Fatty Acids For The Eyes & Brain: The Good And The Bad

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Today’s 30-Second Summary

If you don’t have time to read the whole email today, here are some key takeaways:

• Omega-3 fatty acids do a lot of good for us, but their role in eye health and brain health is often understated

  • Today’s main feature looks at some very compelling science (huge dataset from high-quality studies with very clear and significant results) for the positive and negative effects of different kinds of fatty acids (including various omega-3 fatty acids, and trans-fatty acids).

• As we age, our collagen levels tend to get depleted more easily. Collagen is important not just for youthful good looks, but also for the health of bones and joints

  • Today’s sponsor NativePath are offering high-quality collagen without additives or harmful impurities

• Today’s featured recipe is for sesame and peanut tofu; it builds on the more basic recipe from yesterday, to take it from “tasty nutritious snack” to “very respectable meal”!

Read on to learn more about these things, or click here to visit our archive

A Word To The Wise

Watch and Learn

5 Things To Know About Passive Suicidal Ideation

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Wildcard Wednesday

Good For The Eyes; Good For The Brain

We’ve written before about omega-3 fatty acids, covering the basics and some lesser-known things:

What Omega-3 Fatty Acids Really Do For Us

…and while we discussed its well-established benefits against cognitive decline (which is to be expected, because omega-3 is good against inflammation, and a large part of age-related neurodegeneration is heavily related to neuroinflammation), there’s a part of the brain we didn’t talk about in that article: the eyes.

We did, however, talk in another article about supplements that benefit the eyes and [the rest of the] brain, and the important links between the two, to the point that an examination of the levels of lutein in the retina can inform clinicians about the levels of lutein in the brain as a whole, and strongly predict Alzheimer’s disease (because Alzheimer’s patients have significantly less lutein), here:

Brain Food? The Eyes Have It!

Now, let’s tie these two ideas together

In a recent (June 2024) meta-analysis of high-quality observational studies from the US and around the world, involving nearly a quarter of a million people over 40 (n=241,151), researchers found that a higher intake of omega-3 is significantly linked to a lower risk of macular degeneration.

To put it in numbers, the highest intake of omega-3s was associated with an 18% reduced risk of early stage macular degeneration.

They also looked at a breakdown of what kinds of omega-3, and found that taking a blend DHA and EPA worked best of all, although of people who only took one kind, DHA was the best “single type” option.

You can read the paper in full, here:

Association between fatty acid intake and age-related macular degeneration: a meta-analysis

A word about trans-fatty acids (TFAs)

It was another feature of the same study that, while looking at fatty acids in general, they also found that higher consumption of trans-fatty acids was associated with a higher risk of advanced age-related macular degeneration.

Specifically, the highest intake of TFAs was associated with a more than 2x increased risk.

There are two main dietary sources of trans-fatty acids:

• Processed foods that were made with TFAs; these have now been banned in a lot of places, but only quite recently, and the ban is on the processing, not the sale, so if you buy processed foods that contain ingredients that were processed before 2021 (not uncommon, given the long life of many processed foods), the chances of them having TFAs is higher.

• Most animal products. Most notably from mammals and their milk, so beef, pork, lamb, milk, cheese, and yes even yogurt. Poultry and fish technically do also contain TFAs in most cases, but the levels are much lower.

Back to the omega-3 fatty acids…

If you’re wondering where to get good quality omega-3, well, we listed some of the best dietary sources in our main omega-3 article (linked at the top of today’s).

However, if you want to supplement, here’s an example product on Amazon that’s high in DHA and EPA, following the science of what we shared today 😎

Take care!

Our Sponsors Make This Publication Possible

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Please do visit our sponsors—they help keep 10almonds free

This Or That?

Vote on Which is Healthier

Yesterday we asked you to choose between pine nuts and peanuts—we picked the pine nuts (click here to read about why), as did 70% of you!

Now for today’s choice:

Click on whichever you think is better for you!

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Recipes Worth Sharing

Sesame & Peanut Tofu

Yesterday we learned how to elevate tofu from “nutrition” to “nutritious tasty snack” with our Basic Baked Tofu recipe; today we’re expanding on that, to take it from “nutritious tasty snack” to “respectable meal”.

Click below for our full recipe, and learn its secrets:

A Quick Question

We’ll then talk about this on Friday!

One-Minute Book Review

Outsmart Your Pain: Mindfulness and Self-Compassion to Help You Leave Chronic Pain Behind – by Dr. Christiane Wolf

Dr. Wolf is a physician turned mindfulness teacher. As such, and holding an MD as well as a PhD in psychosomatic medicine, she knows her stuff.

A lot of what she teaches is mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR), but this book is much more specific than that. It doesn’t promise you won’t continue to experience pain—in all likelihood you will—but it does change the relationship with pain, and this greatly lessens the suffering and misery that comes with it.

For many, the most distressing thing about pain is not the sensation itself, but how crippling it can be—getting in the way of life, preventing enjoyment of other things, and making every day a constant ongoing exhausting battle… And every night, a “how much rest am I actually going to be able to get, and in what condition will I wake up, and how will I get through tomorrow?” stress-fest.

Dr. Wolf helps the reader to navigate through all these challenges and more; minimize the stress, maximize the moments of respite, and keep pain’s interference with life to a minimum. Each chapter addresses different psychological aspects of chronic pain management, and each comes with specific mindfulness meditations to explore the new ideas learned.

The style is personal and profound, while coming from a place of deep professional understanding as well as compassion.

Bottom line: if you’ve been looking for a life-ring to help you reclaim your life, this one could be it; we wholeheartedly recommend it.

Click here to check out Outsmart Your Pain, and recover the beauty and joy of life!

Penny For Your Thoughts?

Wishing you a wonderful Wednesday full of wellness,

The 10almonds Team