Seth's Blog

The following comment was left a few days ago:

I was doing SLD using flax seed oil for two weeks before my last dental appointment.  My pockets that were 4′s and 5″s magically changed to 2′s and 3″s.  I had my dentist print both the reports because I was so grateful that they stopped talking about some really painful sounding root work.  My brushing and flossing were totally unchanged.  I was expecting the result because of what I’ve read on the blog, but nothing this good.  I am convinced that taking flax=reduction in gum inflammation, at the very least. [emphasis added]

Take that, “decline effect” (big experimental effects, when the experiment is repeated, get smaller)!

The  commenter sent me the records of the two cleanings. At the pre-flaxseed-oil cleaning (April 28, 2011), he had 24 sites (13 teeth) with pockets of depth 4 or 5. At the cleaning after he started flaxseed oil (July 28, 2011), he had no sites with pockets of depth 4 or 5.

You can find many similar reports here.

• omega-3 blood levels correlated with better mental performance in the elderly. “The team found that people who had higher blood levels of vitamins B, C, D and E and omega-3 fatty acids scored higher on the mental-function tests, including attention tasks and visual and spatial skills, than those with lower levels of these nutrients.”
• “Inflammation, atherosclerosis, and coronary artery disease.” An influential New England Journal of Medicine article from 2005. The next time someone tells you that heart disease is due to high cholesterol, refer them to this article.
• Weak evidence that bacteria in food stimulate the immune system. Indian women who ate yogurt to which a probiotic had been added had more of an immune-related molecule in their feces than before and after that ingestion.
• Speaking of India, do medical students who gain admission by fraud become dangerous doctors? India has a problem.

Thanks to Tim Beneke.

• Comparing one elbow to the other. I have no idea what “clinical epidemiology” is. The level of self-deprecation is remarkable. From the BMJ Christmas issue.
• The value of cod liver oil. From the BMJ Christmas issue.
• More evidence for radiation hormesis (beneficial effects of small amounts of radiation).
• Evolutionary medicine reaches the BMJ. The word paleo does not appear.
• Medical journals: “information-laundering operations for drug companies”

Thanks to Robin Barooah and Mike Bowerman.

Alex Chernavsky, who often comments here, has updated his Shangri-La Diet (SLD) page. It now shows his weight over four years: two years before he started SLD and two years that he has been doing it.

Before he started SLD he was slowly gaining weight. After he started SLD, he went from 220 pounds (BMI = 32) to 193 pounds. He slowly gained a few pounds. Then (on my advice) he added a tablespoon of nose-clipped coconut butter and the steady climb stopped. Ffor about nine months has been steady at 195  pounds (BMI = 28). In other words, there is no sign that he is regaining the lost weight.

Because Alex has added a lot of omega-3 to his diet (via flaxseed oil), I’m sure his health has improved in other ways. Because he is a vegan, he had no interest in a conventional (Atkins) low-carb diet.

Alex reminded me that a doctor named Quigley left the following comment:

I’ve tried to find data that your diet works for SUSTAINED weight reduction in a study that would be applicable to a generalizable population. As you know, temporary weight loss is relatively easy. Sustained weight loss (wt loss > 2 yrs), is hard. If your diet can do it, I’d prescribe it every day.

 

Two months ago I wrote that camelina oil might be a good source of omega-3. A few days ago, a reader named Evelyn Majidi commented as follows:

Based on this suggestion, I ordered camelina oil from the good farmers in Saskatchewan and began taking it using the same dose (3T/day) that I had been taking of flaxseed oil for relief of psoriasis and lichen planus. Unfortunately, the slow but sure improvement I had been experiencing over the past year with flaxseed oil stopped immediately and after a week my skin and mouth began to deteriorate. After using about 1/4 of a bottle of the new oil I went back to flaxseed and am delighted to report that I am [again] having good results with it. Since both of my conditions wax and wane without any reason identified by medical science I cannot state that it was simply the flaxseed oil that has led to this success. Based on my experience, however, I intend to continue taking the oil regularly and I recommend that others with psoriasis or lichen planus try it. For me, two tablespoons a day were not enough, I needed three tablespoons of the oil to see a change. I don’t think it advisable to take capsules, you’d need to take too many to equal 3T of oil.[emphasis added]

Psoriasis is a skin disease that usually involves “thick, red skin with flaky, silver-white patches called scales”. Lichen planus is “an itchy rash on the skin or in the mouth”. To give some idea of how common they are, psoriasis has 36 million Google hits; lichen planus 1-2 million. (“Heart disease” has 64 million.)

Eveyln’s experience provides four pieces of evidence that suggest flaxseed oil (FSO) improved her psoriasis and lichen planus:

1. When she started taking FSO at 3 T/day, they started improving. They did not improve with 2 T/day.
2. Over the first year of FSO, she saw steady improvement in both in place of the usual up and down.
3. When she replaced FSO with another oil, which she hoped would be better, the results were the opposite of what she wanted: The improvement stopped and the two conditions got worse.
4. When she switched back to FSO, the improvement resumed.

I can think of no plausible alternative to the conclusion that FSO helped. There is plenty of other evidence that supports this conclusion: the evidence that omega-3 is anti-inflammatory, FSO is high in omega-3, most of us don’t get enough omega-3, and so on, including my own experience. You could write a book about the evidence that supports it. (Evelyn tried flaxseed oil because of reports on this blog that it improved/cured bad gums.)

In any case, the conclusion that FSO reduces psoriasis and lichen planus is new, in the sense that FSO (or another source of omega-3) is not a popular treatment for either condition. Here are about 16 treatments for psoriasis, including topical corticosteroids. None includes omega-3. Here are eight “lifestyle and home remedies” for psoriasis, including “take daily baths” (seriously, Mayo Clinic Staff?). None includes omega-3. After going through about forty-odd treatments, I found a reference to fish oil: “Other research has suggested that taking oral fish oil supplements containing 1.8 to 3.6 grams of eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) a day may bring improvement.”

Same thing for lichen planus. FSO is not a popular treatment.

If you take flaxseed oil or other omega-3 source to treat psoriasis or lichen planus, I hope you will let me know what happens.