The reason I didn’t include fish oil in my supplementation post is because I don’t see it as supplementary to your diet, I see it as essential!

We have long known that an improper balance of the omega-3 to omega-6 fatty acid ratio is a key factor in many illnesses and ailments that plague millions of people who are hooked on a Westernized diet. in fact, a study from The Center for Genetics, Nutrition and Health has shown that human beings evolved on a diet with a ratio of omega-6 to omega-3 essential fatty acids (EFA) of approximately 1 whereas in Western diets the ratio is 15/1-17/1. A prime reason for this deficiency in our omega-3 levels is due to our lowered consumption of cold-water fish.

The pile of research papers being published showing the benefits of taking about 2-15g (depending on body size) of high quality fish oil per day grows at an almost exponential rate, as well as the list of “itis’s” that seem to be prevented by taking a fish oil supplement and maintaining a healthy omega fatty-acid balance.

Still not convinced? Here are 7 proven omega 3 benefits you should know about:

1. Less Pain and Inflammation. Omega 3 fatty acids, particularly EPA, have a very positive effect on your inflammatory response. Through several mechanisms, they regulate your body’s inflammation cycle, which prevents and relieves painful conditions like arthritis, prostatitis, cystitis and anything else ending in “itis.”

2. Cardiovascular Health. Omega 3 fatty acids have also been proven to work wonders for your heart and the miles and miles of arteries and veins that make up your cardiovascular system. They help to lower cholesterol, tryglicerides, LDLs and blood pressure, while at the same time increasing good HDL cholesterol. This adds years to your life expectancy.

3. Protection from Stroke and Heart Attack. When plaque builds up on arterial walls and then breaks loose, it causes what’s known as a thrombosis, which is a fancy way of saying clot. If a clot gets stuck in the brain, it causes a stroke and when it plugs an artery, it causes a heart attack. Research shows omega 3 fatty acids break up clots before they can cause any damage.

4. Better Brain Function and Higher Intelligence. Pregnant and nursing mothers can have a great impact on the intelligence and happiness of their babies by supplementing with fish oil. For adults, omega 3 improves memory, recall, reasoning and focus. You’ll swear you’re getting younger and smarter.

5. Less Depression and Psychosis. Making you smarter is not all omega 3 does for your brain. Psychiatry department researchers at the University of Sheffield, along with many other research studies, found that omega 3 fish oil supplements “alleviate” the symptoms of depression, bipolar and psychosis (Journal of Affective Disorder Vol. 48(2-3);149-55).

6. Lower Incidence of Childhood Disorders. Just to show how fish oil fatty acids leave nobody out, studies show that children (and adults) with ADD and ADHD experience a greatly improved quality of life. And those with dyslexia, dyspraxia and compulsive disorders have gotten a new lease on life thanks to omega 3 oils.

7. Reduction of Breast, Colon and Prostate Cancer. And finally, omega 3 fish oil has been shown to help prevent three of the most common forms of cancer – breast, colon and prostate. Science tells us that omega 3s accomplish this in three ways. They stop the alteration from a normal healthy cell to a cancerous mass, inhibiting unwanted cellular growth and causing apoptosis, or cellular death, of cancer cells.

* The above list was taken from work by nutrition and physical therapy expert, Michael Byrd. Byrd writes about his pursuit of wellness, the extraordinary healing power of natural whole foods and many of fish oil’s benefits at this omega 3 web site.

Some other benefits that Byrd doesn’t mention are the effects that supplementing with fish oil can have on body composition. A study published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition showed that taking a daily intake of fish oil and regular exercise both reduce body fat and improve cardiovascular and metabolic health. The reason being that fish oil lowered triacylglycerols, increased HDL cholesterol, and improved endothelium-dependent arterial vasodilation, or, in understandable terms, lowered fat stores, increased good cholesterol levels, and improved blood flow.

Some things to look for when choosing a fish oil supplement:

Pharmaceutical Grade

• Check that your bottle of pharmaceutical grade fish oil has a Lot Number that has been posted on an official IFOS (International Fish Oil Standards) consumer report site such as IFOS.
• Check to ensure that you are buying a TG (natural) PGFO and not an EE (synthetic) PGFO.
• Check the ingredient label to ensure that the pharmaceutical grade fish oil has a 60% Omega-3 concentration and complies with the CRN and WHO standards.
• Ask your supplier for a Certificate of Analysis and look for its 5 star rating to confirm that the pharmaceutical grade fish oil has exceeded these international standards.

Oil Source

You want your fish oil to come from a source that is as close to the bottom of the food chain as possible. Heavy metals (such as mercury) that accumulate in the body’s of fish get amplified as they move up the food chain. Many commercially sold fish oil’s use wild salmon as their oil source however, as salmon is a predatory fish, it tends to have high trace levels of heavy metals.

Search for fish oils that are sourced from smaller fish species, like sardines and anchovies, that have eaten the omega rich algae directly.

Docosahexaenoic acid (DHA)

There are two main types of Omega 3 fatty acids found in fish oil, DHA and EPA. DHA plays a most vital role in promoting good health. More than half of our brain’s mass is made up of fats, and of these fats, DHA accounts for over half. This is one of the most reveling factors that show why DHA is so important to us.

It has been proven that numerous mental conditions such as depression, anxiety, mood swings, bipolar disorder, Alzheimer’s disease and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), among others, are caused due to a DHA deficiency. DHA is also the more important omega 3 in reducing tryglycerides (blood fats closely related to cholesterol) and in helping to reduce or prevent heart rhythm abnormalities, one of the major causes of heart disease deaths. Heart disease is accompanied by cardiovascular inflammation, and DHA has the most potent anti-inflammatory effect of the omega 3 oils. Memory and focus have also been proven to improve with consistent use of fish oil supplements. Therefore, if you want to benefit from fish oil supplements, make sure you are using one that has high DHA levels.

Related Topics

• Supplementation. Macronutrients vs. Micronutrients.
• Gary Taubes Defends Eating Fat.
• Milk. Part 1

Related Topics

• Supplementation. Macronutrients vs. Micronutrients.
• Milk. Part 1
• The Paleolithic Diet

Supplementation implies that you have a void in your basic diet that needs to be filled. It is a solution to a symptom, and not a cause.

Nutrition is at the foundation of health and well being, and every culture in the world already knows the secret to good health: You are what you eat!There is little room for argument surrounding the fact that your body can only repair and fuel your body with the food that you are feeding it. If you are feeding yourself refined, modified, denatured, and otherwise chemically altered variations of food, then how do you expect your body to perform? To use an analogy, would you pour dirty gas into your car and expect it to perform at an optimal level? Probably not.

To restate what I have said in earlier posts, food should not be broken down into micronutrients. There is a popular trend in the media right now to tout the latest magic bullet pill, vitamin, or antioxidant as the cure to X health risk. The problem with this approach is that our place in nature is a part of a larger system. Our genome didn’t evolve to eat the extracted vitamin C from citrus fruits, or isolate whey protein from milk, or iron pills, we evolved to eat the WHOLE FRUIT, and drink WHOLE MILK, and eat WHOLE VEGETABLES… seeing a trend here?

The three macronutrients of protein, carbohydrate, and fat are the building blocks of human life. Keeping your food in the rawest form you can before digestion ensures that you are getting as much nutrition as you can from the food you eat. Excessive heating, processing, and nutrient isolation removes much of the digestive enzymes from food that helps your body process and break down these foods into useful compounds. Without these enzymes, many foods get treated by the digestive system as a threat and trigger a stress response.

Supplements often lack many of the chemical components that allow the body to use them properly. To compensate for this, most supplements increase the amount of raw product you have you ingest to absorb a significant amount of whatever nutrient you are supplementing for. This practice can often lead to allergies caused by repetitive exposure to compounds that agitate the digestive system.

If you feel that you need to supplement your diet with a protein source, or vitamin, you should probably step back and take a look at where your real food diet is failing. A paleo based diet of meat, vegetable, nuts and seeds, some fruit, little starch and no sugar, combined with proper proportions for your body type, should be providing all of the macronutrients, and consequently all of the micronutrients that you need to thrive.

Related Topics

• Milk. Part 1
• The Paleolithic Diet
• Milk. Part 2

What is the truth behind chocolate milk? I have heard that it is better for you than regular milk, and that you should drink it after a hard work out.

The answer to this question requires some background information on milk, so lets take a step back and look at the broader topic of dairy in general.

The verdict on dairy’s effectiveness as a healthy nutrient source has not been passed yet. There seems to be a war raging between those for the consumption of milk, mainly the dairy industry, and those against it, mainly vegan activists, and People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA).

As in most wars unfortunately, truth is usually the first victim, and the dairy battle is no exception. Propaganda put out by both parties of the debate have left little room for objective investigation, and truthful reporting of the facts.

Milk, it would seem is yet another case of the West’s industrial complex destroying a food that was once a valuable source of nutrients. Much like beef, chicken, and pork, our quest to squeeze the most profits out of a resource has left it barren of nutrients, and full of unknown additives. This shift is not just happening in animal products. Fruits and vegetables have long been selected for genes that express themselves as the best looking, best tasting, and longest lasting produce. Sounds good doesn’t it? Unfortunately, these traits have come at the detriment of our nutrition and health, as nutrients were needlessly bred out in favour of a taste (Read: Higher sugar content).

Similarly, through the processeses of pasteurization and homogenization, milk has been effectively stripped of most of it’s natural enzymes and bacteria that are necessary for the proper digestion of dairy products.

Furthermore, the common misconception that fat is evil has lead to the mass production of reduced fat milk.

Never drink reduced fat milk. (skim, 1%, 2%…)

Fat is taken out milk through a process that over-heats the milk until is it becomes a powder. The fat is separated, and then water is added back to the powder until a milk like consistency returns. You are essentially drinking water with milk ingredients to it. Not milk.

The heat, and exposure to oxygen during the powdering process also damages cholesterol in the milk, which can cause injury to your arterial cells, as well as cause a pathological buildup of plaque in the arteries similar to having high triglycerides.

Heating milk also:

• Alters milks amino acids, lysine and tyrosine, making the proteins in milk less available for use.
• Lowers Vitamin C content as much as 50%.
• Lowers the water-soluable vitamin content as much as 80%.
• Destroys vitamin B12 completely.

To mention just a few…

These destroyed vitamins are added in artificially after the pasteurization and fat reduction processes so that they may appear on the nutrition label.

If you would still like to consume milk, your best option is to try and find a source of raw milk. Unfortunately, raw milk is illegal to buy in Canada, however, the option does exist to buy a share in a cow. Drinking raw milk from a cow that you own is not illegal. Also, cheese is still allowed to be made from unpasteurized, raw milk. Emmental and Gruyere are just a few of the options.

The second best alternative to raw milk is to buy whole milk, or switch to goats milk which can still be bought in a raw form.

It seems like many other foods, paying attention to the source is the best way to ensure you are eating quality dairy. Furthermore, just as our diet affects our health and performance, the diet of our dairy source is equally important. I will cover importance of what cows are built to eat, and how that is important to humans in the second part of this series.

I admit I have digressed from Shannon’s original question, but it was necessary to formulate a complete answer. As you have read, milk is a good source of protein and vitamins… in it’s original state. Commercial production however, has destroyed most of what is good about milk, and the nutrients that it does contain are artificially inserted backing into the milk product.
Also milk, being high in lecithin produces a high glycemic load, and thus a high insulin response. Adding chocolate syrup (sugar) to milk adds to insulin response, and should thus be avoided.

There was a study however, published in 2006 which indicated that chocolate milk aids in recovery when taken after intense athletic workouts. The study authors believe this to be due to its ratio of carbohydrates to protein, among other nutritional properties. The study was small in scale and partially funded by the dairy industry, but the results may warrant further study. (“Chocolate Milk: The New Sports Drink?”, Associated Press, 24 February 2006)

Related Topics

• Supplementation. Macronutrients vs. Micronutrients.
• The Paleolithic Diet
• Milk. Part 2

In the video Robb Wolf explains how our body’s resistance to insulin happens very much analogous to they way our olfactory reaction to perfume is very strong when we first smell a new scent. That smell fades however as our noses become desensitized to the perfume’s aroma. To experience the smell with the same intensity as the first inhale, we either have to increase the amount of perfume (similar to having to increase drug dosages to maintain effectiveness), or decrease our exposure to it. The sad reality is that most people choose the former when it comes to insulin levels.

When insulin resistance occurs, the body has trouble releasing the energy that it has already stored in fat cells, and thus asks for more food to burn as instant energy in the form of hunger pangs. If this demand is satiated by carbohydrates, as is common in North American eating habits, the cycle continues to repeat itself, and fat stores grow while energy levels need continuous “topping-up” with more carbs.

To elaborate what I said in the post on the insulin response, eating low Glycemic Index (GI) carbohydrates, in conjunction with fats and protein, will keep your blood glucose levels low, and thus maintain a normal insulin response.

You body is stuck in an evolutionary past where sugar was relatively non-existent. Due to this environmental scarcity, when a sugar source was eaten your digestive system became very good at instantly storing it as fat, not knowing when the next opportunity for such a high energy intake would be.

If you would not like to be in a constant battle with your genetics, limit your intake of high GI carbs, and cut the refined sugar.

Robb Wolf is both a scientist and athlete as a personal trainer at NorCal Strength & Conditioning. Robb is an NSCA Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist. In addition, he is a USAW Olympic Weightlifting coach, and a certified CrossFit Coach, the highest level of CrossFit training certification, possessed only by a handful of strength & conditioning coaches throughout the world.

Additionally, Robb is co-publisher and editor-in-chief of The Performance Menu.

Related Topics

• Milk. Part 1
• Supplementation. Macronutrients vs. Micronutrients.
• The Insulin Response

To answer this question, let’s look back into our past for a minute.

What we know as humans (the genus Homo in one form or another) have been on Earth for about 2 million years, and their predecessors were here up to 7 million years ago.  Combined, these early humans had around 9 million years to adapt to a diet that remained relatively unchanged for most of that time.  We became, through millions of years of evolutionary trial and error, a species of omnivores who were able to derive energy from both plants an animals. This ability to eat a variety of foods allowed us to maximize our energy intake from our surroundings, but it also helped keep our population in check, because only a certain amount of calories could be obtained from hunted animals, and foraged plants (many plants in their raw forms, like grains, beans and potatoes, are inedible and even toxic to humans).

This all changed around 10,000 years ago however, with the remarkable discovery of cooking. Cooking granted us access to calorie rich food such as grains, beans, and potatoes because the heat destroyed enough of the toxins and enzyme blockers to render these plants edible, forever changing human histroy, and in turn, our diet. The effect of cooking had an enormous effect on our food intake- perhaps doubling the number of calories that we could obtain from the plant foods in our environment. Other advantages were soon obvious with these foods:

• they could store for long periods (refrigeration of course being unavailable in those days)

• they were dense in calories- i.e. a small weight contains a lot of calories, enabling easy transport

• the food was also the seed of the plant- later allowing ready farming of the species

These advantages made it much easier to store and transport food. We could more easily store food for winter, and for nomads and travelers to carry supplies. Food storage also enabled surpluses to be stored, and this in turn made it possible to free some people from food gathering to become specialists in other activities, such as builders, warriors and rulers. This also caused an explosion in the human population and in turn set us on the course to modern day civilization. Agriculture, factory farming, and the refining and processing of food into… something other than food, were technologies what were soon to follow.

What does this mean for me?

For millions of year our bodies had to adapt to eating mostly meat, fish, fowl, and the leaves, roots, and fruits of many plants. This diet has been coded into our DNA, and it is the diet that humans function most optimally on. Proof of this can be found in the few remaining hunter-gatherer tribes still living in the world. Most, if not all are strong, fast, have straight teeth and perfect eyesight. Also, cases of arthritis, diabetes, hypertension, heart disease, stroke, depression, schizophrenia and cancer are also absolute rarities.

The common factor: Lack of exposure to a Western diet!

So why fight your genes? If you need a diet to follow, why not follow the one that your body has been designed by time for?

How do I follow a Paleolithic Diet?

I will borrow from CrossFit’s Greg Glassman on this one. He has very succinctly reduced the Paleo way of eating into a few simple words.

Eat meats and vegetables, nuts and seeds, some fruit, little starch, and NO sugar.

That’s all folks. So simple a 5 year old could figure it out. Memorize this line, ingrain it in your mind, tattoo it on your body if you must. These words: Eat meats and vegetables, nuts and seeds, some fruit, little starch, and NO sugar, should ring in your head every time you are thinking about food.

To elaborate a little, what Coach Glassman is saying when he shortened the Paleo diet to this simple sentence is:

• Try and keep your food shopping to the perimeter of the grocery store.
• If it comes in a box, or needs a nutrition label to tell you what is in it, IT’S NOT FOOD!
• If doesn’t expire, IT’S NOT FOOD!
• If you are eating out, get extra veggies and skip the potatoes, fries, sweet potatoes, etc.
• Do not eat grains, pasta, bread, rice or beans, all of which wouldn’t have been available to our Paleo ancestors.
• Make sure you are eating enough good fats. (Fish Oil especially!)

Yes this is a low carbohydrate diet, and what carbs you do consume should be coming from green, leafy vegetables. More on why we should all be lowering our carb intake can be found in my article on triglycerides. Also, as mentioned above, evidence of the lower-carb, Paleo diets effects on the body can be seen in the body compositions of the few remaining indigenous tribes scattered throughout the world.

More details about the Paleo way of eating can be found in Loren Corain’s excellent book: The Paleo Diet: Lose Weight and Get Healthy by Eating the Food You Were Designed to Eat.

The final word.

For every food decision you make, ask yourself this question first: Would a caveman have eaten that?

We may not live in a Paleolithic world, but our body, and it’s biological process are very much a relic of that era. On the time line of human history, our advances in food technology are very recent (2 million vs. 10,000 years), and with evolution being a slow process, our bodies haven’t had a change to catch up to our brains.

Related Topics

• Supplementation. Macronutrients vs. Micronutrients.
• Milk. Part 1
• Paleo Diet in a Nutshell.

When you eat a carbohydrate, your body breaks it down into simple sugars known as glucose, which is an instant energy source for your cells. The glucose in your blood stream triggers an insulin response, and your cells open up to take in energy. When your cells have absorbed all the glucose that they need, the excess is converted to glycogen via the liver. Glycogen gets stored in your muscles ready for the next time you exert yourself physically. The more muscle you have, the more glycogen you can store, this is why bodybuilders can consume massive amounts of carbs.

Once your muscles have had their fill of glycogen, the excess is sent back through the liver to be converted into triglycerides to be stored as fat. And as is evident from the high obesity rates in North America, the body can always find a place for more fat.

Note: Not all fat is created equal…

Some triglycerides, like those resulting from the breakdown of trans and saturated fats, are not stored as fat, but remain in your blood stream. This is where the problem with triglycerides lies. All this excess material floating around in your blood will cause it to thicken and become sludgy, which increases the chances of blockage or clots forming. The result of which can be a heart attack of stroke.

So what can I do to reduce my triglyceride levels?
The common misconception, and the one that has been propagated by the media, is that since triglycerides are essentially fat, then fat should just be avoided in the diet… right? WRONG!
Your body needs fat to maintain optimal functioning as there are many processes that NEED fat to take place, vitamin absorption, joint lubrication, and building cell membranes and hormones for example.

That being said, you should however avoid the bad kinds of fat – transfats and hydrogenated oils found in margarine, processed and refined foods and fast food. These transfats are chemically altered substances, and as such your body does not know how to handle them properly. They are foreign to the body and therefore dangerous to your health.

The real answer: CUT THE CARBS!!! (And get some fish oil).

Fact: Your body does not need carbohydrates to function. Carbs are not used as a structural component in the body like protein and fat; they are only used as a form of fuel. Moreover, humans can, and have existed quite easily without ever eating carbohydrates, and excess glucose in the blood stream is actually toxic to humans unless being burned immediately as a fuel. Since out hunter/gatherer anscestors did not have access to as many carbohydrates as we do today, (and because the Twinkie hadn’t been invented yet) our bodies developed several mechanisms for generating glucose from consumed sources of fat and protein.

Study after study is being released in support of a lowered carbohydrate diet, and proving the link between carbs and triglycerides. According to a publication by P.K. Reissell’s group at Harvard in 1966, it was clearly established that Omega 3 fatty acids and Vitamin C, combined with a low carbohydrate diet, can dramatically reduce your triglyceride levels. Omega 3 fatty acids can help with cholesterol as well.

In summary:

1) Consuming carbohydrates creates high glucose levels in the blood stream, and excess glucose, once your cells have had their fill,  turns into triglycerides.

2) Fat does not make you fat. Fat consumption causes no insulin response, and as a result promotes the burning of both dietary and stored fat as fuel. And since the storing of fat only occurs if insulin tells your cells to open up, and only eating carbs/sugar can make that happen, replacing carbohydrates with good fats will help your body function properly, and help you REDUCE fat stores.

3) Following a no-fat diet is dangerous, as is eating too many carbohydrates. Your body needs fat to function, it does not need consumed carbohydrates, and is very capable at producing it’s own from fat stores.

Get your triglyceride levels checked
Make sure you get your triglyceride levels checked as part of your next blood test. Whether or not your triglyceride levels are high, you should do your part to keep levels down, following the tips on this page.

The normal level of triglycerides in your blood should be up to 199mg/dL. This is the level of triglycerides in the average healthy person.

The optimal level of triglycerides in your blood should be under 100mg/dL.

Related Topics

• Milk. Part 1
• The Paleolithic Diet
• Gary Taubes Defends Eating Fat.