[deeth_starr_v]

> Compared to participants at Q1 of DHA, those at Q5 of non-DHA showed a significant lower risk of EOD. A statistically significant lower risk was observed in Q3, Q4 and Q5 of non-DHA omega-3

If I'm reading this right, if you can't get many fish sources in your diet, it's better to increase the quantity of non-DHA sources (certain seeds, oils and vegetables). But my understanding is non-DHA is not helpful so I may not be understanding correctly

[Faelon]

I think it's easy to take algal-based omega-3 supplements. They've gotten pretty good in the last couple years with gummies with a high dose and no algae test. And no fish killed!

[adrian_b]

Schizochytrium oil with DHA and EPA, which is sold as "algal" omega-3, for a lack of a correct word that could be understood by the general population (Schizochytrium is not an alga), is very good and no fish are killed for it.

Nevertheless, it remains at least 3 times more expensive than a fish oil, e.g. cod liver oil (I mean price per content of omega-3 fatty acids, not per volume; when not diluted to fool the customers, "algal" oil has a double concentration in comparison with fish oil, i.e. 5 mL of "algal" oil are equivalent with 10 mL of fish oil).

Taking daily a decent dose of "algal" oil can be more expensive than the daily protein intake required by a human, if that is taken from cheap sources (e.g. legumes and chicken meat). Allocating a major part of the budget for food to a supplement taken in minute quantities seems excessive.

I am not aware of any serious reason for the high cost of "algal" oil. A decade ago, it was much more expensive, e.g. 8 times or more in comparison with cod liver oil. Then the price has dropped to 3 times, and then it has diminished no more, remaining at 3 times for 5 years or more.

I believe that it should be possible to further reduce the cost of "algal" oil to make it an acceptable substitute for fish oil, but it seems that the producers are content with their niche market of rich vegans and they do not make any effort to reduce the cost in order to enlarge their market.

I have taken occasionally "algal" oil, to test it, but as long as it remains a luxury food I cannot use it to replace the cod liver oil that I am taking regularly, despite desiring to do so.

[Faelon]

I think that it is a health tax, as many things are. For what it's worth, it costs me 50 cents a day. I'm not sure what semantics about it not being a "true" algae has to do with anything, though. If it's a protist or an algae, I'm not sure what that information does other than muddy the waters for people forming an opinion on non-animal based omegas.

[adrian_b]

If you consume "algal" oil of 50 cents per day, that must be some kind of capsule with a small amount of oil, e.g. a few hundred mg of DHA+EPA.

This is much better than nothing, but it is far from a daily intake comparable to that of the populations who live in places with access to cheap sea fish, where such fish are a significant fraction of their food (e.g. Japan).

If your target is to match the diet of such populations, that means e.g. 5 mL per day of non-diluted "algal" oil, i.e. a teaspoon of such oil (or 10 mL of fish oil), which contains around 2 grams of long-chain omega-3 fatty acids.

That would be much more expensive when using "algal" oil, at least judging after the prices seen e.g. on Amazon.

In order to not scare the customers, many sources of "algal" oil have a similar price with fish oil, but only because they contain much less omega-3 fatty acids per capsule. If you read the fine print, then you discover the true price ratio.

[Faelon]

Two of these is 66 cents and is 1500mg of oil. Seems ok to me. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0FL86D4Z6?th=1

[adrian_b]

That is indeed a good price, but even so, two of those are equivalent with 5 mL of code liver oil, which in Europe costs around $50 per liter, with sales taxes (VAT) and shipping included.

Thus the price of equivalent fish oil is about 25 cents, a ratio of more than 2.6.

If you add to your price sales tax and shipping, it is likely that you arrive to the 3 times higher price that I have mentioned.

Because in most days I eat only food that I cook myself from raw ingredients, which is significantly cheaper than industrially-produced food, I can eat very healthy and tasty food for about $5 per day (in Europe).

The food includes the equivalent in fish oil of 4 of your gummies, which might cost around $1.50 with taxes and shipping.

Paying 30% of the daily budget for food only for a supplement taken in a quantity negligible in comparison with the other food, does not seem right.

[cultofmetatron]

are they artificially converting the ALA to DHA? we treat omega3 like they are all one bucket but theres a big difference.

[Faelon]

Algal omega 3 is the exact same omega3 in fish. This isn't a product endorsement, but you can see an example here: https://www.amazon.com/GparkNature-Supplements-Supplement-Tu...

[deeth_starr_v]

Algal ALA has a different chemical makeup https://ods.od.nih.gov/factsheets/Omega3FattyAcids-HealthPro...

Edit: I think you mean Algae (which is EPA) Edit2: My mistake, I read Algal as ALA rather than Algae (algal)

[adrian_b]

The "algal" omega-3 is not extracted from any algae, but it is extracted from certain cultivated strains of a fungus-like organism, Schizochytrium.

The cultivated strains have been selected and/or genetically engineered to have enhanced production of certain long-chain omega-3 fatty acids.

The composition of an "algal" oil ("algal" is the adjective derived from "alga", "algae" is the plural of "alga") depends on the particular strain that the vendor has used in production.

The first cultivated strains produced only DHA, but in recent years most vendors use strains that allow them to sell oil that has a mixture 2:1 of DHA and EPA, with minor quantities of other long-chain omega-3 fatty acids.

[tbossanova]

Can you grow your own at home?

[deeth_starr_v]

That's part of my question. ALA is supposed to not convert to DHA easily.

But these results seem to say at higher concentrations ALA lowers risk of EOD. Which tends to refute the belief that only DHA/EPA lower chronic inflammation or that EOD is not just a story about inflammation.

[adrian_b]

I cannot read the whole article, but the abstract says nothing about ALA.

The abstract only partitions the omega-3 acids in DHA and non-DHA.

While non-DHA includes ALA, without any concrete evidence that ALA has some direct role, it is more likely that the correlation seen with non-DHA refers not to ALA, but to the other long-chain omega-3 fatty acids besides DHA.

Humans can elongate ALA into useful long-chain acids, but the efficiency of this is typically lower in males than in females and lower in old people than in young people. Usually pregnant women have the best conversion efficiency.

Unless you monitor your blood composition, you cannot know if eating ALA (e.g. flax seeds or oil, or walnuts) can be sufficient for you. If you are an older male, it is very likely that eating ALA cannot be enough for avoiding deficiency.

[culi]

Fish don't produce DHA and EPA. They actually get it from eating algae.

[wang_li]

Go find one that is IFOS certified.

[Aurornis]

> They've gotten pretty good in the last couple years with gummies with a high dose and no algae test

Gummy supplements are questionable, especially for supplements that can have strong flavors and odors by themselves.

If you’re taking algal based gummies and thinking they taste good, they likely either have very little omega-3 or the ingredients have been so heavily processed that I’d start questioning if the omega-3 survived the processing

[codebje]

If your supplements are in gummy form there's a high likelihood animals were killed for gelatin, FYI.

[Faelon]

Don't worry- I always check

[SubNoize]

Can you suggest any?

[culi]

Consumerlab is great for this. They test for heavy metal content and accuracy of nutrition labels. They've only tested 4 algae-based ones and they all passed. Carlson, DEVA, and Ovega are the brands they looked at (two from Carlson) with DEVA being their "top pick"

[dotancohen]

I evolved to eat fish and meat killed. So did all other carnivores. I'm happy to continue eating and shitting and sleeping and having sex, I don't want supplements to replace food and AI to replace intellect and IVF to replace sex. I want to be alive.

[Faelon]

Abstaining from killing animals is about the sober realization that we can have perfectly healthy and happy lives without killing animals, who have feelings and a sense of perspective and experience, just like us. Living with my values and actions as one give me a strong sense of life, and I love cooking every day. Plants taste great when cooked well!

[dotancohen]

  > Abstaining from killing animals is about the sober realization that we can have perfectly healthy and happy lives without killing animals,

Maybe, maybe not. If one is lacking a hobby and happy to spend much time learning and obsessing and fiddling with what they eat, while accepting that they may be missing some vital things that we don't yet know about, then sure.

But I have enough hobbies and I don't want to risk missing some things we don't yet know about. I just eat what I evolved to eat.

[Faelon]

You could find the time to figure out what to eat on a plant-based diet in the space of a single Youtube video. The science that eating plant-based isn't just fine for you but also better for you is extremely solid. Just because we evolved to do something doesn't make it moral, and needlessly killing animals is clearly not moral. Humans did not evolve with the terrifyingly industrial scale farming we do now providing the unprecedented amount of meat global humans now consume.

[dotancohen]

I don't needlessly kill animals. I kill animals (well, they are killed on my behalf) to eat.

[girvo]

> I just eat what I evolved to eat

So do I: plants!

[bluGill]

I'm an omnivore. all meat or no meat is not what i'm evolved to eat. Perhaps I eat too much meat, but zero meat isn't the right answer.

[dotancohen]

Yeah, I eat plenty of those too!

[Saline9515]

Why the focus on "killing"?

Plenty of things you consume create suffering, in plants, in animals, but also in humans. Therefore, why just focus on killing certain animals?

Other ways can also be more beneficial overall, such as favoring local farms which respect animals. Those exist, although their products are more expensive. In the alpine mountains where I grew up, cows and goats had undoubtedly a better life than most humans on earth.

You can also change the way to work and consume - all of this vegan ethic isn't very coherent if, as a manager, you pressure your subordinates to the maximum, and fire your coworker who you suspect that she just got pregnant.

[Faelon]

The focus is on killing because we understand that the brain is the organ which generates sensation and presence. Plants completely lack the machinery to integrate information on the level of even a ringworm. Once you get to the size of the animals we commonly eat for food, there is an immense amount of complexity, much more similar to ourselves than different. The ethics of veganism if very coherent. The brain generates subjective experience, the feeling of being something. To deprive one of that experience is wrong- most people would report preferring to be than not. Of course, to your point about subordinates, vegans should also treat humans with respect. Actually, veganism provides a framework that tells us WHY we should treat other humans with respect- because they feel, just like I do. So, if we can practically avoid causing suffering to those with brains, as most people on this website can easily do, it is best to do so. Most plants worldwide are grown to feed to animals, by the way, so even if plants suffered, we should prefer a plant-based world which minimizes this suffering. this would also minimize the human exploitation in the food industry and reduce our reliance on the monoculture which broadly produces the bevy of animal feed grown to feed the insatiable global appetite for animal flesh. One more comment on your alpine animals comment- those animals were slaughtered for their flesh. Could you "humanely" kill a human selectively bred to grow to the size of an adult in two years? How would you do it? Would the average person be ok if you painlessly killed them after two years of roaming through the mountains? I don't think so.

[mlrtime]

>Plants taste great when cooked well!

Maybe? But until we get to the point where this is universally true, or I forget how good a prime fillet tastes, I don't see a good reason to stop eating meat.

[boston_clone]

Some (many?) ethical, ecological, and healthy choices will require you to go beyond "does this taste good" or "does this feel good"?

[Insanity]

Our species started out predominantly eating fruits, vegetables, nuts,.. As hunter gatherers, meat eating came later and initially was still not a dominant source of nutrition.

So yes, you eventually evolved for this, but it wasn’t the dominant food source for a loooooong time.

[amanaplanacanal]

Homo sapiens? I don't think that's necessarily true. Older ancestors maybe. Home sapiens was probably mostly getting calories from fruit, tubers, and other animals, depending on season and what they could find.

[Insanity]

Yeah I left a response about that in another comment. Sapiens (sapiens) perhaps, but not true for the entire homo line.

[konart]

Our species started out predominantly eating whatever was available.

During different points of time the ration was very different. From "mostly nuts" to "mostly fish".

[wizzwizz4]

And different populations evolutionarily "fine-tuned" in environments with different availabilities of various foodstuffs. While many dietary requirements are common to all humans (e.g. we lost the ability to synthesise vitamin C, making us all susceptible to scurvy), some are specific to individuals and (genetically-related) families.

Diet is one of the very few places where your genetic ancestry actually matters – although your gut microbiome, which evolves faster (https://doi.org/10.3389/fmicb.2014.00587), may not share quite the same ancestry as your human cell tissue.

[throwaway198846]

> Diet is one of the very few places where your genetic ancestry actually matters

Aside from lactose intolerance what else is different between humans?

[Insanity]

Yes, but more likely insects as first small “animals”. Hunting animals takes more effort than eating fruits etc.

I know it’s all vague delineation of where our species really started, and at which point you would no longer consider it the homo line, but for a significant part of history we were a small predator that would eat whatever was _easily_ available. Hunting animals is not easy and it’s a risky endeavour.

I’m not saying meat wasn’t part of our diet obviously, but it logically wouldn’t have been as dominant a part of our diet as it is today.

[adrian_b]

The most likely hypothesis about how humans have become the most efficient hunters of the planet does not pass through catching insects and very small animals, but through eating the remains of the big prey killed by carnivores.

There are various bits of evidence for this, like the higher stomach acidity of humans, which resembles that of carrion eaters, like hyenas.

It is plausible that the ability to throw sticks and stones was used initially for scaring other predators and make them abandon their prey, and only later, after hundreds of thousands of years of evolution, it became accurate enough to be usable for hunting living animals.

The ability to use stones to break the bones and eat the parts inaccessible for the carnivores who had killed the prey, i.e. marrow and brain, which are rich in hard to get nutrients, e.g. omega-3 fatty acids, is also presumed to have played an important role in the development of a bigger and bigger brain.

It is likely that the gangs of humans acted in a very similar way with the packs of hyenas, which acquire much of their food by scaring away from their prey the other predators, e.g. cheetahs, wild dogs, leopards and even lions. Moreover, similarly to humans, the most important ability of hyenas is not speed, but endurance when pursuing a possible prey that is tired or weakened, e.g. by wounds. While hyenas rely on their big teeth to chase the other predators, humans have relied on their ability to throw things at a distance, for the same purpose. While humans are quite bad at running, jumping, climbing or swimming, in comparison with most mammals, their throwing ability is unmatched by any other animal.

[throw_away_928]

They have found spears that are at least 400,000 years old, so we have hunted for food at least that long.

And if you look at our closest relatives chimpanzees, they also hunt without using tools. Humans and their ancestors probably ate whatever they had available, including meat.

[blacksmith_tb]

Not much meat, however[1] (unless we're counting insects, I suppose, but even then, still mostly fruit).

1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chimpanzee#Diet

[Antipode]

Also likely insects.

[niek_pas]

You also evolved to nearly choke to death when you accidentally eat and breathe at the same time. Doesn’t mean it’s desirable.

[wang_li]

“Evolution” is not a sound basis for most choices. We didn’t evolve to wear shoes, live in houses, to use powerful cleaning agents, indoor plumbing, decontaminated water, refrigeration, and pretty much all modern medicine, among about every other thing that is part of modern life.

[mlekoszek]

At least we can talk about it.

[Braxton1980]

>, I don't want supplements to replace food and AI to replace intellect and IVF to replace sex. I want to be alive

No one is pushing for these changes you suggest and to take a stance suggests a social disorder or mental illness.

[cluckindan]

Reject modernity, embrace nomadic life in the forests.

[Propelloni]

Preach it. I, for one, welcome my caveman dentist!

[boston_clone]

You are not a carnivore, neither is any other human.

[amanaplanacanal]

Plenty do, though. Just like there are plenty of vegans. And plenty that live on junk food.

[bluGill]

I don't know anyone who claims that. Humans are omnivores is the most common claim - that is eat a mix of meat and vegitables.

[Faelon]

This is orthogonal to the main point which is that just because we are capable of eating something doesn't provide a moral justification for eating something. It is extremely clear from data and example that it's possible and actually easy to live a happy life on a plant-based diet. This means that eating meat is a choice, and many would say it is an overwhelmingly cruel choice.

[Saline9515]

Morality is a relative and personal thing. It is also very clear from data that you can live a good life while eating quality animal products.

Some may prefer to do it for personal pleasure, but also ease of life, or cost, which allows them to have time for things that they believe are also moral. Such as taking care of their children, working, and so on.

[boston_clone]

The commenter I'm replying to implicitly made that claim:

> [...] So did all other carnivores

[CalRobert]

Ok, but evolution didn’t get us somewhere over 8 billion people can share this planet.

[BobaFloutist]

I evolved to shit outdoors, bathe in cold water, sleep on the ground, and die without having traveled more than at most a couple of hundreds of miles from my birthplace but I refuse to be limited by the capacities of a glorified ape without language, culture, or understanding of the interiority of others, not to mention indoor plumbing.

[dotancohen]

Well actually I still prefer to shit outdoors and bathe in cold water.

https://travel.stackexchange.com/a/34403

[BobaFloutist]

That would I assume preclude taking a shower for 3-4 months of the year in some climates? Especially since we didn't evolve with indoor heating either. Or indoors at all, for that matter.

[staticassertion]

This feels like a series of completely disconnected statements. The underlying theme seems to be that "living" is something that can only be realized by isolating behaviors to those that developed under specific niche conditions that applied pressure to our ancestors, and that this is good, and that deviating is bad. The word "living" and "alive" seems to be a proxy word for something like "happy" or "fulfilled"?

So many hoops to jump through to understand what the hell you're talking about, just to land on what could charitably be called the dumbest thing I'll read today if I'm lucky.

[dymk]

You are not living in the body of a carnivore

Eat some berries and nuts

"Paleo" diet doesn't even include that much meat in it

[Qem]

> But my understanding is non-DHA is not helpful so I may not be understanding correctly

Alpha-linolenic acid (ALA), the Omega-3 present in most plant sources, can get its chemical structure lenghtened to EPA and DHA in the organism. The problem appears to be, when people get older, the efficiency of this conversion takes a large hit.

[mikeyouse]

It’s always a stretch too - takes something like 15x more ALA to convert to DHA when things are going well. Not nothing but if a substantial amount of DHA is protective, it’s hard to get there with only ALA.

[Aurornis]

> But my understanding is non-DHA is not helpful so I may not be understanding correctly

A lot of the common wisdoms about fish oil and omega-3 were based on early studies that had some too good to be true results. As studies were scaled up to more participants and more rigorous methods many of the amazing early results gave way to less impressive or even null results.

I think it’s a good idea to get a mix of omega-3s in your diet, but given everything I’ve seen I don’t think it’s all that important to start micro optimizing everything with isolated supplements. Consume a mixed variety of sources and try to get some fish in there every once while.

The importance of DHA specifically in this study is a good example of how individual studies don’t tell the whole story. This could be a spurious result that is correlated with something else that leads to elevated DHA in the blood (diet choices). Supplementing isolated DHA could miss whatever the real factor was.

[culi]

Well the other major omega-3 typically supplemented is EPA. Which also mostly comes from fish sources (and both DHA and EPA come from algae that the fish eat)

ALA is very weakly converted to the other fatty acids but it also has benefits in its own right. It's a pretty interest antioxidant being active in both fat and water