The Omega Diet is a book by Dr. Artemis Simopoulos, a physician and researcher who conducted research on omega 3 fatty acids and popularized the Mediterranean diet and its use for improving health. This post has notes featuring the results of some of the research mentioned in the book.
• A fifteen-year study showed that men from Crete were healthier than the 12,000 men surveyed in seven other countries (Greece, Italy, the Netherlands, Finland, Yugoslavia, Japan, and the USA).
• Some wild plants contain more omega-3 fatty acids than cultivated plants.
• A study found that patients on the Crete diet had a 76 percent lower risk of dying from cardiovascular disease or suffering heart failure, heart attack, or stroke compared to people on the AHA diet.
• A study showed that volunteers on a diet composed of 40 percent fat manufactured little to no triglycerides. The bodies of volunteers on a diet composed of only 10 percent fat manufactured much greater quantities of saturated fat and triglycerides.
• A study found that volunteers reported feeling hungrier on days when they ate foods containing fat substitutes.
• A study found that oils high in omega-6 fatty acids send a message to genes to produce more of the cancer-promoting protein ras p21. By contrast, omega-3 fatty acids make this protein inactive.
• The ratio of omega-6 to omega-3 fatty acids that reduces the risk of cancer and heart disease is a ratio of less than 4 to 1.
• Research shows that the flesh of a wild Cape buffalo that forages in its natural habitat contains nearly six times more omega-3 fatty acids than a similar cut of meat from a grain-fed steer.
• A study of a corn-oil diet showed that it increased the risk of dying from heart disease.
• A study in a veterans’ hospital showed that the group of men assigned to a diet high in omega-6 oils had twice the number of cancer deaths as those on a more traditional diet.
• A study found that omega-3 fatty acid supplements reduced pain from menstrual cramps.
• Fish lowers homocysteine levels.
• A study showed that the blood pressure of women who switched to cooking with olive oil for a month declined from an average of 161/94 to 151/85.
• A study found that men who were given fish oil supplements had a 43 percent increase in nitric oxide production.
• A study revealed that men with the highest levels of inflammation were three times as likely to have a heart attack and twice as likely to have a stroke as men with the lowest levels.
• A study showed that men who ate fatty fish on a regular basis were 42 percent less likely to die from a heart attack than men who did not eat fish.
• A study in rats found that when tumors were infused with omega-3 fatty acids, their growth rate was slowed. When the tumors were infused with omega-6 fatty acids, they grew at a faster rate.
• Multiple experiments show that feeding lab animals linoleic acid makes their tumors grow faster while feeding them omega-3 fatty acids slows tumor growth.
• At least fourteen human studies have linked omega-6 fatty acids with a higher risk of cancer and omega-3 fatty acids with a lower risk.
• A study found that omega-3 fatty acids reduced the proliferation of cells in patients with precancerous colon polyps.
• A study found that omega-3 fatty acids reduced the size of metastatic tumors implanted into animals.
• A study of cancer patients recovering from major gastrointestinal surgery showed that they had a 50 percent reduction in the number of postoperative infections when taking omega-3 supplements.
• A study found that placing mice on a fish oil diet makes chemotherapy ten times more effective.
• A study found that 50 percent of mice on a 5 percent corn oil diet died from chemotherapy toxicity, but there were no deaths in the fish oil group.
• A study found that EPA helped cancer patients with cachexia gain weight.
• A study showed that the difference in weight between mice fed a soybean-oil diet and mice fed a fish-oil diet is comparable to the difference in weight between a 225-pound man and a 150-pound man.
• A study found that people whose muscle cells contain low levels of omega-3 fatty acids and high levels of omega-6 fatty acids are more likely to be insulin resistant and obese.
• A study involving 55 people who were diagnosed with Syndrome X showed that after a year of eating more fish and fewer omega-6 fatty acids they had less insulin resistance, lower body weight, lower blood pressure, and lower triglyceride levels.
• A study found that rats raised on safflower oil made the right choice in a maze test only 60 percent of the time, compared with a 90 percent success rate for rats whose diet contained an adequate amount of omega-3 fatty acids.
• A study found that breast-fed babies and those supplemented with fish oil have similar scores, while those given a standard infant formula have significantly lower scores.
• A study of one hundred boys between the ages of six and twelve found that the children with the highest levels of omega-3 fatty acids had the fewest learning problems.
• A study of elderly adults found that those who had the lowest levels of DHA at the beginning of the study had a 160 percent greater chance of becoming senile.
• A study in Japan showed that 70% of older patients with cerebro-vascular dementia showed significant signs of improvement after taking 700 to 1,400 mg of DHA every day for six months.
• The traditional Japanese diet contains approximately fifteen times more omega-3 fatty acids than the American diet. Japanese people have only one-tenth the rate of depression of Americans.
• A study found that Australian mental patients whose blood was relatively high in omega-6 fatty acids and low in omega-3 fatty acids were more likely to be severely depressed than those with a more balanced ratio.
• A study found that phosphatidylserine improved mood in elderly depressed women.
• A study found that boys with ADHD have significantly lower levels of both EPA and DHA than those without the disorder. The boys with the most abnormal behavior have the lowest levels of DHA.
• A study found that violent criminals had lower levels of DHA than people without a history of violence.
• A study showed that feeding male monkeys a diet with a high ratio of omega-6 to omega-3 fatty acids resulted in more slapping, pushing, and biting.
• A study found that fish oil helped relieve both positive symptoms and negative symptoms in patients with schizophrenia.
• More than a dozen studies have shown that omega-3 fatty acids can help relieve symptoms of arthritis.
• A study showed that adults who eat fish at least once a week have better lung function than those who do not eat fish.
• A study showed that asthmatics who took one gram of omega-3 fatty acids a day had a greater improvement in lung capacity than those who took placebos.
• A study of 900 elderly men in the Netherlands found that men whose diets were highest in linoleic acid were most likely to have dementia, while those who ate the most fish had the best mental function.
• A study of 8,960 smokers or former smokers found that people who ate the most fish were 40 percent less likely to have chronic bronchitis and 60 percent less likely to have emphysema.
• A study showed that 59 percent of Crohn’s disease patients in remission who took fish oil supplements were still in remission a year later, compared with only 26 percent of the placebo group.
• A study showed that omega-3 supplements allowed patients with ulcerative colitis to cut their steroid medications in half.
• A study found that patients with IgA nephropathy who started taking 12 grams of fish oil a day had better kidney function than those who did not take fish oil. Four years later, only 10 percent of the fish oil group had died or developed end-stage kidney disease, compared with 40 percent of those in the placebo group.
• A study of nineteen patients with lupus found that replacing omega-6 oils with saturated fat reduced the number of patients with active cases from eleven to three after a year.
• A study showed that 82 percent of patients with active lupus were markedly improved when taking omega-3 supplements, compared to only 28 percent when they were taking placebos.
• A study found that gamma-linolenic acid promotes tumor growth in animals.
• A study showed that patients who took six grams of EPA plus DHA on a daily basis for seven years had no apparent side-effects.
• A study found that vegetarians have only one-half the amount of omega-3s in their tissues as omnivores.
