Natural supplement combination appears to help MS

[MSUK]

Multiple sclerosis is a challenging disease on many fronts, including the search for effective ways to treat and manage symptoms and relapse. Results of a novel trial using omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids, as well as vitamins, have shown some promise for people with multiple sclerosis...... Read More - http://www.ms-uk.org/index.cfm/dietresearch

[CaveMan]

My bets are on the Omega 3 PUFA , particularly the DHA being the major factor in this result, the anti oxidants help to protect the PUFA's from oxidation. The Omega 6:Omega 3 ratio is one of the biggest health concerns in the modern diet, particularly as the O6 consumption is so high and mostly oxidised before it is consumed as in processed foods, and even in the bottle of vegetable oil. Current estimated ratio's are over 10:1 whereas the ideal is less than 2:1

[centenarian100]

Multiple sclerosis is a challenging disease on many fronts, including the search for effective ways to treat and manage symptoms and relapse. Results of a novel trial using omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids, as well as vitamins, have shown some promise for people with multiple sclerosis...... Read More - http://www.ms-uk.org/index.cfm/dietresearch

The link doesn't work for me

[chico]

The omega3, omega6, vit-a, alpha-tocopherol group without gamma-tocopherol did not achieve significant results.
Only the group with added gamma-tocopherol (but not gamma-tocopherol alone) had any benefits from the study.
I don think its related to the polyunsaturated fats but rather the interaction between gamma/alpha tocopherol.
There has allready - and just recently - been a fairly large controlled and blilnded study showing no benefits of similar omega3 dose.

[MSUK]

Hi centenarian100 the link appears to be fine. If you are still having trouble please go to the main MS-UK homepage at http://www.ms-uk.org/ and there is a link to the story from there.

[CaveMan]

The omega3, omega6, vit-a, alpha-tocopherol group without gamma-tocopherol did not achieve significant results.
Only the group with added gamma-tocopherol (but not gamma-tocopherol alone) had any benefits from the study.
I don think its related to the polyunsaturated fats but rather the interaction between gamma/alpha tocopherol.
There has allready - and just recently - been a fairly large controlled and blilnded study showing no benefits of similar omega3 dose.

I think this is the study you may be reffering to, it has been discussed and refuted already:
http://www.thisisms.com/forum/diet-f9/topic19728.html

The issue is reducing Omega 6 intake whilst boosting Omega 3 intake, if you look deeper you will find the O6:O3 ratio seems to be a major factor in a variety of health conditions.

[chico]

None of the studies had any emphasis on lowering omega-6 intake.
The one showing a positive result even included omega-6 as part of the treament.
There is no evidence that balacing omega-3 and omega-6 intake has any effect on MS as you stongly imply.

[CaveMan]

There isn't any studies, that I know of, that are specifically designed to determine impact of O6:O3 ratio on MS, so therefore you need to piece data together as best you can and try to make an informed decision on your own health.
IMO MS is not an isolated health condition in the body, any improvement in bodiliy health will have a flow on effect on the MS symptoms.
This study below, a review of an older diet heart study shows the addition of Omega 6's as a therapeutic treatment actually increased all cause mortality in heart patients:
http://www.bmj.com/content/346/bmj.e8707

Conclusions Advice to substitute polyunsaturated fats for saturated fats is a key component of worldwide dietary guidelines for coronary heart disease risk reduction. However, clinical benefits of the most abundant polyunsaturated fatty acid, omega 6 linoleic acid, have not been established. In this cohort, substituting dietary linoleic acid in place of saturated fats increased the rates of death from all causes, coronary heart disease, and cardiovascular disease. An updated meta-analysis of linoleic acid intervention trials showed no evidence of cardiovascular benefit. These findings could have important implications for worldwide dietary advice to substitute omega 6 linoleic acid, or polyunsaturated fats in general, for saturated fats.

This article below discusses some of the issues with O6:O3 ratio and has a number of links to various studies:
http://chriskresser.com/how-too-much-om ... ng-us-sick

From studies I have read the primary issues lie in the structuring of cell membranes and the instability of PUFA's with their high rate of oxidation. Basically we only need very small amounts of these fatty acids, around 4% of total fat intake in roughly equal quantities, they perform specific signalling roles in cell membranes, as they compete for the same enzymatic machinery in the body when you ingest too much of them in an unbalanced ratio, then this is what the body gets to use, particularly if saturated fats are reduced as well. This basically results in leaky cells that require more maintenance and energy to maintain their integrity. It also means that the brain does not get access to it's DHA requirement because there is too much Omega 6 floating around in the system and the Omega 3 doesn't get processed. The excess intake then also puts a drain on the body's supply of anti oxidants in order to try and prevent them oxidising and causing systemic inflamation, as a side note arterial plaque contains no saturated fats and is primarily composed of oxidised PUFA's, this in itself suggests it may be a good idea to reduce PUFA intake.

The information is out there, but don't expect to get it in a concise single line conclusion in a study, that study is likely years away because the establishment and the powers that be are still deeply entrenched in the failed "Lipid Hypothesis" which says saturated fat (SFA's) causes heart disease and as there are a limited amount of choices we have for fat intake, there is a natural reluctance to suggest PUFA's might be worse than SFA's. According to lipid profiles our fatty acid intakes should be about 2% each of of O6 & O3 PUFA's, ideally from whole food sources, and the rest split evenly, say 48% of SFA's & 48% MUFA's, there is some flexability, but as long as intake is in that general area our bodies can manage the rest.

It also takes between 2-4 years for our bodies to balance lipid profiles once intake has been corrected, a lot of oxidised Omega 6 is stored in adipose tissue and the body needs time to dispose of it, this is another reason short term trials are a waste of time, it takes quite a few years to regain full health.
There are obviously other impacts on health through diet, environment & lifestyle but the PUFA story has been a bit of a sleeper and it's only now that the impacts of misguided healthe recommendations are coming to light.

[chico]

In reality only omega-6 has shown some promise in the treatment of MS.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23235605

"Six RCTs that investigated PUFAs emerged from the search strategy, accounting for 794 randomised patients.PUFAs did not have a significant effect on disease progression at 24 months. Omega-6 fatty acids (11 to 23 g/day linoleic acid) didn't show any benefit in 144 MS patients (RR 1.04, 95% CI 0.66 to 1.63). Linoleic acid (2.9 to 3.4 g/day) had no benefit in 65 chronic progressive MS patients (RR 0.78, 95% CI 0.43 to 1.42). Omega-3 fatty acids had no benefit in 292 relapsing remitting MS patients (RR 0.82, 95% CI 0.65 to 1.03, P = 0.08).Slight potential benefits in relapse outcomes were associated with omega-6 fatty acids in some studies, however these findings were limited by the reduced validity of the endpoints"

[CureOrBust]

In reality only omega-6 has shown some promise in the treatment of MS.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23235605

It all depends on which studies you chose to read, and "how" you chose to read them.

http://intl.jacn.org/content/21/6/495.short

Many of the placebo-controlled trials of fish oil in chronic inflammatory diseases reveal significant benefit, including decreased disease activity and a lowered use of anti-inflammatory drugs.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/ar ... 7805001006

Results: 31 RRMS patients were enrolled, with mean follow up over 11±SD 2.9 months. Clinical benefits favoring the FO group were observed on PCS/SF-36 (P=0.050) and MHI (P=0.050) at 6 months. Reduced fatigue was seen on the OO diet at 6 months (P=0.035). The relapse rate decreased in both groups relative to the rates during the 1 year preceding the study: mean change in relapse rate in the FO group: −0.79±SD 1.12 relapses/year (P=0.021) vs. −0.69±SD 1.11 (P=0.044) in the OO group. This study suggests that a low fat diet supplemented with ω-3 PUFA can have moderate benefits in RRMS patients on concurrent disease modifying therapies.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2077693

. It appears that there is a trend suggesting that the addition of omega six and omega three Polyunsaturated Fatty Acids to the diet of patients with Multiple Sclerosis results in a reduction of the severity and frequency of relapses and in a mild overall benefit in a two year period.

http://www.plefa.com/article/S0952-3278 ... 0/abstract

Omega-3 FA significantly decreased MMP-9 levels in RRMS and may act as an immune-modulator that has potential therapeutic benefit in MS patients.

[CaveMan]

If you aren't convinced by variable results from poorly designed studies, then consider corrolations and vegetable oil consumption figures, production sources and future directions from the industry bodies.
http://www.cropscience.org.au/icsc2004/ ... oggejb.htm

An additional trend relating to fat/oil consumption has been the transition from consumption of animal to vegetable sources for fat. For example, in 1920 animal sources were responsible for 81% of fat calories consumed in the U.S., whereas by 2000, vegetable oils provided over 54% of fat/oil calories (Figure 1). The major uses of vegetable oils in the U.S. as reflected by industry shipments are cooking, frying and salad oils (47%), shortening (45%), and margarines (5%)

How does this corrolate with the incidence of chronic disease in the western world?

cottonseed provides a major edible oil in Australia and China and other regions where cotton is a major crop and the seeds are a low-cost by-product of the fibre. For large-scale use in baking and frying, the food industry chooses commodity vegetable oils largely based on price, which is related to the location of production and whether the oil is a by-product. For example, in the U.S. soybean oil is often considered a by-product of the soy meal industry, and its 80% “market share” dominates the vegetable oil market, making it the largest single source of calories in most U.S. diets.

Note the specific use of the word by-product, this is a waste product of the feedlot industry that was dressed up and marketed as the new heart healthy oil, and in that next time you are eating your steak, consider how much Soy that cow ate.

Nevertheless, despite these selections and modifications, the lipid composition of humans is strongly influenced by the fatty acid composition present in the diets. One example of how the composition of human storage and membrane lipids is influenced by the diet is shown in Figure 4 where the distribution of double bond positions of trans isomers in humans clearly reflects the distribution found in dietary hydrogenated vegetable oils

Says it all above, you are what you eat, particularly in regard to PUFA's

Because different human populations have very different diets, and because these same populations have very different causes of mortality, some members of the medical research community conclude that dietary fatty acids have a major impact on diseases (e.g. Wolfram, 2003). For decades, an emphasis on risks associated with saturated fatty acids and its relation to cholesterol metabolism has encouraged the consumption of more vegetable oil rather than animal fats. More recently, concern has increased about the role of the trans fatty acid isomers which are produced during the hydrogenation of vegetable oils and may have negative consequences. Also, in recent years evidence has accumulated that the balance of omega-3 and omega-6 unsaturated fatty acids in diets influences a wide range of human physiological responses including coronary heart disease (CHD). The dominance of plant oils with high omega-6 18:2 in many diets (e.g. U.S.) has led to omega-6/omega-3 consumption ratios near 10:1 in many western diets whereas populations which consume ratios near 1:1 (e.g. Greenland, Japan) have strikingly lower incidence of CHD. Possibly these different fatty acid compositions in diets may in part be causally related to the very different CHD levels shown in Table 1.

Table 1. Deaths due to cardiovascular disease in populations with different omega-6/omega-3 content of diets.
Population
Cardiovascular Deaths per 100,000

U.S. 200
Mediterranean 90
Japan 50
Greenland 20

One explanation offered for the strikingly different CHD mortality associated with high omega-6/omega-3 consumption ratios is the different fates of these structures in the biosynthetic pathways leading to prostaglandins and other eicosenoids. The omega-6 fatty acids are precursors to arachidonic acid which in turn produces prostaglandins and thromboxanes which promote blood clotting. In contrast, the omega-3 fatty acids are poor substrates for prostaglandin biosynthesis and act as competitive inhibitors of the arachidonic pathway.

In their own words paraphrased, looks like we are killing off the market population, it could likely be the O6:O3 ratio.

Abstract
The vegetable oils produced by soybean, palm, canola and other crops provide approximately 25% of the calories consumed by industrial nations. In addition to their dietary significance, vegetable oils are a major agricultural commodity, with worldwide production of 90 billion pounds, worth nearly $50 billion per year. This large market size and the fact that the fatty acid composition of vegetable oils influences both their physical properties and nutritional characteristics has attracted considerable interest toward modifying plant fatty acid production for both food and non-food uses. Many successes have already been achieved in altering the chain length and saturated/unsaturated fatty acid content of dietary plant oils by transgenic methods. Future efforts will lead to plant oils rich in omega-3 structures found in fish oils. Genomic approaches, including EST sequencing, microarrays and bioinformatics are now contributing greater understanding of the underlying metabolism of oilseeds and the regulatory networks that determine the quality and quantity of oils produced.

We've captured 25% of their mouths and it's making us $50,000,000,000 p/a, dont want to loose that so we better genetically engineer Omega 3 into the product before they realise what's wrong with them.