What the Inuit can tell us about omega-3 fats and 'paleo' diets

Berkeley News ^ | September 17, 2015 | Robert Sanders

[SunkenCiv]

The traditional diet of Greenland natives -- the Inuit -- is held up as an example of how high levels of omega-3 fatty acids can counterbalance the bad health effects of a high-fat diet, but a new study hints that what's true for the Inuit may not be true for everyone else...

Those genetic mutations, found in nearly 100 percent of the Inuit, are found in a mere 2 percent of Europeans and 15 percent of Han Chinese, which means that these groups would synthesize omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids differently from the Inuit...

These genetic mutations in the Inuit have more widespread effects. They lower "bad" LDL cholesterol and fasting insulin levels, presumably protecting against cardiovascular disease and diabetes. They also have a significant effect on height, because growth is in part regulated by a person's fatty acid profile. The researchers found that the mutations causing shorter height in the Inuit are also associated with shorter height in Europeans...

Nielsen noted that this is some of the clearest evidence to date that human populations are actually adapted to particular diets; that is, they differ in the way they physiologically respond to diets. Just as genome sequencing can lead to personalized medicine tailored to an individual's specific set of genes, so too may a person's genome dictate a personalized diet...

Nielsen and his colleagues at UC Berkeley and in Greenland and Denmark came to their conclusions after analyzing the genomes of 191 Greenlanders with a low admixture of European genes (less than 5 percent) and comparing them to the genomes of 60 Europeans and 44 Han Chinese.

[Little Bill]

I had my DNA done at FNDNA after thinking about Blams adventures. I found out that I am I1A, I M253 the Viking Gene, I am amazed that I don't like Lukefish.

I did like the Icelander I went out with but the love of Cod separated us.

[Little Bill]

See 21.

[SunkenCiv]