Eskimoes and omega 3

[TylerDurden]

One hears constantly re claims that Eskimoes on traditional diets had problems with excessive bleeding due to high omega-3 consumption. Has there been anyone who has eaten very high levels of omega 3s(Ie grassfed meats plus omega3-supplementation via fish oils, perhaps) who has noticed this? It's just that I suspect that it's a way-out claim, perhaps only applicable to the Inuit(if at all).

[DeadRamones]

In an attempt to lose weight for a fight,about 2 months prior I ate allot of sardines,salmon,red snapper,tuna & some chicken(organic). As well as a bunch of anti-inflammatory foods that I researched. Was having knee pain so I supplemented with 10g fish oil daily.

 I really did feel pain free & easily lost the weight I had to. The first punched that landed on me cut me up. Blood was spilling like a faucet. I wish I had video of it, but I managed to get some pics. Now, sure it could of been a lucky hit,but I reall think it was the overkill on the omega 3's that caused the cut. Had to get 9 stitches.

[TylerDurden]

Thanks for confirming the above notion. In my own case, I was somewhat skeptical as on 100% grassfed meats plus 2 portions(mg/ml?) of raw, fermented  cod liver oil, I didn't seem to have these excessive bleeding issues.

[DeadRamones]

I know there are some people that purposely mega-dose on fish oil supplements 30+G's a day. Most are regular guys that probably get their omega3's from just that source. They write about skin color changing & excessive bleeding.

[jessica]

i eat a ton of omega 3s and chopped off part of my finger a few months ago
i had to go to the er and the nurse was pretty amazed how long it bled for and that even with this weird surgical film she could not get it to clot

[PaleoPhil]

I only had to take about 3g of fish oil a day to experience the Inuit nosebleed problem. I had some occasional nosebleed problems in the past in one nostril that may have made me more susceptible, and it was that nostril that I had the nosebleeds from the fish oil. In one case I was just standing in the kitchen talking to someone and all of a sudden blood started gushing out of my nose for no apparent reason (I hadn't blown my nose or sneezed) and it took a long time to stop. The people I was talking to were shocked. I cut back on the fish oil not long after that incident and have only had one or two very minor nosebleeds that quickly stopped since then, and they occurred after I had been blowing my nose a lot from morning hayfever.

[van]

 fish oils are bound to be mostly all rancid.  Pufas turn very quickly.  So it could also be the damage oxidized fats are causing in the body.

[PaleoPhil]

There's a far simpler and more likely explanation: the blood-thinning effects of fish oil that are one of the reasons cited for its proven benefits in heart disease can have a side effect when the blood becomes too thin: nosebleeds and bleeding that doesn't stop. This effect occurs regardless of whether the fish oil is rancid or not.

Also, I'm not so sure that rancid fish oils are unhealthy, since the traditional Eskimos loved rancid/fermented fish (they call it "stink fish") and seal oil and early-contact Eskimos had little or no reported heart disease, and fermented cod liver oil is recommended here by several people.

[van]

It's one thing to throw a whole fish in a pile and let it ferment or go high.  It's another to use heat and mechanical pressure to break apart fat and tissue cells exposing the oils within to air and heat.  I can't remember his name, a researcher, has his own web site, from one of the colleges in Oregan, who writes extensively against pufas, won't even eat an avocado. He also claims that pufa can go rancid or oxidize even after ingesting and cause damage to the body.  he speaks of the inuit and claims it's the pufas that cause such aging amongst them.  I don't know, but every fish oil I ever tasted, simply doesn't feel right to me.  And I have combed the world for supposedly the most cold pressed one can get.  And have tried the fermented cod oils.  Threw two bottles away.  They burned my throat going down.  Have you ever gotten a fatty belly of either tuna or salmon and scraped the fat and eaten it by itself.  Simply delicious, nothing like anything you will find in a bottle or capsule.   It very well may be the DHA content that Tyler is enjoying from the cod oils.  There's not a lot of DHA in meat, except brain, and recently I heard bone marrow, but not sure how much, some in eye balls, and in some organs.  It also may be the vit D, if he's not exposing himself to the sun.  For there is plenty of omega threes in meat, especially if grass fed and one eats the fat.  Just my thoughts,   don't of course know either way.

[TylerDurden]

I think you must be referring to Ray Peat who's the big anti-PUFA advocate. But, IMO, he's a bit of a fanatic, refusing to accept that the main problem with PUFAs is only if they're heated or heavily chemically processed.If one were to believe his nonsense, one would have to eat grainfed meat instead of grassfed meat so as to avoid all PUFAs etc.

 Without heating(such as with my Blue Ice fermented, raw cod liver oil) there's no danger at all(I understand it's cold-extracted, without chemicals). And, as PP pointed out, the fermented fish the Inuit ate is no different to that product. The claim re Inuit and aging sounds pretty suspect to me - yes, I know that Stefansson also made some claim re Inuit being grandmothers at 23, but, this seems a ridiculously low age, so, IMO, I find it as dodgy and unreliable a claim as some others made by Stefansson. In short, one would have found some other scientifically reliable report re Inuit and mortality (I seem to recall that Ray Peat relied on studies which did indeed show Inuit suffering from increased mortality(due to alcoholism and doing modern non-traditional diets) which is somewhat dishonest).

[PaleoPhil]

It's one thing to throw a whole fish in a pile and let it ferment or go high.  ...

Perhaps we could agree then that there may be a problem with heated fish oils. I'm not convinced, however, that unheated fish oils would not also thin the blood and cause nosebleeds in excessive quantities, since omega 3 fatty acids are believed to thin the blood. I would like to see evidence or a biochemical explanation of how Maillard products would thin the blood before I would attribute the blood thinning to products of heating. After all, if heating an oil were the true cause of blood thinning, then heating any oil should do the trick, whereas I've only seen this effect attributed to omega 3s and not to olive/canola/corn/soy/etc. oil.

We already have an explanation for how omega 3 fatty acids, such as from fish oil, thin the blood:

"An especially important function of these fatty acids is their ability to thin the blood. They do so by preventing platelets (normal components of blood) from sticking together and forming clots within blood vessels. They also accelerate the breakdown of fibrin, a compound involved in blood clotting. This anticoagulant effect is negligible compared to what is achieved by taking heparin or warfarin, but you should nevertheless bear it in mind, especially if you’re taking more than 1,000mg of these supplements a day. The higher the dose, the more powerful this blood thinning effect." (http://www.parade.com/health/askdrrosenfeld/nutrition/fish-oil.html)

This blood thinning effect is generally looked upon as a benefit in the USA because of the positive effects this can have on heart disease and heart disease risk, and is one of the reasons people take fish oil to begin with, and why some physicians recommend it. It becomes a problem when consuming to excess results in side effects like the famous Eskimo nosebleed problem.

BTW, does anyone know what the Eskimos do to treat the nosebleeds? Do they eat any offsetting food, like one rich in omega 6's, if there are any available in the Arctic?

[van]

   thanks for the quote about the reasoning behind nosebleeds/blood thinning.  Trust me I am not well versed on this subject.  But I do want to throw in the notion about pufas causing inflamation thoughout the body.  Maybe the two are related.  In Ray Peats web site  (thanks Tyler for remembering his name)  he has a substantial paper on the health of dogs as related to fish oil supplements.  You might like to read it, if you haven't already.  It was interesting how I came across it just as I had ordered a gallon of cold pressed salmon oil from Europe.  I had planned to supplement my dogs, and myself with it.  Once again the taste really was what kept me from ingesting any more than a tiny amount. I have learned to trust my gut taste sense when it comes to what to eat.   And again, I would love to be able to 'believe'  in fish oils for they are so rich in Dha.    I am still favoring fish eggs, collected fresh and flash frozen.  They are 'hermetically' sealed and unprocessed by heat and machinery.  Also rich in Vit D and Dha

[PaleoPhil]

If omega 3 fats were as bad as Peat says they are, I would think I would have noticed some ill effects from them other than high-dose nosebleeds. On the contrary, I find I do well on an Inuit-style diet rich in omega 3s.

When I ate some of the foods he recommends, like dairy, fruit juices and fruits, I did worse. His diet recommendations also seem too complex and modern to have been put in practice by Stone Agers. My experience does match his recommendations where he recommends avoiding plant toxins like phenols, tannins, lectins/agglutinins, trypsin-inhibitors, and antinutrients in foods like grains, legumes, and nuts and where he recommends eating plenty of saturated fats.

[TylerDurden]

PP, do you find coconut oil fine for you- it's saturated fat but of course plant-matter.

[Raw Kyle]

I just had some medical tests done for a job and the only abnormal result I got from the blood work was low platelets. Too much omega 3? Oh well, I never noticed I bleed too much from cuts.

[PaleoPhil]

PP, do you find coconut oil fine for you- it's saturated fat but of course plant-matter.

I didn't tolerate coconut oil well, and neither did my nephews. Not sure why.

[DeadRamones]

Is there a reason why this form frowns on plant fats/oils?

Is it because of the process? I read some negative replies towards coconut & olive oil. But then I'll run into a thread where some suggest supplementing with butter for the extra fat.

[TylerDurden]

Is there a reason why this form frowns on plant fats/oils?

Is it because of the process? I read some negative replies towards coconut & olive oil. But then I'll run into a thread where some suggest supplementing with butter for the extra fat.

I'm afraid 1 or 2 pro-animal-foodists are so vehemently against plant-oils that they will even recommend pasteurised butter, despite the latter causing even worse problems than plant-oils for many other rawists.Generally speaking, RVAFers in general aren't against plant-oils as many use raw, cold-pressed, extra virigin olive-oil, but a number of people on this forum have experienced side-effects from some plant-oils. In my own case, I seem to have a seriously negative reaction to coconut oil(to a lesser extent with raw , solid coconuts as well) and raw olive oil just passes through me unabsorbed and quickly defecated out within the hour. I can, however, eat raw solid olives in large amounts with no issues whatsoever.

I guess there is a general opinion against raw plant-oils also because they are  a synthetic product without other nutrients to balance them, and aren't therefore very palaeo. So we recommend eating avocadoes instead of avocado oil, olives instead of olive oil, raw salmon instead of salmon oil etc.

[William]

Is there a reason why this forum frowns on plant fats/oils?

It's from the book "Fats that Heal,Fats that Kill" by Udo Erasmus - mostly it's seed oils that are bad, but we have tried other plant oils and found either no good from then or even allergic reactions.

[H.fructus]

I only had to take about 3g of fish oil a day to experience the Inuit nosebleed problem. I had some occasional nosebleed problems in the past in one nostril that may have made me more susceptible, and it was that nostril that I had the nosebleeds from the fish oil. In one case I was just standing in the kitchen talking to someone and all of a sudden blood started gushing out of my nose for no apparent reason (I hadn't blown my nose or sneezed) and it took a long time to stop. The people I was talking to were shocked. I cut back on the fish oil not long after that incident and have only had one or two very minor nosebleeds that quickly stopped since then, and they occurred after I had been blowing my nose a lot from morning hayfever."

I used to get nose bleeds too (in addition to sharp pains from straining the lining of my intestine from consistent pressure/nasal discharges) while consuming a high protein diet. I remember the humiliation of being escorted to a bathroom at elementary school during one sudden nose bleed. I thought something was inherently defective about my sinus reactions. Now I appreciate the quick reaction of my body to form mucous and excrete toxins. I view the sinus trouble as a symptom not cause of a problem. I use it as a natural guide for diet. My dogs never get nose bleeds and rarely get hayfever but seem to digest concentrated protein better. I'm unaware of any animal eating biochemically compatible food that gets hayfever as frequently as humans and certainly not seasonal nose bleeds. If an animal does have a nose bleed it is a sign of cancer or has been in a fight. Animals don't traditionally eat foods that are mucous-forming though. I do not miss those seasonal nose bleeds, frequent congestion, etc. With age, other problems can arise from untreated hayfever.

[RawZi]

I only had to take about 3g of fish oil a day to experience the Inuit nosebleed problem.

    I'm glad you're feeling better than that now.

    Was the fish oil pasteurized and heat treated?

    Do you think the Inuit use the same form of it that you used?

[PaleoPhil]

Mine was the standard heated kind of fish oil gels, whereas Inuit omega 3s are from actual whole fish and sea mammals, yet they also experience the nosebleed problem and reportedly did so even when they were eating their traditional diet, although their traditional diet does include significant cooking (though of types that don't tend to produce as many Maillard products as modern cooking techniques). So I can't rule out heat as the cause, but there's no evidence or scientific explanation for that, whereas there is for omega 3s of any sort, cooked or raw.

Besides, I view the bloodthinning effects of omega 3 fats as mainly a benefit, not a side effect. It's only a problem when consumed in excess, particularly for people who are prone to nosebleeds, as I was at the time (and I wonder if that may have improved by now). So the omega 3 fats are the simplest and most likely cause of the blood thinning. There's no need to try to come up with a cooking explanation. For all I know, cooking could actually counteract the blood thinning effect to some degree, reducing the blood-pressure/heart-disease benefits of omega 3s. To me, that would be more of a detriment than increasing the blood thinning effect, since it is partly because of that effect that many people take omega 3 supplements to begin with. As a matter of fact, if fermented fish oil thins the blood less, that makes me less interested in forking out the extra bucks for it, not more (although I do plan on trying the fermented kind of cod liver oil after I've made some cutbacks in my budget and get to the point where my savings are increasing again).

[FRANCIS HOWARD BOND]

QUOTE:
“I find I enjoy raw fermented mint cod liver oil and stink fish quite a bit now, and I like it more and more the longer I eat it. The more rotted the fish, the better, as far as I'm concerned, though I still don't have a taste for Asian fermented fish sauce--what the Romans called garum and the English Worcestershire sauce (the modern variant is a pale imitation)--for some reason. One problem is, the true fermented Asian version I tried is too salty for me.

Stink fish/oil gives me this lovely burning sensation in my throat that's not really burning--it's impossible to describe. An Eskimo once asked a European something along the lines of "Why do you Kabloonak like stink cheese but not stink fish?" Well, here's a Kabloonak who does. The Eskimo fellow was a bit off the mark, though--some Swedes apparently still like Surströmming. Must try that some day.

The downside of stinkfish is, the other day I forgot that it smells very strong to most people and 99.99% of Americans can't stand the smell of it and I grossed out some visitors by stinking up my home before they arrived. Smells good to me--very mild. LOL

Satya also warned me that fermented seafood/oils contain too much oxidized PUFAs. I figure that an excess might be a problem, but I seem to be faring well on what I consider a reasonable amount. I guess I can be a guinea pig for you more sensible folk. If the stinkfish/oil, fish head/bone broths, sashimi and other fish I eat kills me, I'll let you and Ray Peat know.  So far all I notice is improved dental health, a mild sense of wellbeing, and less constipation since including more of the seafoods I mentioned and less ground beef. I'm not claiming that stinkfish is a superfood or anything and wouldn't want anyone doing something just because I seem to be benefiting from it.”


REPLY;
Room for another Kabloonak who enjoys stinkfish on the Forum?

As a deep sea fisherman, I can tick all the boxes:
1.   Really enjoy taste and smell of the rotten fish.(also raw fish) (tick box ?)
2.   Like it more the longer I eat it (tick box ?)
3.   More rotted the fish the better as far as I am concerned (tick box ?)

Eaten raw meat and raw fish since 1978, so I would like to share an igloo on the Forum!

[PaleoPhil]

Cool, welcome! What is your overall diet like?

Speaking of fermented fish, I hadn't had any in a while and was reminded by your post and just sampled a bit of  the Blue Ice raw CLO. I decided a while ago that I won't be replacing this bottle (which I had been using for the vitamins A and D, rather than omega 3) with another for probably a long while after it runs out, as the price seems to high to justify the small benefits, and I have alternatives now that seem to provide as much dental benefits.

I find that there seems to be a difference between "rancid" and "fermented." If I store fermented fish or fermentation-extracted fish oil/gel too long it eventually becomes bitter, which happens more rapidly when only small amounts are left and when temperatures are higher. I'm guessing that the bitter stuff is rancid, whereas the good tasting is fermented (and with the oil, the fermented bits are presumably protein and amino acid bits and the bacteria feeding on them, rather than fats, which don't ferment), but not rancid. Presumably the difference could be due to oxidized PUFAs and/or a change in the bacterial balance from beneficial to harmful.

When I ate some of the foods he recommends, like dairy, fruit juices and fruits, I did worse.

Update on this--I suspect that my problem with fruits, which seems less now, is more to do with a defect like incomplete cellular respiration, rather than a problem inherent in fruits.

[FRANCIS HOWARD BOND]

Thanks for welcome to group with common interest in raw fish and raw meat.   Perhaps as a fisherman my diet ideally should be raw fish, raw rotten fish and water, as Stefansson, for a prolonged period.   Love raw pork and raw chicken and rotten chicken, like lambs liver and lamb and beef rather less than previously.   Enjoy raw duck, raw turkey, raw cod, raw haddock, raw salmon, and oysters.   Greatly admire whole animal diets of members on this forum, and most of their diets to some extent.   Wish more members would try raw pork and raw chicken as very good!   I am particularly impressed by those who somehow manage to digest raw entrails, especially stomach and intestines.   Seems impossible to get raw tripe except as dried hard strips for dogs where grittiness is pretty indigestible.   Would like much encouragement to try these, but not much point if I cannot find any!