Table of Contents
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Classical Essential Fatty Acid Deficiency
EFA Deficiency Required Refined Diets High in Sugar
Arachidonic Acid Is What's Missing
Arachidonic Acid is the Animal Form of EFAs
Biotin and B6 Help Cure Deficiency
Arachidonic Acid is Needed for Cellular Decision-Making
Stomach Health, Immune Health, Balancing Inflammation, Confidence, Anxiety, and
Exploration
The Dangers of Anti-Inflammatories
How Much Do We Need?
Poor Conversion or Activation is Far More Common Than Absolute Deficiency
Vegan Arachidonic Acid Supplements?
Who Should Worry?
Anti-Inflammatories and Poor Activation
Is There a Toxic Dose?
Wrapping Up
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10
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Today we are covering part 1 of the essential fatty acids, focusing on omega-6. Omega-3 will come
out tomorrow.
These are similar to vitamins in many ways, but technically they are types of fat! So we are covering
them here, tucked between the vitamins and minerals.
Do you ever have red, itchy, scaly skin? Dandruff? Does your hair fall out? Does your sex drive run
low?
Classical Essential Fatty Acid Deficiency
These are the types of things that happen to lab rats when they are deficient in the essential fatty
acids. This is what happened to the poor rats:
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They developed irritated, sore, and scaly skin, dandruff, and hair loss.
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Their tails were inflamed, swollen, scaled and ridged, and were hemorrhaging in certain
spots.
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Their kidneys got hurt and they started peeing blood.
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They drank what seemed like way too much water, yet didn't pee any more than usual
because the water just evaporated from their skin.
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The males lost interest in sex, stopped producing sperm, and their testosterone tanked.
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The females stopped ovulating, couldn't get pregnant, and their levels of both estrogen and
progesterone tanked.
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The females developed enlarged adrenals, giving them an exaggerated response to stress.
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The adrenals of the males shrunk, making them unable to mount any response to stress.
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They ate more food, but gained less weight. Sounds nice at first! Eventually, though, they
lost so much weight they died.
EFA Deficiency Required Refined Diets High in Sugar
To make these animals so deficient, they had to do a LOT. The earliest attempts to feed rats fat-free
diets simply produced very healthy rats. No problems. It was only when they started making diets
from highly purified ingredients that they stumbled into essential fatty acid (EFA) deficiency.
The early fat-free diets that produced healthy rats were made from meat residue and starch, with
yeast and alfalfa for vitamins. The diets that produced EFA deficiency were made from milk protein
and sugar that had undergone repeated rounds of purification, with yeast and fat-free extracts of cod
liver oil and wheat germ for vitamins.
None of the known vitamins could cure the deficiency, nor could coconut oil. Butter cured it in very
large amounts. Cod liver oil helped a handful of the symptoms but left many uncured. Lard, corn oil,
flax oil, and olive oil all proved fully curative in relatively modest amounts.
But the KING was...
👑
Liver! 👑
Arachidonic Acid Is What's Missing
It turned out that EFA deficiency could also be cured with two specific fatty acids.
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Fatty acids are the building blocks of larger molecules that make up the oil and fat we eat. Oils like
olive oil and fats like butter are almost pure fat. Virtually all foods, though, contain at least some fat,
and the foods with more fat have richer tastes and textures.
As we discussed in the lesson on vitamin E, there are three types of fatty acids:
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Saturated, richest in fats that are solid at room temperature.
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Monounsaturated, richest in oils that are liquid at room temperature but solid in the
refrigerator.
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Polyunsaturated, richest in oils that stay liquid in the refrigerator.
In the lesson on vitamin E, we discussed how the polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) are uniquely
vulnerable to damage, and how vitamin E has just one job: to protect them. While vulnerable, it is
these PUFAs that are essential.
There are many fatty acids within the PUFA class, but they can be broken down into two families:
the omega-3s and the omega-6s Although many people think of omega-3s as "good fats" and
omega-6s as "bad fats," it is the omega-6s, not the omega-3s, that cure the classical syndrome of
EFA deficiency that we have been talking about. Linoleic acid, found mainly in plant oils, and
arachidonic acid, found mainly in liver and egg yolks, are the two omega-6 PUFAs that cure the
deficiency.
Arachidonic Acid is the Animal Form of EFAs
Just like carotenoids, the plant form of vitamin A, have to be turned into retinol, the animal form, and
just like pyridoxine, the plant form of B6, has to be turned into pyridoxal, the animal form, linoleic
acid has to be turned into arachidonic acid to cure essential fatty acid deficiency. The conversion is a
three-step process requiring vitamin B6 and biotin.
Purified linoleic acid cured EFA deficiency at just over two percent of calories, but purified
arachidonic acid was effective at only one-third the amount. Purifying individual fatty acids for these
lab experiments damaged them in ways that increased the requirement, and foods were more
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effective. Lard cured EFA deficiency when it supplied 0.4% of calories as linoleic acid. Liver cured it
when it supplied only 0.06% of calories as arachidonic acid!
Biotin and B6 Help Cure Deficiency
Why is liver such a boss? About half of its PUFA is arachidonic acid, unlike lard, which has mostly
linoleic acid, AND it supplies boatloads of biotin and lots of B6 to help the conversion.
In fact, just giving rats extra B6 could often cure EFA deficiency. This is because they had plenty of
linoleic acid stored in their own fat tissue. They could dig into those stores, and with enough B6 they
could convert the linoleic acid into arachidonic acid.
Arachidonic Acid is Needed for Cellular Decision-Making
Like vitamins A and D, and the MK-4 form of vitamin K, arachidonic acid helps with cellular
decision-making.
Arachidonic acid is first stored in the oily membranes that enclose our cells and all of their internal
compartments. When needed, we release it from the membrane, and then activate it by converting it
into one of a number of different possible byproducts that all help with cellular decision-making in
their own unique way.
One of the effects these byproducts have is to allow cells to create bridges between one another that
allow them to cooperate, and to create barriers that seal the spaces between each other to prevent
things from slipping through. This helps water-proof the skin, prevents things from sliding right
through the skin that should be kept out, and keeps food particles from getting into your blood before
you have the chance to fully digest them.
However, while omega-3 fatty acids tended to make most of those problems worse, they actually
helped with the weight loss and early death. The reason the poor rats ate so much and kept losing
weight is because the energy-production machinery within the membranes of their mitochondria,
those powerhouses of the cell, got jammed up. Just like PUFAs keep an oil liquid even in the
refrigerator, any PUFA, whether it is omega-3 or omega-6, will help keep cellular membranes nice
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and fluid. It appears we need some minimum amount of fluidity in our membranes to keep energy
production running smoothly.
Stomach Health, Immune Health, Balancing Inflammation, Confidence,
Anxiety, and Exploration
We now know that these decision-facilitating byproducts of arachidonic acid do a number of other
things:
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They keep the lining of the stomach strong, preventing ulcers.
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They teach the immune system to tolerate foods, preventing allergies and food intolerances.
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They can dilate blood vessels or cause the blood to clot.
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They initiate inflammation, protecting against infection, and help get rid of inflammation once
the need for it has passed.
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In the brain, arachidonic acid is used to make calming chemicals that decrease anxiety,
increase confidence, and increase the degree to which we will reach out of our comfort zone
to explore the possibilities that life has to offer us.
The Dangers of Anti-Inflammatories
Unfortunately, despite all the good things it can do, the ability of arachidonic acid to light the fire of
inflammation, so critical to our defense against infection, means that it can also cause lots of
discomfort:
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headaches
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menstrual cramps
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almost any other type of pain
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itching
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redness
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swelling
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This has led to the development of a huge and wildly popular set of drugs that stop us from taking
arachidonic acid out of our membranes and activating it into the byproducts that help with cellular
decision-making.
These are the nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs). They include aspirin, ibuprofen
(Motrin, Advil), and naproxen. Acetaminophen (Tylenol) is not considered an NSAID, but it does
have a similar effect. Many natural foods and herbs contain salicylates, which are aspirin-like
substances that act similarly to NSAIDs. EPA, an omega-3 fatty acid found in fish and fish oil, also
acts like an NSAID. It is well known that NSAIDs can cause damage to the stomach, including
ulcers.
We also have some studies in laboratory animals suggesting that while they do reduce peak
inflammation, they prevent us from ever fully resolving inflammation, leaving us with chronic,
persistent, low-level inflammation. Chronic inflammation is thought to play a role in many different
diseases.
Although we have no direct evidence of this, we should be suspicious that excessive use of
anti-inflammatories could also contribute to dandruff, skin problems, hair loss, infertility, low sex
drive, a dysfunctional stress response, or any of the other features of EFA deficiency.
How Much Do We Need?
So, how much do we need? Under most circumstances, not too much.
Let's consider what it took to give rats EFA deficiency:
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Lots of sugar. Sugar promotes oxidative stress, which both destroys PUFA in general and
also hurts the conversion of linoleic acid to arachidonic acid.
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An active state of growth. Young growing rats, pregnant rats, and rats that refeed after an
extended period of starvation can all become EFA deficient. Adult rats that aren't growing
cannot.
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Mediocre nutrition. For example, the fact that B6 could cure EFA deficiency shows that the
rats weren't getting enough B6.
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Now let's consider how much was needed, even in the context of growing rats fed enormous
amounts of sugar with mediocre vitamin status. Extrapolating from the rat studies, a human eating
2000 Calories per day would require one gram of linoleic acid or 133 milligrams of arachidonic acid.
It has been very hard to show EFA deficiency in humans, and there is no reason to suggest we need
more than those rats. The only attempt to induce EFA deficiency in an adult human ever performed
was in 1938 when a biochemist volunteered. He consumed three quarts of defatted milk, a quart of
cottage cheese made from it, sugar, potato starch, orange juice, and some vitamin and mineral
supplements. Rather than experiencing adverse effects, he experienced a marked absence of
fatigue, a normalization of his high blood pressure, and the complete disappearance of the migraines
he had suffered from since childhood.
EFA deficiency has been observed in human infants fed formula made mostly from corn syrup with a
little bit of skim milk. They suffered from poor growth, increased infections, and scaly skin. They
cured it with butter or with isolated linoleic acid, using the same doses that would have cured the
rats.
So, let's go with our original calculation from the more detailed experiments with rats: one gram of
linoleic acid or 133 milligrams of arachidonic acid for every 2000 Calories.
Even 2000 Calories of enriched, white flour has over two grams of linoleic acid. 2000 Calories of
potatoes has over one gram. 2000 Calories of coconut oil, the lowest-PUFA oil on the market,
provides at least 4 grams of linoleic acid.
There are two foods with zero EFAs: sugar, and fully hydrogenated oils. Hydrogenation is a process
that converts unsaturated fats into saturated fats. Partial hydrogenation has been more common
than full hydrogenation, and this produces both saturated fats and trans fats. Partially hydrogenated
oils actually have plenty of linoleic acid, but they are currently being phased out of our food supply
because of the unhealthy effects of trans fats. It is fully hydrogenated oils that completely eliminate
EFAs, and these are found in some processed foods. 2000 Calories of sugar, fully hydrogenated oil,
or some combination of the two, would fail to provide even one gram of linoleic acid.
Obviously any diet composed mostly of natural, whole foods, will provide more than one gram of
linoleic acid. I have shown you the extreme of low-fat (flour, potatoes) and low-PUFA (coconut oil).
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Including higher-fat foods such as any animal products, nuts, seeds, avocados, olives, or any added
fats or oils, will provide more, and will even help you make up for including some sugar in your diet.
Poor Conversion or Activation is Far More Common Than Absolute
Deficiency
While few if any of us need to worry about not getting enough linoleic acid, many of us will need to
worry about two things:
❌
Poor conversion of linoleic acid to arachidonic acid.
❌
Poor conversion of arachidonic acid to its byproducts that help with cellular decision-making.
Let's tackle these one at a time. We'll start with poor conversion of linoleic acid to arachidonic acid.
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As mentioned before, biotin and B6 are needed for the conversion. As discussed in the
lesson on B6, riboflavin is needed to get B6 from plant foods. This might explain why all
three B vitamin deficiencies share inflamed, scaly skin as a common symptom with EFA
deficiency.
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Sugar hurts the conversion. Watch your sweet tooth!
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Reheated vegetable oils hurt the conversion. Stay away from the deep fried foods in
restaurants!
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Calories, protein, and carbs boost the conversion. Eat enough of each.
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Insulin boosts the conversion. Diabetics either don't have enough (type 1) or are resistant
(type 2).
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Calcium deficiency hurts the conversion.
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Zinc deficiency might also hurt the conversion.
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Some people have poor conversion because of their genetics.
Since so many things hurt the conversion, it makes sense to shoot for at least 133 milligrams of
arachidonic acid for every 2000 Calories. You can get this from 2 large egg yolks or 100 grams of
liver.
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Vegan Arachidonic Acid Supplements?
Vegans, or those who cannot or will not eat liver and eggs, can use arachidonic acid supplements
derived from the fungus Mortierella Alpina. Vegans should check with the manufacturer to ensure
the entire production process is vegan.
Who Should Worry?
Who should be worried about meeting this requirement?
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Growing children
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Pregnant or nursing women
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People recovering from injury
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Bodybuilders in a gaining phase
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Anyone suffering from a disease
Most of these people are growing. The pregnant and nursing mothers are fueling growth. Disease
states often involve inflammation or oxidative stress, which deplete EFAs.
While 133 mg arachidonic acid for every 2000 Calories is a good starting place, you can try more if
you have any signs or symptoms of EFA deficiency, and keep your intake higher if it helps.
Anti-Inflammatories and Poor Activation
The second problem is poor conversion of arachidonic acid to the byproducts responsible for curing
EFA deficiency. To avoid confusion with the first conversion problem, let's call this "activation."
As mentioned before, activation is hurt by NSAIDs, acetaminophen, most natural anti-inflammatories
in foods and herbs, and the EPA in fish and fish oil. We can add calcium deficiency to this list. In this
case, the problem could apply to anyone, regardless of whether they are growing or suffering from a
disease state. And the solution would not be to get extra arachidonic acid, but rather to remove the
thing that's hurting its activation.
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Is There a Toxic Dose?
Although there is no clearly defined toxic dose of any of the EFAs, we covered a good reason to
avoid getting more than you need in the lesson on vitamin E: they are vulnerable to oxidative
damage and raise the need for vitamin E, but vitamin E cannot fully protect them. Therefore, it
makes sense to limit these fatty acids to what you would get when you pursue your other essential
nutrients from whole foods, and whatever extra you may have to add to resolve signs of deficiency.
Wrapping Up
To wrap up:
✅EFA
deficiency causes dandruff; inflamed, scaly skin; hair loss; low sex drive and infertility; low
sex hormones; a blunted stress response in males and an exaggerated stress response in
females.
✅
EFA deficiency is cured by linoleic acid or arachidonic acid, both of which are omega-6
PUFAs.
✅
Arachidonic acid is what's needed. Linoleic acid is just a precursor.
✅
Arachidonic acid is also needed for stomach health, to prevent food intolerances, defense
against infection, resolution of chronic inflammation, and the confidence to explore the world
without anxiety.
✅
EFA deficiency is mainly a concern for growing children, pregnant or nursing mothers,
bodybuilders in a gaining phase, and those dealing with chronic diseases or recovering from
disease or injury.
✅
One gram of linoleic acid or 133 mg arachidonic acid for every 2000 Calories are sufficient in
most cases.
✅
Any diet of natural, whole foods will provide one gram of linoleic acid, but 133 mg arachidonic
acid requires 2 egg yolks or 100 grams of liver. Fungi-derived supplements might be vegan.
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✅
Meeting the target for arachidonic acid is an insurance policy against poor conversion from
linoleic acid.
✅
Poor conversion can be caused by genetics; diabetes; insulin resistance; inadequate protein,
calories, or carbs; inadequate biotin, B6, riboflavin, calcium, or zinc; sugar; or reheated vegetable
oils.
✅
Activation of arachidonic acid can be hurt by NSAIDs, acetaminophen, natural
anti-inflammatories from foods or herbs, or EPA from fish or fish oil.
✅
Anyone at any life stage should be concerned with activation and the solution is to reduce the
things impairing activation.
✅
Adjust your approach for increasing intakes of linoleic acid or arachidonic acid, or removing
factors that impair the activation of arachidonic acid, according to what helps improve anything
that seems like EFA deficiency symptoms. Don't use more than you need.
Allright, that's it for part 1! See you tomorrow for part 2 on the omega-3s! 😊
Class dismissed,
Chris
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