Effects of Vitamin D and Omega-3 Fatty Acid on Biomarkers of Inflammation | Hacker News Reader

Effects of Vitamin D and Omega-3 Fatty Acid on Biomarkers of Inflammation

clinchem.aaccjnls.org

135 pointsbookofjoe42 comments

Note, despite the conclusion "neither vitamin D nor n-3 FA supplementation over 1 year decreased these biomarkers of inflammation", there is this bit in the actual article: "Among individuals who had <1.5 servings of fish per week at baseline, active n-3 FA was associated with a decline in hsCRP of 10.45% (95% CI, -20.44% to 0.79%)"

So for those of us who do not eat fish, compensating that with supplements might make sense still.

The article also mentions some other benefits of the supplements, beyond controlling inflammation:

> Participants with normal body mass index (BMI <25 mg/kg²) randomized to active vs placebo vitamin D showed a significant reduction in invasive cancers

> Cardiovascular disease events were significantly lower for active vs placebo n-3 FA among individuals who consumed <1.5 fish servings/week. Additionally, n-3 FA supplementation reduced risk of myocardial infarction

> BMI <25 mg/kg²

can someone parse those units? BMI is usually presented as kg/m^2

edit - it's just a typo, the rest of the paper uses the right units

thanks for pulling out these tidbits, very helpful.

I'd like to see a 2 year study on absence of Omega-6 and/or Seed oils in the diet.

There’s a lot of talk about the dangers of “inflammation” but I’ve failed to find a good list of actions one can take to fight it.

Sleep well every night. The crazy healthy impacts of good sleep are astronomical. Avoid fried or heavily processed foods. Keep your circulation up with exercise so your blood gets everywhere it needs to go and through the liver. This also keeps you nicely oxygenated. Look up diabetic sores for some on how that can go bad. Etc

Please define what you mean by "heavily processed foods". People use those terms for anything they think is bad without any consistency.

How far from the original source is the end result? If it's packaged and has a list of 1000 ingredients that you can't pronounce, it's probably heavily processed.

Otherwise, don't overthink it.

Yep. If preparing the food requires a bachelors degree in food science, chemicals imported from China, and a home laboratory, then it's probably classified as "processed food".

As a chinese person I'd like to push back against the idea of importing ingredients to be part of processed foods. My family is from a region with a very specific style of vinegar that we import for our home cooking.

I wrote "chemicals" from China. Not "ingredients" from China. Nothing against China. It's a placeholder for <insert random source of chemicals>

Probably the best definition requires you to actively test your glucose levels after eating. Look to identify foods that spike then drop your numbers. But I know things like white rice and white flour really leave me high and dry quickly. I also try to pick foods that have relatively few, whole food type ingredients. So once we’re talking dozens of ingredients with chemical names instead of easily identifiable names. You’re right, it’s not obvious.

Heavily processed foods are stuff like deepfried and fully processed foods - basically stuff that lack micronutrients and is high in carbs and or saturated fat.

So deep fried calamari is "heavily processed"? I guess the answers proved the point the post above made...

Yeah it’s a pretty terrible term. I shop in the produce and butcher sections of the store and skip the rest. If it looks like it came from a plant or is part of an animal, then I’m happy.

> Please define what you mean by "heavily processed foods"

I define it as number of steps from the original food to what's on your plate.

From a blood sugar and insulin perspective (which is a large part of the inflammatory perspective), it is literally the fineness of the carbohydrate particulate, the addition of refined sugars and the extraction of fiber -- all of which raise the glycemic index. If you look at fast food, this is part of the "process" by which food is made soft and palatable and shelf life is often increased to boot.

You're correct though. The term is very unclear and doesn't help people. Generally speaking the refinement process of carbohydrates and sugars means glucose hits your blood stream faster and increases inflammation. (These refined carbs are also more addictive, reduce insulin sensitivity over time and lead to obesity)

For an anti inflammatory diet think raw foods, whole grains, high fiber, quality protein, low amounts of complex sugars, NO refined sugars. Stay low on the glycemic index.

Basically, make your body do a little work to metabolize calories. No easy street.

Also don't fry with vegetable oils. Consume plenty of olive oil and fish oil.

I find that when I try cutting out sugars and refined carbs I get quite fatigued and find it more difficult to function. That is already on top of poor quality sleep I get.

I end up with cravings for sweet foods to boost my energy and will often find an excuse to go buy a couple bags of sweets so I don't feel so drained of energy.

Do you have any recommendations I can use to cut down on my high glycemic food intake?

Might be you're just experiencing withdrawal; sugar is heinously addictive.

Have you tried just toughing it out for a couple weeks? I've found that even just a couple weeks of abstaining from sugary things drastically lowers my tolerance for sweet things. Previously edible foods start tasting way oversweetened.

Maybe you could replace the sugar with slower-acting carbohydrates like porridge? It's actually quite tasty without any additives when made with whole milk.

Taper off, retaining some daily servings of less-harmful carbs (like potatoes or rice) for a while, even after eliminating all added sugars.

As you drive carbs closer to zero, make sure you're eating plenty of fatty foods to provide an alternate, slower-burning energy source. Also, when massively lowering carb intake, drink plenty of fluids with electrolytes, as that often helps lessen the "keto flu" symptoms of your body's incremental transition to different metabolic balances.

There's a carb-craving feeling that's easy to confuse with true hunger, likely because for so long on a sugar-heavy diet your body has learned your blood-sugar levels have been correlated with actual hunger or plenty-of-energy. But you can remind your body that there's another pathway. I think it's a bit like recovery from an injury via physical therapy: you have to re-teach your muscle/joints that, yes, they can do the original/optimal movements, without pain, after they've spent a while receiving alternate signals.

Tackle sleep issues separately, with things like caffeine reduction, screen-time-at-night reduction, exhausting exercise during the day, a segregated quiet/dark sleep space, etc.

Good luck!

Delay eating until you are actually hungry in the morning and avoid sugar or carbs for as long as you can throughout the day.

Just eating sugar makes you crave sugar. Don't even add it to coffee.

Date syrup and date sugar. Both are delicious for their appropriate uses. Really though you need sleep. I’d make that priority number one, if you can?

Do we know this for sure? Are there scientific studies to prove 'to go and through the liver?'

Exercise causes minor temporary inflammation, but lowers chronic inflammation

https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/315255.php

IIRC this text https://harvardmagazine.com/2019/05/inflammation-disease-die... talked about inflammation caused by fat cells. So basically avoid being fat would presumably one. (Without going to the whole discussion on how to achieve that)

Some studies on, for example, depression suggest that favoring good oils (olive oil, Mediterranean diet) reduces brain inflammation.

You can do a search on such things. You will get a lot of search results that would bomb on HN ("mommy bloggers," Gwenyth Paltrow's Goop, other wellness resources), but there are actual studies on diet and inflammation that can be found as well.

Oils and alkaline diet/alkaline minerals (calcium, magnesium) are places you could start an internet search. A food journal can also be a useful tool.

I've been researching this a lot lately. I think the following list (in this order) is the best general advice for tackling/preventing chronic inflammation:

1) Invest more time in compassion/self-compassion

2) Cultivate better social connections (quality more important than quantity)

3) More regular exposure to green natural environments

4) Less junkfood

5) Spend time building up habits that help relax you, such a breathing exercise etc

6) Do work that is meaningful and makes a visible social contribution

7) Varied physical exercise

Chronic inflammation happens because the body feels it has to adopt a physiology that has a short term focus of dealing with threats vs a physiology that has a long term focus that promotes rest, growth and rejuvenation. The latter is only possible when the body feels safe and secure and that element is missing in many people's lives, many people's bodies are in the former mode most of the time. Most of the things in the list either promote parasympathetic states enabling the latter, or help build your ability to deal with stressful situations without promoting chronic inflammation.

One of the most interesting findings I've come across is that hedonic happiness does not help with inflammation, in fact, people who get most of their happiness through hedonic pursuits actually have genes that express themselves to help bring about inflammation. People that achieve happiness/satisfaction through meaningful endeavors have been shown to have gene expression that is not promoting inflammation. This suggests for example, that spending an afternoon volunteering beats having a fun night out at the cinema, as far as physiological benefits go. Steven Cole (expert in genomics) has some very interesting presentations on this.

Flossing helps a lot.

My parents swear by low-dose doxycycline. This is an approved treatment for gingivitis marketed under the brand periostat. It costs about $100 for a year supply of the generic doxycycline, which you can cut into quarters.

I bought a year's supply, but have not taken the time to research it, so have held off taking it. My parents have found numerous studies indicating it can lower inflammation and reduce heart disease. Their blood markers show seriously reduced crp levels after long term use. There's probably something to it.

I told a doctor that for some reason my symptoms (4pages worth) eased up anytime I had doxycycline. On that he diagnosed me with Sjögrens. An auto immune disorder.

I later found out it’s a super controversial topic. Some doctors think that many auto immune diseases are caused by minor infection.

Doxi also has an anti inflammatory effect. So that helps too.

Doctors are very dismissive of all this. But 20 doctors couldn’t tell me what I was suffering from. Other the one who got it right. Later testing and bloodwork confirmed he was correct.

I can not get ANY doctor to write me a prescription however. Very frustrating.

That's interesting. My mom has an auto immune disease, and she's been treating it fine for years with doxy. I'm naturally skeptical, but at the very least it works for her in a verifiable way.

Mark Sisson posted an article about inflammation just this past week. It concludes with a list of causes. Invert each of them to create a list of counter-measures. https://www.marksdailyapple.com/definitive-guide-to-inflamma...

I didn't know that people were taking Vitamin D and Fish Oil for inflammation reduction. Nice to see that Vitamin D supplements may help lower cancer rates, and fish oil reduces heart attack risks.

Note: this doesn't mean that Vitamin D and Omega-3s don't have anti-inflammatory properties. It merely shows that inflammation biomarkers are reduced. For example, aspirin is anti-inflammatory, yet is thought to have negligible effects on biomarkers of inflammation.

I don’t think I’ve seen vitamin D claimed as an anti inflammatory supplement (or that deficiencies cause inflammation). The same goes for omega 3 to omega 6 ratios. I’ve heard plenty of claims, but not that one.

Vitamin D is pretty well studied as an immunomodulator, and there is a connection between inflammation and autoimmune disease.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3166406/

Yeah seems Vitamin C is pushed more as anti-inflammatory as it is an antioxidant like coffee/caffeine and cannabis that reduces inflammation. [1][2] "Antioxidants help get rid of free radicals that can damage cells and tissue, which means fewer triggers for inflammation." [2]

[1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4492638/

[2] https://www.webmd.com/vitamins-and-supplements/inflammation-...

They've found lots of links between auto immune diseases and low vitamin d.

Some super controversial studies indicate that bacteria infection is feeding on bit D. That’s what the body is responding too.

I have auto immune disorder. Low vitamin D. And antibiotics will improve my symptoms.

Wish there was more research on the topic

I have MS. My neurologist straight up said many years ago that vitamin D is not a cure ... but he did recommend taking a supplement, unfortunately the urologist disagrees...

tl;dr: Conclusions: In this large sample from a population-based randomized controlled trial, neither vitamin D nor n-3 FA supplementation over 1 year decreased these biomarkers of inflammation.

Its not a lot of vitamin d. 10 minutes in the sun can generate 20,000ui. When my levels were close to 500nmol/l, I felt really good, but that was from summertime exposure even on cloudy days with top off. Problem is at those levels, some consider that to be toxic and I didn't know what else my body was being depleted of more quickly than normal, but a brussel sprouts craving did develop which could have been many things including folates.

Plus what equipment was used to do these measurements? , Vitamin d testing is variable which is why the Standardization program exists and its also possible other test equipment could be variable for other measurements because different manufacturers will patent methods and these could be different to another manufacturer using a different patented method. So a standardization program needs to be established for all tests using different machines including mass spectrometry. https://ods.od.nih.gov/Research/vdsp.aspx

Reply on news.ycombinator.com