The Missing Wellness Factors: EPA and Dha

Richard Passwater, Jorn Dyerberg

Description

Wellness is more than the absence of disease. It's a vital combination of vibrancy, vitality, abundant energy, and extraordinary health. Here, the authors reveal two essential wellness factors which are often missing in people's diets - omega-3 fatty acids EPA and DHA.

Sujets

• Santé et bien-être
• Diététique
• Santé du quotidien
• Santé au quotidien
• Santé au quotidien
• United States Environmental Protection Agency
• Diet
• Health
• Dha
• Fitness
• EPA
• Nutrition
• diététique

Informations

• Publié par: Turner Publishing Company
• Date de parution: 15 mai 2012
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781591203452
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

The information contained in this book is based upon the research and personal and professional experiences of the authors. It is not intended as a substitute for consulting with your physician or other healthcare provider. Any attempt to diagnose and treat an illness should be done under the direction of a healthcare professional.
The publisher does not advocate the use of any particular healthcare protocol but believes the information in this book should be available to the public. The publisher and authors are not responsible for any adverse effects or consequences resulting from the use of the suggestions, preparations, or procedures discussed in this book. Should the reader have any questions concerning the appropriateness of any procedures or preparation mentioned, the authors and the publisher strongly suggest consulting a professional healthcare advisor.
Basic Health Publications, Inc. 28812 Top of the World Drive Laguna Beach, CA 92651 949-715-7327 www.basichealthpub.com
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available through theLibrary of Congress.
Copyright 2012 by J rn Dyerberg, M.D., DMSc., and Richard A. Passwater, Ph.D.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or other- wise, without written permission from the author.
Editor: Cheryl Hirsch Copyeditor: Susan E. Davis Typesetting/Book design: Gary A. Rosenberg Cover design: Mike Stromberg Diagrams and photos: J rn Dyerberg, M.D., DMSc., and Richard A. Passwater, Ph.D.
Printed in the United States of America
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Contents
Foreword by William Harris, Ph.D.
Preface
PART ONE
In the Beginning: The Discovery
1. Unlocking the Eskimos Nutritional Treasure
2. Eiscosa What? Docosa What
3. The Missing Links
4. Eicosanoids and Docosanoids Fine-Tune Body Chemistry
5. Essential Fats
6. The Omega-3 Requirement
7. Research Gains Interest and Acceptance by Other Scientists
PART TWO
EPA and DHA at Work: Clinical Trials
8. Heart Disease
9. Stroke
10: Fetal and Infant Neurodevelopment
11. Memory and Cognition
12. Alzheimer s Disease and Dementias
13. Mood and Depression
14. Bipolar Disorders and Schizophrenia
15. Vision
16. Cell Aging and Longevity
17. Arthritis
18. Diabetes
19. Cancer
20. Guidelines and Dosages for Optimizing Your Health by Restoring EPA/DHA Levels
References
About the Authors
Foreword
Most doctors recommend omega-3 supplements, typically from fish oil, to all their patients. Why? One reason is that in the United States about 84,000 deaths per year are attributable to low intake of these essential oils. People with higher blood levels of omega-3 have been shown to be 90 percent less likely to develop sudden cardiac arrest than those with low (normal) levels. What s more, in one large study, heart patients given omega-3 capsules cut their risk of sudden death nearly in half. Remarkably, a similar story is developing for Alzheimer s disease where people with the highest omega-3 levels were about 50 percent less likely to develop dementia over nine years. Since there is no known health risk from taking omega-3 supplements, it is my view that virtually every American should either eat more omega-3 rich fish (salmon, sardines, mackerel, herring, albacore tuna, etc.) or take fish oil (EPA/DHA) supplements.
This book explains how fish oil provides you with many health benefits and guides you to adopt optimal usage of the essential nutrients found in fish oil. All that you need to know about fish oil-from the initial discovery in Greenland of how it protects against heart disease to the latest research on how it reduces the risk of Alzheimer s disease-has been distilled from thousands of scientific studies and hundreds of clinical trials and condensed into practical information you can use to improve your health now and to live better longer.
I don t know of anybody who would not benefit from learning more about fish oil and its many health advantages, which range from preventing heart disease, arthritis, diabetes, and dementias to staying younger longer. J rn Dyerberg, M.D., DMSc., is the primary discoverer of the role of fish oil in preventing heart disease and of how the nutrients in fish oils are essential to optimal health. Until now, Dr. Dyerberg has published this information only in technical articles that don t reach the majority of people. Thankfully, the well-respected health writer and antioxidant researcher Richard Passwater, Ph.D., (who wrote the very first book on fish oil and preventing heart disease) has now coaxed the fascinating story out of the modest, unassuming Dr. Dyerberg.
Dr. Passwater, who first learned of Dr. Dyerberg s seminal research in 1981, has published two books on fish oil (in 1982 and 1987), but many more exciting health benefits have been discovered since then. As the two colleagues shared information, Dr. Passwater convinced Dr. Dyerberg to tell his story for the benefit of all readers, not just the scientific community. This is not boasting or bragging; it is simply recounting the historic series of observations and scientific discoveries that even Dr. Dyerberg could not imagine would have ensued from his explorations along the frozen coastline of Greenland over four decades ago. His initial findings ultimately resulted in new insights that are now saving lives every day.
I am personally indebted to the pioneering research of Dr. Dyerberg for shaping my professional career. Back in 1979, when I was a postdoctoral fellow at the Oregon Health Sciences University (Portland), I worked in the lab of Dr. William Connor, a giant in the study of nutrition, lipids, and heart disease. My assignment was to design and carry out a study on the effects on blood cholesterol levels of a diet very high in salmon oil (about 100 grams per day!). We were unaware at that time of the work of Drs. Dyerberg and Bang in Greenland, which pinpointed the omega-3 fatty acids as the cardioprotective factors in the Eskimos diet; we were simply interested in the overall polyunsaturated-ness of fish oil. Would it lower cholesterol like other liquid oils (which were plant- not animal-derived)? Or would it raise cholesterol like other animal fats (which were solid not liquid)? We did find that the liquid-ness was more important than the animal-ness of the oil vis- -vis blood cholesterol, but when we learned about omega-3 fatty acids from Drs. Dyerberg and Bang, our blinders fell off and we began to see fish oils not simply as liquid animal fats, but as vehicles for terribly important nutrients-ones that were sadly missing from the American diet.
That shift in focus has guided my research over the last thirty years, to the point where we now believe that the blood omega-3 level ( the omega-3 index ) is actually a heart disease risk factor -a marker in the blood that predicts risk for fatal heart attacks (and probably other maladies) that, importantly, can be changed by altering the diet. I believe the omega-3 index is even more important than the cholesterol level when it comes to identifying patients at increased risk for heart attacks. As of this writing, the omega-3 index has formally entered the world of medical care and is being included in routine lipid panels at a major clinical lab (Health Diagnostic Laboratory, Richmond, Va.), and is helping hundreds of physicians manage cardiac risk for thousands of patients. Without the visionary work and tireless investigation of Dr. Dyerberg, the omega-3 index would not exist today.
I am thankful that these two highly qualified scientists-Drs. Dyer-berg and Passwater-have joined forces to bring the omega-3 story to the general public. You will enjoy the adventure that awaits you in these pages, and if you have ears to hear, you too can begin to enjoy the health benefits provided from these gifts from the sea.

William S. Harris, Ph.D. Sioux Falls, South Dakota February 2012
Preface
Dr. J rn Dyerberg s quest to find out why the high-fat diets of Eskimos resulted in less heart disease than the diets of their more Westernized brethren led to a serendipitous discovery that can help to protect many of us from heart disease. But, more importantly, Dr. Dyerberg s discovery has led to a new class of nutrients essential to all human health-more than just heart health!
Thanks to the research initiated by Dr. Dyerberg and his colleagues, we now know that the nutrients EPA (eicosapentaenoic acid) and DHA (docosahexaenoic acid) are required by the body for their unique vital functions. However, these omega-3 essential fatty acids are inadequate in modern diets and, furthermore, are continuing to disappear at an accelerated pace. Other nutrients, even of the same omega-3 family of fats, cannot perform the unique vital functions of EPA and DHA. These fatty acids are similar in many ways, but, as we will explain later, each has separate and independent functions. We must depend on our diets to provide adequate amounts of both EPA and DHA. Not just one or the other, but both.
While Western medicine was focusing on cholesterol and fats as the major cause of heart disease in the 1960s, the Eskimos were providing Dr. Dyerberg with a more important cause-and prevention-of heart disease and many other diseases and disorders.
In this book, we will travel with Dr. Dyerberg to Greenland as he and his colleagues unlock the clues to this health mystery that is proving to be the most important health discovery since vitamins. We will then look at the scientific research and many clinical studies that show the importance of this new class of nutrients to heart and artery health, to brain function and the prevention of dementias including Alzheimer s disease, and to the easing of arthritis and diabetes symptoms, and to keeping every cell in our bodies young.

1
Unlocking the Eskimos Nutritional Treas