More research about the very long chain omega-3 fatty acids.

The finding connects low omega-3s to the information-processing problems found in people with schizophrenia; bipolar, obsessive-compulsive, and attention-deficit hyperactivity disorders; Huntington's disease; and other afflictions of the nervous system. . .

The key finding was that two omega-3 fatty acids – docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) and eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) – appear to be most useful in the nervous system, maybe by maintaining nerve-cell membranes.

"It is an uphill battle now to reverse the message that 'fats are bad,' and to increase omega-3 fats in our diet," said Norman Salem Jr., PhD, who led this study at the Laboratory of Membrane Biochemistry and Biophysics at the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. . .

They legacy of muddle minded advocacy and bureaucratic lack of expertise noted in recent posts is that society is profoundly misinformed.

The body cannot make these essential nutrients from scratch. It gets them by metabolizing their precursor, alpha-linolenic acid (LNA), or from foods or dietary supplements with DHA and EPA in a readily usable form. "Humans can convert less than one percent of the precursor into DHA, making DHA an essential nutrient in the human diet," added Irina Fedorova, PhD, one of the paper's co-authors. EPA is already known for its anti-inflammatory and cardiovascular effects, but DHA makes up more than 90 percent of the omega-3s in the brain (which has no EPA), retina and nervous system in general.

More accurately, ALA (alpha-linolenic acid) and stearidonic acid (SDA) are omega-3 fatty acids, but they aren't the very long chain ones that are a benefit to health such as eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA), docosahexaenoic acid (DHA), and conjugated linoleic acid (CLA). This is important to grasp since, as noted in the article above, consuming those shorter chain o-3 fats is of very little use to humans. Supplements derived from vegetable sources such as flax seed are a ruse.

The authors concluded that not enough DHA in the diet may reduce the ability to handle sensory input. "It only takes a small decrement in brain DHA to produce losses in brain function," said Salem.

In humans, weak sensorimotor gating is a hallmark of many nervous-system disorders such as schizophrenia or ADHD. Given mounting evidence of the role omega-3s play in the nervous system, there is intense interest in their therapeutic potential, perhaps as a supplement to medicines. For example, people with schizophrenia have lower levels of essential fatty acids, possibly from a genetic variation that results in poor metabolism of these nutrients.

More broadly, the typical American diet is much lower in all types of omega-3 than in omega-6 essential fatty acids, according to Salem. High intake of omega-6, or linoleic acid, reduces the body's ability to incorporate omega-3s. As a result, "we have the double whammy of low omega-3 intake and high omega-6 intake," he said.

Many people don't quite grasp that fats come from plant sources. They get it that oils can be squeezed from seeds and some fruits - corn oil, olive oil, etc. - but the idea that every leaf and blade of grass - even pond scum - has fats isn't the usual way to think of them. The importance of grasping this is that the the kind of fats in seeds is different than the kind found in leaves: seeds are rich in omega-6 fats, leaves are rich in omega-3. A grain based diet is unhealthful in this respect since the ratio of omega-6 to omega-3 leads to brain malfunction as well as many other health problems. It isn't a good diet.

As noted in other posts it isn't a good diet for other animals either. It's as bad for your dog fed some sort of grain based kibbles as it is for you, and it's bad for farmed fishes and domestic livestock. It's unnatural and unhealthful.

The way the system as a whole works - understand it as you wish: evolved, emerged, designed, whatever - is that a great deal of green vegetation is produced by photosynthesis, and a small amount of seeds are set to produce the next generation. For the algae in the pond scum the seed bit is skipped. Animals, insects and fishes eat the leaves and algae in great quantities. They have digestive systems capable of handling vast quantities of such comparatively low value foods, and spend a great deal of their time eating, digesting and excreting. They are grazers, herbivores.

There are others animals, insects and fishes that eat the herbivores. Their digestive systems require these richer foods and rely on the herbivores to extract scarce nutrients such as omega-3 fatty acids from greens, convert them to higher level forms, and concentrate it in their flesh. Some of these animals are carnivores that eat very little vegetation, and some are omnivores that eat everything, though in much smaller quantities than herbivores.

For example, chickens are omnivores that eat bugs, meat, seeds and vegetation. They can't eat or digest much vegetation so it is a small part of their diet. They don't eat many seeds since they are comparatively scarce and seasonally available. But they eat a lot of bugs, many of which are herbivores that graze leaves and some of which are themselves omnivores or carnivores. The net result of such a diet is a healthful dose of longer chain omega-3 fatty acids which helps the chickens thrive and makes their eggs and meat healthful for other carnivores and omnivores such as chicken hawks and humans.

It doesn't work to jigger the system and alter the healthful natural diets of living things. You can capture chickens and feed them grain, but they won't be healthy and their eggs and meat won't be healthful to eat. The same is true for farmed fishes and other domestic livestock such as cattle, and it is also true for humans. You can live on a diet of seeds but you can't thrive and will have a variety of health problems and physical malfunctions such as the mental problems discussed by this current research.

It may in future be possible to design seeds that do have healthful attributes. Monsanto has developed a GMO soybean with elevated levels of SDA. Though that isn't quite useful, it's better than the ALA in flax seeds in that it is a little more convertible to the higher omega-3 fatty acids than ALA, but not much. Still, it's a start and may be a first step in the design of more healthful grains in future. If you are not squicked out by engineered foods this may be a way to achieve the sort of healthful techno-vegetarianism desired by those who are squicked out about eating fishes, animals and insects.

In the meantime to get a healthful diet you need to understand the system and your place in it.