DHA

“And in infants, if you give DHA during pregnancy or during breastfeeding, infants have better visual acuity. They can see better. That's been well demonstrated. If you put trans fat in the membrane, the rhodopsin cycling slows down dramatically and can't happen as dramatically.”

“So who wouldn't want to do that? Other things input to BDNF as well. There are some research protocols to increase BDNF with various interventions, but even omega-3s, DHA in particular, amps up BDNF production.”

“I mean, I've known for years that we should be taking DHA, fish oil, omega-3s in general, good for the brain, right? Right. It's been our messaging. And for me, it's still my messaging. Why was this study in the face of all of the studies demonstrating correlations between higher levels of DHA in particular and”

“and our understanding of the chemistry of DHA. I mentioned one thing that DHA does earlier in our time together today, enhances the production of brain-derived neurotrophic factor. DHA is a COX-2 inhibitor, i.e., it's an inflammation reducer in the body.”

“in the afternoons, and I also take a fish oil. So, I load up on the EPA and DHA. You know, there are plenty of other things that are not expensive that we should be thinking about, like B complex, a good B complex. Now, might you need a special form of B complex as I do because my homocysteine was slightly elevated.”

“we talk about from time to time, but I have a feeling you're going to add a lot of value to my somewhat limited knowledge, which is the most up-to-date thinking on the role of fish oils, DHA and EPA. But you want to talk about it through cardiovascular disease first or talk about it through Alzheimer's or both?”

“disease called Epanova. We went to an outcome study and it didn't work, but it was DHA and EPA, but mostly EPA had some DHA. And that was four grams?”

“What that says is that EPA does work on reducing events. But not through triglyceridal. It's not for triglyceride lowering. It's more for the antithrombotic, anti-inflammatory effect, which brings me to DHA. So DHA, I still think has a lot of health values that we should talk about, especially for the brain, because the brain is predominantly DHA.”

“brain is predominantly DHA. That's the fatty acid in the brain. Now, the problem is with DHA, we tried DHA supplementations on cognition, didn't really show much. You've had Hussein Yassine here, and he's talked a lot about, but ABOA4 people, one of the other things is they don't get as much DHA to the brain.”

“membrane concentration of EPA and DHA, and it's very low, 4%, and they were to supplement with a very high-quality over-the-counter EPA and DHA, and they were to get that to 10%.”

“inability to get the DHA in the brain? You have to get the lyso-PC form to get to the brain. You have very limited capacity to convert that into the lyso-PC form. Yeah, absent another. Yeah. So you have to make this lyso-PC form, which you can do with either a fish-based oil or a krill-based oil.”

“You can make lyso-PC DHA. So that's the next hopeful excitement around the DHA and brain health that I think needs to be further. But there is no version of that on the market today.”

“I think that's the wrong approach. I mean, knowing you have it, you can obviously have a better lifestyle, exercise, taking some DHA, even though you may not get enough into the brain is still, and then keeping your, obviously, no diabetes.”

“vehicle. And then the free EPA or free DHA, which joins with other lipids in the biliary micelles, gets absorbed by a fatty acid absorber, CD36. Interestingly, not only can a free fatty acid be absorbed, but a lysophospholipid can be absorbed.”

“controlled, the EPA is a little bit more important. And the DHA plus the EPA, there's a trial where that didn't work as well as the EPA. But once they get into the brain, the brain has its omega-3 fatty acids.”

“fatty acids. Used to be all DHA, but I know the thought on that is changing. EPA is required there too. Some people can convert EPA to DHA, but not everybody can. And that's how they get up into the brain.”

“serum or EPA-DHA level in the RBC membrane of 10% versus 6%? What's your level of confidence? Well, the data is all going to come from observational trials for the most part.”

“they tested these three interventions that I talked about. So giving vitamin D, giving EPA, DHA, and assigning exercise. They tested them individually and in combination. So each individual is then randomized to one of eight groups for the duration of the study, which is a three-year duration study.”

“2000 IU of vitamin D, a relatively modest amount of EPA and DHA. So one gram a day that contained 330 milligrams of EPA, 660 milligrams of DHA. And this was from marine algae. And then adherence for both the vitamin D and omega-3 levels was assessed by changes in serum level.”