Dr. Rhonda Patrick on DHA in Phospholipid Form and the Prevention of Alzheimers

https://zenpatient.com/blog/dr-rhonda-patrick-on-the-role-of-the-phospholipid-form-of-dha-in-apoe4-alzheimers/

by dtawfik1 • 7 years ago

141 38 7 years ago

gumby• 7 years ago

When you eat oily fish you are eating the same oil that is expelled and inserted into a capsule. So how is the form changed?

dtawfik1• 7 years ago

This is a type of fish oil that usually comes from krill. It has a higher capacity to pass the blood-brain barrier of carriers of the APOE4 gene.

mrob4• 7 years ago

The natural oil in the fish is found as triglycerides and as phospholipids.

A triglyceride is an ester made from three fatty acid molecules attached to a glyerol molecule (you get esters by reacting carboxylic acids with alcohols, and glycerol is a polyol alcohol with three hydroxyl groups). A phospholipid is very similar except one of the fatty acids is replaced by some hydrophilic molecule that's attached to the glycerol via a phosphate group.

The problem from a commercial point of view is that the fatty acids are mixed, but fish oil is only sold by EPA/DHA concentration. Nobody will buy natural fish oil because the EPA/DHA levels are too low. The solution is transesterification, where the glycerols are removed and replaced with ethanol. Ethanol is an alcohol with only a single hydroxyl group, so it can only form an ester with a single fatty acid. Now that all the fatty acids are in separate molecules, you can distill off the lower boiling ethyl esters of short chain fatty acids. EPA and DHA are long chain fatty acids, so their higher boiling ethyl esters will be left behind.

Theoretically could transesterify the ethyl esters back to triglycerides again, but when you can just sell the ethyl esters as "fish oil concentrate" there's no reason to.

nate_meurer• 7 years ago

This is an excellent, concise, clear explanation, thank you.

fish oil is only sold by EPA/DHA concentration. Nobody will buy natural fish oil because the EPA/DHA levels are too low.

So only free fatty acids are allowed to be listed on the label as EPA/DHA? They're not allowed to count any esterified fatty acids?

bigmit37• 7 years ago

Is this the same for bottled flax oil? I am under the impression that flax oil has similar properties to fish oil.

daniel-cussen• 7 years ago

Chelation. When you concentrate the oil you can remove impurities there are a lot of in fish. In particular, Mercury and I think Cadmium too impede and reverse myelination, making taking fish oil for the nervous system benefits almost counterproductive.

manmal• 7 years ago

But eg sardines should not contain much of any heavy metal? Salmon is also pretty low in mercury.

jmole• 7 years ago

Rhonda Patrick is one of my favorite people to listen to. She did a great interview with Joe Rogan talking all about health, digestion, nutrients, diets, etc.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9M8X_bs_fzI

MikeCapone• 7 years ago

Her podcast has been a great source of interviews with interesting researchers. Her guest appearances have also been great (she's been on Peter Attia's podcast).

udfalkso• 7 years ago

Here are some great notes from her talk with Peter Attia: https://podcastnotes.org/2018/07/03/attia-patrick/

(Disclosure, I'm part of the podcastnotes team)

honzzz2• 7 years ago

Let me add two interviews with Tim Ferriss:

Dr. Rhonda Patrick on Life Extension, Performance, and Much More https://tim.blog/2014/06/10/the-tim-ferriss-show-rhonda-patr...

Exploring Smart Drugs, Fasting, and Fat Loss https://tim.blog/2017/05/04/smart-drugs-fasting-and-fat-loss...

rhondapatrick• 7 years ago

The paper is open access, so the full text is available sans paywall. :) Worth checking out if for no other reason than to appreciate the figures! https://www.fasebj.org/doi/10.1096/fj.201801412R

cgh• 7 years ago

If APOE4 combined with reduced DHA impairs glucose transport into the brain, would increasing blood ketone levels help sidestep this issue (along with increasing dietary DHA of course)?

wcchandler• 7 years ago

How do you think algal oil would work out? Also, are you interested in studying groups of peoples and cultures and determining if e.g. somebody who's lived a life on the Mediterranean diet is better adapted to this kind of uptake and if that's reflective of a decline in AD for that group? Or maybe even just better overall mental health?

simplecomplex2• 7 years ago

Is there any actual clear link between dietary DHA and serum DHA? I’m guessing no.

Humans survive on quite a wide range of dietary fat sources and composition. I stopped supplementing with fish oil after realizing there’s lots of “science” and few facts.

dilap2• 7 years ago

There has to be, since humans can't make it themselves. (Assuming that's true.)

WalterSear4• 7 years ago

They can.

This finding suggests that when animal foods are wholly excluded from the diet, the endogenous production of EPA and DHA results in low but stable plasma concentrations of these fatty acids.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16087975

gnulinux2• 7 years ago

Fish is not the only source of DHA. Walnuts, acai berry and flaxseeds are also good sources.

mrob4• 7 years ago

The only good vegetable source of DHA is some types of algae. The foods you listed contain alpha-linolenic acid, which the human body can convert to EPA and then to DHA, but this is an inefficient process and might not always meet the full requirements for those longer chain omega-3 fatty acids. See:

https://rnd.edpsciences.org/articles/rnd/pdf/2005/05/r5505.p...

WalterSear4• 7 years ago

They aren't. In order to overcome the omega-6 metabolic preference, you need to consume, at a minimum twice as much omega-3 oils as omega-6, but actually closer to 4x.

Twice as much omega-3 means eliminating olive oil, soy, most nuts, and many other foods. Or, alternatively, downing a pint or so of flax seed every day.

zeroname2• 7 years ago

Not sure why this is getting downvoted, it's a valid concern.

Going by this review, I would say that supplementation does work:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4176556/

virtuallynathan3• 7 years ago

Yes, there is. I have had mine tested as I altered my diet to include more fish roe, fish liver, and fatty fish. I took my omega6:omega3 ratio from 3.5:1 to 1.5:1 in ~3 months.

Total O3: 10.2% -> 16.5%

DPA: 1.2% -> 3.2%

EPA: 3.4% -> 4.3%

DHA: 5.4% -> 9.2%

I don't have a "before" on the standard american diet, but IIRC the average american has an omega6:3 ratio of about 15-20:1.

simplecomplex2• 7 years ago

Serum levels could mean your body has more DHA than it needs, without an established level at which some kind of deficiency develops.

I’m not trying to prove a point except this: People who have no regard to dietary DHA and consume no fish don’t exhibit any of the problems claimed in articles and by nutritionists. I’ve been vegan for 20 years for example and my skin is fine, I don’t supplement DHA, I don’t have dementia or other health problems.

This contrasts pretty strongly with homocysteine/B12 deficiency or iron deficiency. There’s no good evidence that a clinical syndrome of DHA deficiency even exists. Whenever I dig into studies serum levels are all over the place.

There’s quite a lot to be suspect of here. The conclusions drawn from our limited understanding of fatty acid metabolism just doesn’t match reality.

ardy42• 7 years ago

I have had mine tested as I altered my diet...

How/where did you get tested?

el_don_almighty• 7 years ago

Fish Heads Fish Heads rolley polley fish heads

Fish heads Fish heads eat them up... YUM!

Jagsz• 7 years ago

Dr. Patrick- if DHA/EPA is re- esterized, as it is in Biotest’s Flameout supplement. Does this re-esterization put it in a phospholipid form to be absorbed thru the BBB?

Dr. Rhonda Patrick on DHA in Phospholipid Form and the Prevention of Alzheimers

Related Stories