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BrianG 
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| 04/10/2006 6:45 AM |
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| The bodybuilding supplement company BIOTEST is now marketing a fish oil supplement with an enormous DHA/EPA ratio (2.5). A four capsule serving contains 2200mg DHA and 880mg EPA, as well as 212 mg CLA trans-10, cis-12 and 180mg CLA cis-9, trans-11.
They are claiming that this formula is ideal for men since men supposedly have much less DHA than women.
It is a good value at $25 for a 90-cap bottle but I am not at all convinced of the validity of their argument for the need for huge amounts of DHA.
The following is an advertisement for the product:
FLAMEOUT!
The First Fatty-Acid Supplement for Men
by TC
Ask a hundred doctors or scientists about the causes of heart disease and the one thing the vast majority will agree on is that it's a disease of inflammation.
One way this inflammation can characterize itself is by the proliferation and congregation of white blood cells known as macrophages. These macrophages play a major role in the pathogenesis of atherosclerosis, which is characterized by plaques that reduce blood flow and cause further damage to blood vessels and the heart.
Yikes.
Asthma too, like heart disease, is also a disease characterized by inflammation.
In fact, a whole bunch of chronic ailments that affect Americans are caused by inflammation.
Think you're immune? Tell me, have you ever experienced tendonitis? That's simply chronic inflammation.
How about just plain muscle soreness? Training damages muscle. Muscles get inflamed. Inflammation promotes more damage. The more damage, the more inflammation. It's a vicious, inflamed cycle, and how the heck are muscles supposed to grow optimally if they're constantly inflamed? They can't.
Anyhow, America is in the midst of an inflammation epidemic!
A lot of it can be traced directly to our diets. Humans originally consumed a natural diet of 1 to 1 or 1 to 2 ratio of omega-6 fatty acids to omega-3 fatty acids. (Just to refresh your memory, omega-6s are those fatty acids found in just about every packaged food you can find, in addition to those cooking oils that permeate your cupboard, while omega-3s are those that we typically associate with salmon and other cold water fish.)
Unfortunately, because of extreme food processing, raising cattle on corn instead of grass, avoidance of fish in the diet, and plain ol' greed and ignorance, the modern ratio of omega-6 to omega-3 is more like 20 or 30 to 1.
That's a recipe for disaster.
At its most basic level, the problem lies with these primitive, rudimentary hormones called eicosanoids. These hormones are involved in pretty much everything our body does and if we ingest a lot of omega-6 fatty acids, we get eicosanoids made from omega-6s.
Trouble is, omega-6 eicosanoids are really pro-inflammatory. The body makes eicosanoids from omega-3 fatty acids, too, but these eicosanoids are very weakly inflammatory, if at all. As such, simply shifting the diet towards omega-3's can do remarkable things for your health and performance.
Sure, you all know about fish oils and most of you, if you don't take them already, have been strongly considering adding them to your daily diet.
Unfortunately, most of today's fatty acid supplements are simply made by some guy named Olaf who squeezes fish and forces the oil to drip into a bottle. Okay, I'm exaggerating, but not by much.
Most fatty acid supplements are underpowered, ill thought-out, prohibitively expensive and, by default, made for women.
That's right, the fish oil you're using is almost certainly most beneficial to women instead of men.
I'm sure you've all heard of DHA and EPA, which are two of the omega-3 fatty acids researchers are most interested in. They're simply elongated and desaturated versions of alpha-linoleic acid.
Unfortunately, every fatty acid supplement we're aware of contains a lot more EPA than DHA because fish naturally contain more EPA than DHA.
That's fine for women because the biosynthesis of DHA is a lot higher in women than it is in men. Most researchers think it has to do with sex hormones, presumably estrogens. A strong stimulus with estrogens in lab subjects induces an increase in DHA status, while a Testosterone stimulus induces a decrease in DHA.
Men, of course, have a much higher risk of heart disease.
...Didja' just make a deductive leap?
Sure, men have lower amounts of DHA — despite eating the same amount of fatty acids as women — but they have a higher incidence of heart attack (and presumably, other inflammatory conditions).
As such, men need more DHA than women! Several studies have confirmed that belief.
DHA, in addition to having a anti-arrhythmic effect, reduces blood pressure and according to at least one study, even increases HDL (the good cholesterol) by 29% while EPA reduces it by 6.7%!
Enter Biotest's Flameout.
It's the end result of reading hundreds of research papers and hundreds of hours of discussion with fatty-acid specialists. It's by far the premier fatty-acid supplement on the market and it's the first one designed with men in mind, containing a much higher amount of DHA than EPA.
(That's not to say women can't use Flameout to great benefit — they can. However, Flameout was formulated to offset the DHA/EPA "gap" inherent in every other fatty acid supplement we're aware of.)
The fatty acids we used are pharmaceutical grade and highly concentrated and highly refined. These capsules are so rich in functional fatty acids that you'd need a prescription to get them in some parts of the world.
Flameout was designed to fight inflammation--inflammation in the heart, lungs, tendons, muscles, and anywhere and everywhere else in the body.
However, rather than just use DHA and EPA in very specific amounts, we included another fatty acid that's lately been shown to be a very potent anti-inflammatory all on its own.
Enter Conjugated Linoleic Acid, or CLA.
Studies have shown CLA (the 9-cis, trans-11 isomer and the 10-trans, 12-cis isomer) to reduce prostaglandin release through the inhibition of cyclooxygenase-2, otherwise known as COX-2.
That's right, CLA has been shown to be a potent COX-2 inhibitor, much like the potent drugs doctors use to fight arthritis (yet another inflammatory disease), without the deleterious side effects.
Suffice it to say, Flameout has a good chance of icing your inflammation problems, but there are oh-so many other benefits of a powerful fatty acid supplement like Flameout.
While recent research has disputed the notion that omega-3 fatty acids can prevent cancer, research hasn't disproved the idea that omega-3s can kill existing cancer cells by starving them of linoleic acid. Plus, omega-3s can upregulate the genetic material necessary for the destruction of cancer cells, in addition to blocking adhesion of cancer cells to other health cells (metastasis).
And then there are the body-composition benefits. Omega-3s burn body fat in 3 different ways. First off, they allow the body to burn fat in situations where fat burning is turned off, such as after a high-carb meal or after high-intensity exercise (where the body preferentially burns glycogen).
Secondly, high amounts of omega-3s increase insulin sensitivity. If your body is sensitive to insulin, less insulin is produced after a meal, which means less fat is stored. Similarly, if the body is sensitive to insulin, and the hormone is properly managed, more stored fat is released and incinerated each day.
Thirdly, omega-3s increase the heat of your cellular "furnaces", which are otherwise known as the mitochondria and the peroxisomes. Omega-3s make these organelles burn more and more energy, thus turning you into a fat-burning machine.
There's also evidence that omega-3s might also increase the amount of leptin produced by the body (high leptin means decreased hunger and an increased metabolic rate).
So to recap, here are the potential benefits of Biotest's Flameout:
• Decreased systemic inflammation (thus possibly warding of heart disease, asthma, arthritis, macular degeneration, and a host of other diseases or maladies).
• Significant decreases in levels of body fat through increased insulin sensitivity and increased metabolism. (This increased insulin sensitivity may also prevent Type II diabetes.)
• Decreased muscle soreness.
• Decreased incidence of tendonitis.
• The possible destruction of existing cancer cells, in addition to possibly thwarting metastasis.
Okay, maybe listing all these benefits is getting tedious. I think I can safely say that there's little disagreement that every man, woman, or child in America should be taking a high-quality fatty acid supplement like Flameout.
But before we look at the exact amounts of the ingredients, let's look at another fatty acid supplement, Natural Factor's Wild Alaskan Salmon Oil capsules. (It's what I used to use before I started using a liquid version made by another company.)
Each 4-capsule serving of Natural Factor's oil contains:
DHA: 280 mg.
EPA: 320 mg.
You can get it from Whole Foods for a little over 20 bucks.
Now let's look at a 4-capsule serving of Biotest's Flameout:
DHA: 2200 mg.
EPA: 880 mg.
That means that each equivalent-sized serving of Biotest's Flameout contains about 8 times the DHA and about 2.5 times the EPA content of the fish oil.
And Biotest's Flameout also contains the following amounts of two CLA isomers:
CLA trans-10, cis-12: 212 mg.
CLA cis-9, trans-11: 180 mg.
And the cost?
Each 90-capsule bottle of Flameout sells for $24.99.
If you don't mind me saying so, that's an incredible value: the most anti-inflammatory fatty acid blend ever produced, formulated especially for men, made with the most concentrated and purest fatty acids available — purified by molecular distillation and stringently tested for PCBs, dioxins, mercury, and other heavy-metal contaminants — and blended with high amounts of both functional isomers of the fatty acid CLA for twenty-five bucks.
So want to try Flameout? Want to end inflammation and give yourself the best health insurance policy available, all while changing your body composition for the better? |
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Dennis
Posts:1
Newbie
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| 04/10/2006 2:59 PM |
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| [quote:8e3751e649="BrianG"]The bodybuilding supplement company BIOTEST is now marketing a fish oil supplement with an enormous DHA/EPA ratio (2.5). A four capsule serving contains 2200mg DHA and 880mg EPA, as well as 212 mg CLA trans-10, cis-12 and 180mg CLA cis-9, trans-11.
They are claiming that this formula is ideal for men since men supposedly have much less DHA than women.
It is a good value at $25 for a 90-cap bottle but I am not at all convinced of the validity of their argument for the need for huge amounts of DHA.
If you don't mind me saying so, that's an incredible value: the most anti-inflammatory fatty acid blend ever produced, formulated especially for men, made with the most concentrated and purest fatty acids available — purified by molecular distillation and stringently tested for PCBs, dioxins, mercury, and other heavy-metal contaminants — and blended with high amounts of both functional isomers of the fatty acid CLA for twenty-five bucks.
So want to try Flameout? Want to end inflammation and give yourself the best health insurance policy available, all while changing your body composition for the better?[/quote:8e3751e649]
I am not impressed. That is over twice the price of the lowest cost PGFO product I know of for an equivalent amount of EPA+DHA. However, I am not commenting one way or the other on the DHA/EPA ratio. That is a subject for honest researchers to sort out --and I am sure it will take a while for enough research to be done on this to make definite claims. |
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BrianG
Posts:0
Newbie
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| 04/11/2006 10:59 AM |
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| In my opinion there is little or no scientific basis for the high DHA/EPA ratio. I think they are just doing it to be different. |
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Scott
Posts:0
Newbie
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| 04/11/2006 4:36 PM |
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| The greater capacity for women to synthesize DHA from alpha-linolenic acid is due to the high demands of DHA for the fetus and neonate during reproductive years. It is not evidence of a higher male requirement for DHA relative to women, nor the need for a product especially designed “for men”. Given that ALA conversion is down-regulated by EPA and DHA availability, one could conclude that the increased conversion in women is evidence of a greater long-chain omega-3 requirement for them, not men.
The only way to truly know whether you as an individual need higher amounts of DHA is through fatty acid profiling. Even so, the difference in DHA status between men and women is not very great…it equates to an additional 62mg of DHA/day, or 1 capsule every four days of a 40:20 product like OmegaRX or AMB.
Much of the research in this area comes from Graham C. Burdge and colleagues of the Institute of Human Nutrition at the University of South Hampton, UK
Burdge GC, et al [i:a21e54885a]“Eicosapentaenoic and docosapentaenoic acids are the principal products of alpha-linolenic acid metabolism in young men”[/i:a21e54885a] Br J Nutr 2002 Oct;88(4):355-63
Burdge GC, et al [i:a21e54885a]“Conversion of alpha-linolenic acid to eicosapentaenoic acid, docosapentaenoic and docosahexaenoic acids in young women” [/i:a21e54885a]Br J Nutr 2003 Nov;90(5):993-4
Burdge GC, et al [i:a21e54885a]“Effect of altered dietary n-3 fatty acid intake upon plasma lipid fatty acid composition, conversion of ⎙C]alpha-linolenic acid to longer-chain fatty acids and partitioning towards beta-oxidation in older men”[/i:a21e54885a] Br J Nutr 2003 Aug;90(2):311-21
Burdge G, et al [i:a21e54885a]“Alpha-linolenic acid metabolism in men and women: nutritional and biological implications”[/i:a21e54885a] Curr Opin Clin Nutr Metab Care 2004 Mar;7(2):137-44
Giltay Erik J, et al [i:a21e54885a]“Docosahexaenoic acid concentrations are higher in women than in men because of estrogenic effects” [/i:a21e54885a]Am J Clin Nutr 2004;80:1167-74
Burdge GC, et al [i:a21e54885a]“Conversion of alpha-linolenic acid to longer-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids in human adults”[/i:a21e54885a] Reprod Nutr Dev 2005 Sep-Oct;45(5):581-97
Williams CM, Burdge G [i:a21e54885a]“Long-chain n-3 PUFA: plant v. marine sources” [/i:a21e54885a]Proc Nutr Soc 2006 Feb;65(1):42-50 |
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Patrick
Posts:0
Newbie
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| 04/24/2006 6:21 AM |
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| Scott, you are such a great contributor to these forums and we are priviliged to have you here with us.
Pat |
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Scott
Posts:0
Newbie
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| 04/27/2006 4:12 PM |
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| Thanks Pat--
Of course, the same can be said of you :) |
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bchandler
Posts:0
Newbie
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| 10/24/2006 9:02 PM |
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| Scott... doesn't excess DHA that the body doesn't use just get retro-converted back into EPA anyway? And if true, then doesn't the body simply rebalance itself if too much DHA is consumed? (within limits of course)
If this is in fact true, then it would seem that getting your EFAs in the form of DHA and to ensure sufficiency and allowing the excess to be retro-coverted would be an ideal way to go...
If not... can you explain why? |
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