The Importance Of Omega 3, Vitamin B12 And DHA To Your Health And Where You Get Them From

Plants

uh moving on to vitamin b12 uh the i think the first thing we need to realize is plants really are not reliable sources at this stage in the game of b12 and so seaweed and algae contain active and inactive forms of b12 an inactive b12 actually can attach to your b12 receptor sites and keep out active b12 so it can contribute to a functional b12 deficiency now there are some blue-green algae’s like chlorella that may be a better source there are a couple of very small studies suggesting they are reliable but at this stage in the game we can’t say for sure so we need further research there’s this new thing called duckweed it’s water lentils they they’re saying that it actually inside the plant contains some b12 producing bacteria we definitely need further research on that one there’s some promise but i don’t know how many people are going to have access to water lentils and then fermented foods like tempeh black tea vegetables they they generally contain little active b12 in north america now in some places like indonesia they tested tempeh but in indonesia and it had usable b12 but it’s fermented in these wooden vats that are contaminated with b12 producing bacteria whereas we tend to ferment it in clean stainless steel vats and so you don’t get as much b12 being produced so again not super reliable sources organic vegetables really don’t contain much b12 unless they’re grown on human manure mushrooms are minor sources of b12 but you can only get about five percent of your necessary b12 intake from from these foods so internal production is rarely sufficient um it occurs mainly in the large intestine and b12 is absorbed mainly in the small things don’t usually go backwards so what you produce in your large usually goes out the other end b12 is produced um in the a little bit in the small intestine in the oral cavity but it’s not sufficient to meet your daily needs unless you have extremely bad dental hygiene you may get more bacteria in your mouth but it’s still a questionable source and not a good good idea for most people you want to have good dental hygiene because if you have bad dental hygiene you cut about 10 years or so off your life b12 stores stores can last two or two to three years in some adults but some people become deficient much more quickly breastfed babies born to b12 deficient mothers can develop b12 deficiency within months of birth and and it can cause severe permanent brain damage and this should never happen we have to make sure babies have an

Symptoms

adequate b12 source so what kind of symptoms do you get if you’re b12 deficient well you get anemic you get this thing called megaloblastic or large cell anemia and all the normal symptoms of anemia like fatigue and and and irritability and all of that um you can get nerve and brain damage so one of the very first things that happens is numbness and tingling at the ends of your fingers and toes and even sometimes the end of your nose and you can get a lot of gastrointestinal disturbances and elevated homocysteine which can increase your risk of heart disease

RDA

so what is the rda it’s about for adults it’s 2.4 micrograms per day and the actual intakes if you recall in the adventist tell study even vegans were getting 6.3 micrograms whereas in epic oxford the vegans were only getting about 0.75 micrograms uh even the lactova vegetarians were just above the rda

B12 Status

and so the b12 status of vegetarians and vegans are reflected by that in the adventist tell study too about 13 of vegans had somewhat low levels and we’re talking under 200 picograms per mil but in epic oxford it was about 73 that that were on the low side below that number uh and and i mentioned um before why the difference but the difference is really about the use of b12 fortified foods and supplements in uh north america that aren’t so available in the uk and and hopefully in europe that will be changing

B12 Supplementation

so the one thing we need to know is we should not be messing with b12 vegans vegetarians and everyone over 50 needs to ensure that they have a reliable source and monitor their b12 status so why

Why Everyone Over 50 Needs B12

everyone over 50 well the institute of medicine actually recommends that vitamin b12 for everyone over 50 comes from fortified foods and supplements omnivore or vegetarian why because it’s bound to protein in animal foods and as you age your ability to cleave the protein or the the b12 off the protein it it is bound to diminishes so uh you need enough gastric acid you need enough enzyme production to build to do that job and it’s estimated 10 to 30 percent of people over 50 just don’t produce enough so they make a blanket recommendation for the entire population

Plant vs Animal Sources

and for people over 50 if you look at at plant versus animal sources unfortified plant foods we know are not reliable sources however fortified b12 fortified foods are more reliable than animal products for people over 50 years of age

How Much B12 Do We Need

so how much b12 do we need well it’s debated still but generally we recommend at least a thousand micrograms from a supplement two to three times a week we only absorb anything over about 500 micrograms we only absorb maybe 0.5 to 1 percent of that b12 that’s why the number is so high relative to what we need per day and if you’re doing it per day probably 25 to 250 micrograms is a good idea even 10 may be enough but to be on the safe side 25 to 250 and a multi would do the trip if you’re relying on fortified foods you want a couple of servings per day with four to ten micrograms per serving so you would get about four micrograms in a heaping tablespoon of nutritional yeast for example

Sources Of B12

so reliable sources for vegans and lactose vegetarians would be supplements and fortified foods and additional sources for people under the age of 50 for lacto-ovo would be dairy products and eggs so what are the best plant sources of b12 well meat analogs ready to eat cereals non-dairy milks nutritional yeast that are fortified with b12 and just to give you an idea of how animal products compare it’s very very similar amounts in in these foods to what you would get in

Plant Sources Of B12

animal products so omega-3 fatty acids don’t we need the big question that people ask is don’t we need fish to get enough omega-3s and the answer is no we can actually get them from plants there are land plants we get ala from or alpha linolenic acid and sea plants we get epa and dha from and that includes microalgae in supplement form or macro algae which is seaweed but it only provides epa i’m going to have to go a bit faster because i see my time is running out i got 21 or 22 minutes left so fish this is the other very interesting thing is fist fish don’t make epa and dha they’re they’re actually all made by micro uh d epa and dha are made by micro algae the fish get it because they ate smaller fish that ate the micro algae and so we can get it from that source as well do plant eaters get enough well compared to non-vegetarians epa and dha and blood tissue and breast milk is about 30 percent lower in lacto-ovo vegetarians and 40 to 70 percent lower

Low Omega 3s

in vegans so why the low omega-3s well diets may contain insufficient plant omega-3s the alpha-linolenic acid and usually contain no epa or dha diets also may not be very well designed to maximize the conversion of plant omega-3s into the more biologically active long big omega-3s epa and dha so how can people who don’t eat fish optimize omega-3 fatty acids

How To Optimize Omega 3s

well you need to be aware of the factors that depress conversion so there are non-diet factors like genetics and gender and smoking and age and chronic diseases like diabetes and metabolic syndrome and hypertension that can depress the activity of the enzymes that convert the plant omega-3 to the more active long-chain dha and

NonDiet Factors

epa and then there are diet factors high intakes of omega-6 can reduce conversion because the enzymes that do the converting are shared between the omega-6s and the omega-3s so if you have a lot of omega-6 they hog all the desaturates enzymes inadequate nutrition so we need enough protein we need enough vitamins and minerals trans fatty acids and alcohol both depress conversion as well and very high fat diets they compared a 40 fat diet with a 20 fat diet and there was much better conversion with the 20

Plant Omega 3

fat diet than with a very high fat diet we need to ensure that we eat enough plant omega-3 so enough ala so that we can do the conversion so for those that don’t eat fish probably about two to four grams a day is recommended and you would get that from an ounce of walnuts or a tablespoon of heaping tablespoon of ground flaxseed or a tablespoon or two of chia seeds or a couple of tablespoons of hemp seeds or about 20 or 30 cups of leafy greens so leafy greens about half the fat is omega-3 but certainly you would need to eat again like a horse or a cow to get enough from leafy greens 20 to 30 or 40 cups a day so and

Reduce Omega 6

reduce omega-6 uh if it’s excessive my my time just increased which is just lovely [Laughter] we need to reduce omega-6 if it’s excessive so the main source of omega-6 fatty acids for people in north america is these omega-6 rich oils like safflower grape seed sunflower corn oil it has over 75 percent of its fat is omega-6 cotton uh cotton seed and sesame oil is is around uh 50 to 60 um omega-6 and then omega-rich foods like like pumpkin seeds sunflower seeds sesame seeds can certainly be included because you’re not getting as much of the omega-6s as you would if you were using the oils and these are really valuable foods with a lot of nutrients so you don’t want to exclude

Omega Rich Oils

them and finally you could consider direct sources of long-chain omega-3 fatty

Direct Sources Of Omega 3

acids and i know that this is a can of worms in the in the plant-based world right now there’s a lot of controversy over whether or not we should be taking uh epa and dha directly and

Who Should Take Omega 3

and the reality if we think about who might need it is we just don’t know we don’t know if we need it or not for sure but what we do know is is that some people that vegetarians and vegans do tend to have lower amounts uh do can we can we make enough eating enough ala some people do and it’s not a problem but there may be some people for whom taking a direct source is not a bad idea just to maximize our our status and so pregnant and breastfeeding women we omega-3s long-chain omega-3s are extremely vital to the gray matter of the brain and so you want enough in your breast milk and so even though women who are young tend to convert about 36 percent of ala to either epa either epa or or dpa or dha those three long-chain fatty acids i think is about 21 to epa and about nine percent to dha and about six percent to dpa and that that is unbelievable it’s way higher conversion than we see in anybody else because obviously women need to prepare be prepared for the birth of a child however we still don’t know if it’s enough and and so taking may be reasonable for that population but also there are some people who have very depressed delta 60 saturates and can’t convert and so people with diabetes metabolic syndrome or hypertension may have reduced conversion ability populations people that come from places where fish was a very important part of the daily diet they may just make less of these conversion enzymes and so for them to have optimal status they may be better taking a little bit of of these supplements and the supplements are based on micro algae

Microalgae Supplements

they’re very widely available and we’re still unsure as i said what would be optimal and i’m sure it’s very very different for different people and testing isn’t always reliable even though we can get tested you might want to get tested a couple of times with different companies um but but many people suggest two or three hundred milligrams uh two or three times a week may be sufficient it’s kind of like eating a couple of servings of fatty fish that would be the amount you would get some fatty fish is much higher but that would be typical of a lot of fish

Benefits Of Microalgae

there are huge advantages of choosing a plant-based option over the fish it’s you know where fish are a huge source of environmental contaminants so the microalgae would be clean it’s sustainable because we’re growing it we’re not raping the oceans to produce this microalgae and it’s cruelty free so it makes a lot more sense than getting it from fish oil