alt Hacker News> Compared to participants at Q1 of DHA, those at Q5 of non-DHA showed a significant lower risk of EOD. A statistically significant lower risk was observed in Q3, Q4 and Q5 of non-DHA omega-3
If I'm reading this right, if you can't get many fish sources in your diet, it's better to increase the quantity of non-DHA sources (certain seeds, oils and vegetables). But my understanding is non-DHA is not helpful so I may not be understanding correctly
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I think it's easy to take algal-based omega-3 supplements. They've gotten pretty good in the last couple years with gummies with a high dose and no algae test. And no fish killed!
> But my understanding is non-DHA is not helpful so I may not be understanding correctly
A lot of the common wisdoms about fish oil and omega-3 were based on early studies that had some too good to be true results. As studies were scaled up to more participants and more rigorous methods many of the amazing early results gave way to less impressive or even null results.
I think it’s a good idea to get a mix of omega-3s in your diet, but given everything I’ve seen I don’t think it’s all that important to start micro optimizing everything with isolated supplements. Consume a mixed variety of sources and try to get some fish in there every once while.
The importance of DHA specifically in this study is a good example of how individual studies don’t tell the whole story. This could be a spurious result that is correlated with something else that leads to elevated DHA in the blood (diet choices). Supplementing isolated DHA could miss whatever the real factor was.
> But my understanding is non-DHA is not helpful so I may not be understanding correctly
Alpha-linolenic acid (ALA), the Omega-3 present in most plant sources, can get its chemical structure lenghtened to EPA and DHA in the organism. The problem appears to be, when people get older, the efficiency of this conversion takes a large hit.