of discussion regarding the previous ADNI paper, no dose/duration/quality data regarding the supplement, etc. The FDG-PET data seemed like a strongpoint, but perhaps it is not as obvious as you’d think given a similar effect with Terazosin. Not jumping back into the DHA is good or bad argument, but mostly focusing on the FDG PET data and how it may not tell the entire story with brain metabolism.
Thank you. I’m aware of that. I was referencing the FDG PET findings of the study in question and how they may not be deleterious as the paper assumes.
