I bought some and started taking it and my 1:1 bullet chess ELO jumped from 850 to ~1070 over the next couple weeks.
I play chess a bit like sushi ginger for the mind - purge working memory with a short intense task to context switch. I intentionally don't study openings or anything so I can use it as a benchmark for mental horsepower with a reasonably slow drift in the baseline from 'actually learning chess'.
My friend says this effect is way too big to actually attribute to the vitamins and it has to be placebo etc but I'm thoroughly enjoying the idea that omega-3 Nick would win 3/4 bullet matches against deficient Nick.
https://www.chess.com/member/nickparkerprint/stats/bullet?da...
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/jan/17/revealed...
Open to other omega 3’s if there’s any recommendations.
Kirkland Signature Fish Oil provides 151.8 mg EPA and 119.1 mg DHA per tablet, totaling 270.9 mg EPA+DHA (Softgel).
Prescription Lovaza (Rx)* provides 465 mg EPA and 375 mg DHA per tablet, totaling 840 mg EPA+DHA (Softgel (Rx)).
Prescription Vascepa (Rx)* provides 960 mg EPA and <40 mg DHA per tablet, totaling ~960 mg EPA+DHA (Softgel (Rx)).
It can be a lot of pills time wise as well.
I have heard of that brand too - quality matters.
Omega 3 containing sufficient DHA is studied to reduce inflammation in the brain as well has help with other cognitive processes.
Another one I had read is the insulin spike after a meal can be lowered significantly by having one omega-3 with each meal.
I’ll try to circle back with a few of the studies.
With that written, generally the literature indicates that somewhere around 1-2G daily of EPA/DHA is in the range of what is fringe mainstream. There is a lot of variance around this and a lot of debate. For example, you'll get a debate about the ability of the body to convert 22 EPA into 24 DHA, so some will push DHA as the preferred source for the body.
I agree that for now there is no better evidence about which is the optimal daily intake.
Quantities about 10 times less than this might be sufficient to avoid any obvious signs of nutritional deficiency, but are unlikely to be optimal.
The capacity of converting ALA from vegetable oil into DHA and EPA may vary a lot between humans and it is typically lower in males than in females and also lower in older people than in young people.
The less risky choice is to ensure that you eat enough DHA+EPA. Perhaps one does not need 1 to 2 g of DHA+EPA daily, but eating it is unlikely to be harmful, while not eating it carries definite risks.
I don’t mind taking them so I kept the Omega 3s and started taking others for my LDL issues.
Good omega-3 oil has a pleasant taste, there is really no need to eat capsules made from chemically-modified cellulose or who knows what other material that is not suitable as food.
The omega-3 oil can be mixed with whatever oil you add to your food, e.g. to a salad.
The pure oil is cheaper and you can feel its taste without having to break capsules. Moreover you do not have to ingest capsules made of dubious substances, besides the desired oil.
Once opened (but preferably also before) such an oil bottle should be kept in a refrigerator.
Some bottled oil includes flavors, e.g. lemon, which mask its natural taste. Unflavored omega 3 oil is preferable.
I didn't know about the rancidity problem, thank you. Knew about the contamination issue. To avoid it, I tried to source oil derived from sources lower in the food chain, either vegan algae oil, or krill oil. But krill oil is super expensive, when compared to fish oil, with lower levels of EPA/DHA per capsule. The problem with algae oil it's that those I've found contain only DHA. Not sure about the relative importance between EPA/DHA, although.
"Algae oil" is a marketing term that has been chosen for sounding better, especially to vegans, than "Schizochytrium oil" or "oil from stramenopiles".
Schizochytrium is an organism somewhat similar to a fungus, but which is not a fungus and it is distantly related to brown algae and diatoms (but unlike those, it is not an alga; it never had chloroplasts acquired by symbiosis).
The first cultivated strains of Schizochytrium produced only DHA, but now there are strains that also produce EPA. At least in Europe, you can easily find Schizochytrium oil that contains DHA + EPA in a 2:1 proportion. For most humans, especially for most males, both DHA and EPA are needed, because the capacity of interconversion between them is typically insufficient in comparison with what is needed.
However, even if it has become cheaper in recent years, Schizochytrium oil remains about 3 times more expensive than fish oil, per its fatty acid content. There are also many vendors that try to deceive their customers by selling diluted oil at about the same price as the decent vendors, therefore at a price many times higher per the fatty acid content.
In Europe, in recent years I have preferred Möller's Pure Cod Liver Oil, which is quite tasty, either alone or added to food. Using bottled oil is much better than using capsules. Besides being cheaper and not ingesting garbage capsules, tasting the oil makes certain that it neither is rancid nor has any suspect content. This is also true for Schizochytrium oil. Many decades ago, cod liver oil had a reputation of something that children were forced to eat, despite its bad taste. This is completely untrue nowadays, when the oil is made either immediately after catching or from fish that have been frozen immediately after catching, so the oil has not degraded and it retains a pleasant taste.
If Schizochytrium oil will become cheaper, i.e. with a price not more than double in comparison with pure cod liver oil, then I will switch to it, removing from my diet the only ingredient that is obtained by killing animals.
I use it as a stupidity meter. If I play a series of bad bullet games, I’m more cautious about my decision making that day.
Heavy metal contamination is classically not a problem because the fish oil is distilled. My guess is your researcher friend has fallen victim to the marketing of the pharmacological industry-- Although I do want to indicate they do have value, probably not the 500 percent markup that they put on what in essence is a generic product.
Some natural fish oils are not distilled and do have this problem-- These are normally marketed as natural or cod liver oil or something that should hit your radar pretty quick. Your friend's concern about rancidity is clearly a problem And pretty well understood by people for years if you have any familiarity with chemistry. Omega threes get their name from the fact that you have a weird bend on the end of a long carbon molecule. This is susceptible to oxidation. This is true for any Omega 3 molecule regardless of its length Or it's sourcing.
This includes omega-3 "drugs" like Vascepa (pure EPA) and Lovaza (EPA and DHA combination).
Fortunately in testing, they have not found widespread issues with rancidity, although they definitely have found pockets. My normal suggestion to everybody is by a high volume manufacturer that you know is tearing through the product quite rapidly. My top suggestion is Costco. Then make sure you keep your fish oil in the refrigerator, and churn through it on a regular basis.
You're not getting as much fish oil from sashimi as someone taking concentrated pills every day. However, whether or not it matters is a different story. The benefits of fish oil appear be inversely proportional to the size of the study (as in this 1000-person study that has some hints of p-hacking) so I wouldn't worry about it.
However I started taking creatine this summer to help with my recovery from running now that I'm older. I will say I feel it's done more for my cognitive function than the omega-3 did.
Huh, did you also have to get any laser surgery done to get rid of them totally? My research always indicated that once you had floaters, they were basically just there forever and your brain just learned to work around them.
Blepharitis is just the worst.
My diet does lack seafood overall. While I love salmon my family doesn't. If we eat seafood it's mainly catfish and shrimp though, as we are in Louisiana.
Wouldn't wild caught have more heavy metals?
Moreover, due to the great human stupidity of dumping everything where "it becomes the problem of others", now it has become the problem of everybody that what were previously among the healthiest foods, i.e. most food items of marine origin, nowadays carry significant health risks, due to possible mercury content.
Omega-3 saved me from the fate of my family, dying from a heart attack before I was 50.
And I see this need in my genetics, specifically FADS1 FADS2 polymorphisms that make me need higher chain omega-3 fatty acids like from seafood.
Things don’t have have to be proven universally for every human, but omega 3 seems pretty universal.
https://fs.blog/knowledge-project-podcast/dr-rhonda-patrick/
Wonder if this is related.
Vitamin D, Omega 3, and possibly Magnesium and Creatine.
So I stopped taking a daily multivitamin and I just take modest doeses of these 4 supplemements every day.
Vitamin D supplementation is mildly helpful for those with low baseline levels. However the benefits have been exaggerated across the internet and podcasts. A lot of studies show no measured reduction in things like frequency of respiratory infections ( https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38178229/ for example, which funnily enough had the Vitamin D3 treated men getting more respiratory infections).
Omega 3 has also been greatly exaggerated. Later large scale studies have shown minimal to no effects.
Magnesium is another one that can be helpful for those who are deficient, but due to the long duration within the body a lot of the supplement fanatics who consume large doses of magnesium might be getting too much over time. Gwern did some self-experimentation where magnesium might have possibly been net negative over time: https://gwern.net/nootropic/magnesium
Creatine is the latest trend. If you believe the latest trends you need to consume a huge amount daily and it will fight off everything from depression to low energy. This is another one where the most impressive studies are all very small, but the larger the study the less impressive the results. The influencers only talk about the small, impressive studies, of course.
The culture is slowly coming to terms with empiricism.
If a supplement doesn't provide a benefit (as in you notice when you forget to take it), and it doesn't affect a biomarker that you measure and care about, then don't take it. Simple as.
They find that one of the nutrient factors studied is positively correlated with improved vision at p=0.01. https://xkcd.com/882/
Omega-3 and fish oil stories always attract a lot of impossibly positive claims, but real-world studies are rarely as good as the anecdotes.
I would also caution people that fish oil isn't entirely benign to supplement with, despite common wisdom suggesting it's risk-free. Fish oil supplements can induce depressive-like symptoms in some people and high dose fish oil is a known trigger for mania in certain people with mood disorders. You can find countless puzzled posts from people wondering why fish oil is making them feel bad: https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Areddit.com+fish+oil+m...
These outcomes are unlikely, but watch for them. It's really sad when someone is taking high dose fish oil because they're desperate and all of the influencers say it's good for depression, then months later they run out of pills for a few days and are surprised that they feel better.
Before I get accused of exaggerating anecdotes, there are also randomized clinical trials with an order of magnitude more patients than this study that show a slight increase in depression, opposite of the expected reduction in mood disorders: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2787320
I was unable to access the OP's source, but I do want to point out there are ω-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids with different nutrient characteristics. Thanks be to Chat G for banging this out, but I like many people have had this drilled in.
ALA (α-linolenic acid, 18:3 n-3) is an essential fatty acid. It's nutritional role is primarily as a precursor to the other ω-3 PUFAs, humans can elongate and desaturate ALA into longer-chain ω-3s (EPA, DPA, DHA), but the conversion efficiency is very limited (<5% to EPA, <1% to DHA for most people). ALA cannot be converted from EPA, DHA, or DPA. Sources are primarily plant oils (flaxseed, chia, walnuts, canola, soy).
EPA (eicosapentaenoic acid, 20:5 n-3) is (conditionally) essential. Its role is anti-inflammatory, a precursor for resolvins, cardiovascular protection, eye and brain signaling, and a precursor to DHA synthesis in limited amounts. Sources are marine foods (fatty fish: salmon, mackerel, sardines, anchovies).
DHA (docosahexaenoic acid, 22:6 n-3) is (conditionally) essential. Its role is as a major structural lipid in the retina, brain, and neural tissues, visual function, cognitive development, and neuronal membranes. Sources are marine foods (same as EPA), plus algae oils.
DPA (docosapentaenoic acid, 22:5 n-3) is an intermediate between EPA and DHA. Don't know. Sources are fish, red meat (esp. grass-fed ruminants).
In practice EPA, DHA, and DPA conversion from ALA is too inefficient, so direct dietary sources (fish, seafood, algal oil) are the meaningful way humans obtain enough EPA/DHA. That's why nutrition guidelines (WHO, FAO, NIH, EFSA) often treat EPA + DHA as conditionally essential, especially for infants (where DHA is critical for retina and brain development) and for populations with low fish intake.
yalok•3h ago
Omega-3 fats seem to protect against myopia, while saturated fats seem to increase the risk. Other nutrients didn’t show clear effects.
Foods rich in omega-3 (protective foods) • Fatty fish: salmon, mackerel, sardines, tuna, herring, anchovies • Seafood: oysters, mussels • Plant sources: flaxseeds, chia seeds, walnuts, hemp seeds • Oils: flaxseed oil, canola oil, soybean oil • Fortified foods: some eggs, dairy, or juices enriched with omega-3
Foods high in saturated fats (risk foods) • Fatty meats: beef, lamb, pork, processed meats (sausages, bacon) • Dairy: butter, cheese, cream, whole milk, ice cream • Baked goods: pastries, cookies, cakes made with butter or shortening • Fast foods: fried chicken, burgers, pizza • Coconut and palm oil products (though plant-based, they’re high in saturated fats)
So the takeaway is: More fish, nuts, and seeds may help protect children’s eyes, while too many fatty meats, butter, and fried foods may raise the risk of myopia.
privatelypublic•3h ago
FollowingTheDao•3h ago
If I was not on my phone, I would look up the studies on this. :)
AstroBen•3h ago
Non-fat dairy. Greek yogurt + walnuts + berries
j45•3h ago
The kitchen is a pharmacy.
angiolillo•2h ago
The importance of dairy is overblown, especially in the US where the dairy industry funds a lot of school nutrition initiatives. I helped out around a cousin's dairy farm as a kid but eventually discovered that I'm part of the ~2/3rds of the world population that doesn't digest dairy well.
You'll get calcium as long as you eat some white/navy beans, tofu, kale, okra, collards, broccoli raab, chia, or even "calcium fortified" foods.
alphazard•2h ago
> Summary from GPT
This whole post is filled with bad implicit advice. No one should stop eating meat to make their eyesight better. No one should add canola oil to their diet as a source of Omega 3.
adrian_b•1h ago
Among vegetable oils, flaxseed oil is the best source of ALA, while also walnut oil and hemp oil have decent amounts.
However many humans, especially many men, have a too low capacity for elongating ALA into DHA and EPA, so they may remain deficient in omega-3 fatty acids even when eating decent amounts of ALA from flaxseed oil or the like.
Because you normally do not know your own biosynthetic abilities, it is less risky to eat fish oil or Schizochytrium oil, instead of flaxseed oil.
rsync•2h ago
A disappointing level of knowledge and sophistication in this late, 21st century era.
Your bone health is almost entirely correlated to the load bearing exercise and gravity stress that you put on your musculoskeletal system.
Fine optimizations to your diet (just like fine optimizations everywhere in life) are only sensible after you've taken care of the big, macro factors.