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YHM 085 - Decoding Fish Oil: The Heart Health Debate with Dr. William Harris
48 Plays1 year ago
In this episode, join Max, Calvin, and special guest Dr. William Harris as they dive into the intriguing world of fish oil supplements and cardiovascular health. Discover the nuances behind the Chen Study, and learn why blood omega-3 levels might be the key to understanding heart health benefits. Don't miss this insightful discussion on how to interpret study results accurately to make informed health decisions. Tune in for expert insights and essential takeaways!
Follow Dr. William Harris:
www.linkedin.com/in/wshfari
www.omegaquant.com
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Transcript
Introduction to 'Your Health Minute'
00:00:11
Max
Hello, everyone. Welcome to another episode of Your Health Minute brought to you by Aqua Mega. I'm your host, Max Marion, and with me is, as always, is my co-host, Calvin Morrow, and our moderator, Alana Locke. Hello. Today, we have a very special guest
Understanding Omega-3 and Misconceptions
00:00:25
Max
for you. Dr. Bill Harris is here to join us and to debunk some of the negative news that recently came out about omega-3s and their potential risk for arterial fibrillation. So welcome to the show, Dr. Harris.
00:00:38
Bill Harris
Hey, good to be back.
00:00:40
Max
Yeah. Yeah. Last time was really fun. I mean, I always enjoy your perspective on Omega threes. You're so brilliant. I actually read your paper that you, that you, you sent on, uh, on LinkedIn. That was kind of discussing this study in more detail, but we definitely wanted to have you on the show so that you could. vent to our listeners, maybe maybe maybe kind of give them ah you know a different perspective from from the recent news that has come out um and shed some light on and and maybe get rid of some misinformation that's that's been spread recently.
00:01:01
Bill Harris
Well.
00:01:16
Max
Absolutely.
00:01:17
Bill Harris
Yeah.
00:01:17
Max
um but Before we start, Bill, Dr. Bill, would you mind taking a moment to introduce yourself to our listeners for any who haven't aren't familiar with your work?
Dr. Bill Harris's Omega-3 Expertise
00:01:25
Bill Harris
Sure. um Bill Harris, my background is a PhD in nutrition and I have been studying the focusing in on omega-3 fatty acids and health since my postdoctoral days in the early 80s. It's been a fun run. I spent the first kind of half of my career in studying the effects of giving fish oil on lipid lipoprotein metabolism triglycerides and things like that. And the second half of my career has been um based on really developing a blood test called the omega three index, which measures your omega three blood levels.
00:02:07
Bill Harris
um We've been using, really relying heavily on that to ask questions in lots of different contexts. of ah Does the omega-3 level predict your risk for diseases? yeah is there if is there if If you have a low omega-3, does that increase your risk for disease A, B, C, D, E, whatever? And so we've been spending a lot of time ah documenting that a high omega-3 level is protective in ah in a wide variety of disease conditions.
00:02:36
Max
That's great and some brilliant new work that that you're doing as well when I was speaking to your, your daughter who also works with you, um' trying to find some new new markers to determine, you know, potential risk of Alzheimer's or diabetes and things like that.
00:02:51
Bill Harris
Sure.
00:02:51
Bill Harris
Exactly. Yeah.
00:02:51
Max
the
00:02:52
Max
Yeah, it's really, really cool. I think you undersold yourself a little bit there. I think I think for people that don't know you, especially like us who kind of live in and breathe in the omega three space.
FORCE Study: Omega-3 and Mortality Rates
00:03:01
Max
Dr. Harris is one of the most referenced ah people when it comes to the omega three space and has one of the biggest studies as well ever done on omega threes. Do you want to talk about the Harris force study?
00:03:12
Bill Harris
Which one?
00:03:13
Max
The Harris force?
00:03:15
Bill Harris
Oh, the FORCE study.
00:03:16
Max
Yeah.
00:03:17
Bill Harris
Oh, yeah, FORCE is it's an acronym. F-O-R-C-E is a group of of researchers that all have an interest in the relationship between ah fatty acids, in the but not necessarily omega-3 only, but fatty acids and what they can tell us about health health risk. And so we did a... i was able to lead a group that looked at the relationship between blood omega-3 levels using the omega-3 index or whatever metric that would assess omega-3 levels in the blood.
00:03:50
Bill Harris
And we looked at risk for death and we looked at risk for cardiovascular death, cancer death, and then all other causes in one bucket.
00:03:54
Max
Mm hmm.
00:03:58
Bill Harris
And we found that the higher omega-3 levels, the people at the highest omega-3 levels were the least likely to die overall. and to die from not just cardiovascular disease, because the omega-3s are not just about cardiovascular.
Impact on Cardiovascular and Cancer Mortality
00:04:15
Bill Harris
ah They were also less likely to die of cancer. They were less likely to die of all other causes combined in in one and then one bucket. So that that paper, I think, was the the largest one we'd ever done looking at across 17 different
00:04:31
Bill Harris
groups, people, different cohorts, uh, with about 13, 10 to 13 years of follow-up. Um, and yeah, something like 40, 45,000, I've kind of forgotten at the moment, but, uh, a lot of people, uh, in like three or four different continents, 10 countries.
00:04:38
Max
It's like 40, it's like 40,000 people and that you. Yeah.
00:04:50
Bill Harris
Uh, so it was a widespread, it wasn't just one group and, uh, the, the Omega three sing a happy song wherever
00:04:59
Max
Yeah.
Reducing Mortality Risk with Omega-3 Supplements
00:05:00
Bill Harris
you find them.
00:05:00
Max
What was the percentage in reduction of all cause mortality in the between
00:05:04
Bill Harris
Oh, it was like 20% between the highest and the lowest level.
00:05:07
Max
It's, it's, that's incredible, right? I, I referenced that, that paper all the time when I talked to people, cause I'm like, just go took ah take a look at this. Cause it's literally, if you just take this, it's one of the easiest things you can do to like reduce risk of all cause mortality, like based on the numbers that are there, it's, it's, it speaks for themselves. Right. So, so it must, so you know, obviously right.
00:05:27
Bill Harris
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think I have to caveat that cause this wasn't a study of, you know, it wasn't a randomized trial. This was, this was observational research and people kind of like to pick apart observational studies and say there, Oh, you know, well having a high Omega three is just the same thing. It did just a surrogate for having a healthy lifestyle. So it really had the Omega threes that are doing anything. It's just that people that take Omega threes just live healthier.
00:05:55
Max
Yeah.
00:05:55
Bill Harris
Well, That doesn't work because there was just a recent study that said ah people that use multivitamins, same idea, right? People should be healthier, should live longer.
00:06:07
Max
Yeah.
00:06:09
Bill Harris
Well, they don't. ah Excuse me, you know, if we're talking about the same, you know, if we're trying to say that omega-3 supplement use like is a just a surrogate for being healthier, well, the how come taking multivitamins is not a surrogate for being healthier? It's the same idea.
00:06:24
Max
That was a good, that's been the gold standard for so long. I remember you walking into a house.
00:06:27
Bill Harris
Yeah. Right. Right. And so when when you find a health benefit associated with taking with with having higher omega three, you, uh, you have to affirm that it has to do with the omega threes. It's not just a, you know, a placeholder for living, living healthy.
00:06:44
Max
Right. Wasn't there a study too? I think i I can't remember the name of the study right now. It's. There's a study I think it was done in Japan. And they actually measured smokers and non smokers and they they actually referenced their omega three index. And the smokers that had that we're taking the omega threes actually were were living longer than the people that weren't smoking and on lower level.
00:07:06
Bill Harris
i think that was I think that was a study we did in the Framingham cohort are we yeah where we we looked at the the risk um for dying of for die from anything in in in the Framingham study group out of ah Boston area.
00:07:11
Max
It was hey okay. Yeah.
00:07:19
Max
right
00:07:24
Bill Harris
And we found that your risk for dying over kind of a like a 10-year window ah was the lowest if you were a non-smoker and you had a high omega-3.
00:07:30
Max
All right.
00:07:37
Bill Harris
your risk was highest. If you
Omega-3 Benefits for Smokers
00:07:40
Bill Harris
were a smoker and you had a low omega three, this makes sense.
00:07:40
Max
Mm
00:07:44
Bill Harris
And if you were kind of in the middle, you know, so a smoker with a high omega three or a non-smoker with a low omega three, your risk was kind of in the middle.
00:07:44
Max
hmm.
00:07:51
Max
yeah
00:07:51
Bill Harris
um So, and you know, and I, I hate to say that that means if you're a smoker, you can take omega threes and it'll raise all the benefit.
00:07:52
Max
that's yeah
00:07:58
Max
and your balance is out and
00:08:00
Bill Harris
Don't want to go there, but, but you know, you could,
00:08:02
Max
ah yeah and yeah
00:08:06
Bill Harris
the The point of that was, I think, to say that if you think smoking is important or non-smoking, then you want to think about omega-3s, too, because they're...
00:08:13
Max
Yeah.
00:08:14
Bill Harris
in they're they're Yeah, yeah, that's ah that's a great area of research, too, right?
00:08:14
Max
At least through a few omega-3 capsules. Speaking of smoking, there's actually, there's something to do with omega-3s and addiction as well. I was reading a paper on that too, where it can actually help people get off some of the alcohol or smoking dependencies. Yeah.
00:08:29
Max
Yeah. It's fairly cool. When you see, when you see studies come out, like the Chen study that came out, you know, I think it was back in May at that that's about a month ago, just about a month ago, the study came out. That's got to just burn you, right? Because You're talking, we're talking about all these great papers and studies that are come out that don't necessarily get picked up by media. But then something like this comes out and we've experienced this also, it just gets sensationalized. It's plastered everywhere. And then everybody, you know, I assume it's because it gets more clicks or, or you know, it's very clickbaity and people
00:09:01
Max
And like you mentioned before, the naysayers love to come out and be like, I told you so, I told you it's no good, or I told you it's dangerous, right? And a lot of people have been investing a lot of money and energy into Omega-3. True. So then to learn that all of a sudden, oh, this is you know increasing my risk of getting AFib. It's scary, right? You're going to click in, learn more about it. But like but let's let's let's break it down.
00:09:18
Bill Harris
You know.
00:09:20
Max
like I mean, I saw what you what you put out there on LinkedIn. I mean, it was very well said, but like let's break down what you think they did wrong.
Critique of Omega-3 and AFib Risk Study
00:09:30
Bill Harris
Okay, so i'll just to summarize the study, first of all, um it was a study by a group from China.
00:09:33
Max
Good.
00:09:38
Bill Harris
Actually, many of these studies are groups from China, um which is neither here nor there. ah It's just hard to keep track of who the authors are. they have only I think they've got like six last names in China. and you know it's just Everybody's got the same land. The first names are all different, but the last, name that's a different thing. So this paper by Chen and colleagues was done within the, what's called the UK Biobank, United Kingdom Biobank. And this is a really, really good resource. This is a, um a about half a million people were recruited and screened and tested around 10 or 12 years ago now in the UK.
00:10:19
Bill Harris
And then I think they're between ages of 40 and 70. And then they've been now followed because everybody in Great Britain or the UK has part of the nationalized medical record system.
00:10:29
Max
Mm hmm.
00:10:37
Max
Okay.
00:10:37
Bill Harris
You can follow everybody's outcomes without having to have a special visit to come to the office. And you know like like most observational studies do, they they're much more expensive. But this is a very efficient way of doing it. So they have lots and lots of health outcomes in these people in the UK. Just very nice cross-section of your of people there. Anyway, um, one of the things that they asked everybody in this half a million patients study was, do you take fish oil supplements regularly?
00:11:10
Bill Harris
I mean, they asked a ton of questions, but one of them was this yes or no.
00:11:13
Max
Okay.
00:11:15
Bill Harris
So you get to prick yes or no. And it's your, it's your interpretation of what, what do you mean by regular and it's your interpretation of what you mean by fish oil. And in any event, it's kind of a sloppy, uh, maybe a rather blunt instrument in a way. Um, but it is what it is.
00:11:29
Max
we don't We know how all Omega-3s are created equally.
00:11:32
Bill Harris
yeah Right, right, right. And God knows some people may think that they're taking you know flax oil, they're taking omega-free, which are official in any event.
00:11:40
Max
A fish oil, yeah.
00:11:44
Bill Harris
So that was what's called the exposure. you know we're We're going to look at the different outcomes in people that say they take supplements and people say they don't. And about 30% or so of this group said they were taking supplements, which is a lot, which is
00:11:59
Max
that's all
00:12:00
Bill Harris
Probably a bit exaggerated, but anyway, that's you know Yeah, yeah it it Could have been could have been but it you know It is is what it is you take it at face value and it's it's not an illegitimate question to ask Is there a difference in?
00:12:02
Max
stuff to sound like healthier than they are yeah There might have been some fibbing on the side.
00:12:12
Max
like
00:12:18
Bill Harris
Who develops heart disease who develops cancer who develops whatever? Based on whether you take fish oil supplements or not. It's it's a reasonable question so what these guys did was they asked They did a kind of a novel thing where they're looking at the risk for a variety of different cardiovascular outcomes in kind of a pathway approach. like people you know Start off with everybody's healthy and who's taking fish or who's not. and Then you ask, okay ah over this 10 or 12 years of follow-up,
00:12:52
Bill Harris
who How many people developed a atrial fibrillation, which is you mentioned earlier, um which is a irregular beat, the the upper chambers of the heart.
00:13:01
Max
Okay.
00:13:01
Bill Harris
um it's not It's not terribly dangerous, it it's annoying, and it can it can lead to strokes if you're not if you're not taking any kind of blood thinner. So AFib is, it's not nearly as bad as a heart attack, but it's not nothing either. So they looked at what percent of the people on the, oh who said they were taking omega-3 and who said they were not, developed AFib. And they found, and actually this just confirmed a previous paper, they found that about 13%, well, no, put it this way, they found that about um
00:13:41
Bill Harris
about three or 4% of the, I got the real number here. I i don't want to to quote a wrong number. um The actual absolute risk, there we go. um That about 6%, no, no, no, no, no. Sorry about that. I guess we're being we being casual here, right? So take your time.
00:14:05
Max
Yeah, absolutely.
00:14:07
Bill Harris
Where's where's my number? Where's my number? Well, it's there somewhere. i put it in In any event, the the oh yeah i remember what but about.2% of the people who were not taking fish oil supplements developed atrial fibrillation, 4.2% of them.
00:14:26
Max
good
00:14:27
Bill Harris
okay About 4.8% in the fish oil group said they were taking fish oil supplements. I mean, so said they developed AFib. So that is a 13% difference, but it's only a 0.6%, what we call absolute risk difference.
00:14:49
Max
Okay.
00:14:50
Bill Harris
Meaning, if you look at 4.2% versus 4.8%, they did much different.
00:14:55
Max
So, you know,
00:14:57
Bill Harris
But if you look at it as a percent difference, it looks pretty big, 13%. If you looked at an actual difference, it's 0.6% difference. In any event, what's reported is the 13% increased risk and it was statistically significant.
00:15:08
Max
13.
00:15:12
Max
Right.
00:15:13
Bill Harris
ah They also then looked at people who had developed AFib and then who went on to develop heart attacks. That's kind of the pathway thing. Or what's the risk for being healthy and then just developing a heart, having a heart attack, but never developing AFib.
00:15:22
Max
Right.
00:15:30
Bill Harris
There are 15 different pathways they looked at, which was kind of crazy making, because a lot of it doesn't make sense. But in any event, so at the end of the day, they say, we found that people who would take fish oil supplements, say they take fish oil supplements. yeah um were at higher risk for AFib. What they didn't tell you, whatever yeah well, the paper says it, but it's not emphasized and the press completely missed it, ah is that there were five other pathways, ah like going from, if you have AFib and you're taking fish oil supplements, you actually have a lower, statistically significant lower risk, about 7%, of developing a major adverse cardiac event.
00:16:15
Bill Harris
you got about 10% lower risk of actually going from AFib to dying if you're taking supplements. There's five different statistically significant favorable associations with fish oil supplement use that got swept under the rug and there was one adverse effect and that's the one they got trumpeted all around the world in the headlines.
00:16:38
Max
To me, it ah it almost sounds like you're saying taking the omega threes is what could be causing this issue. But then taking omega threes is also what helps like help the issue as well.
00:16:48
Bill Harris
It helps any progress from from that to another another ah cardiovascular endpoint.
00:16:49
Max
Keep you alive.
00:16:52
Max
Yeah.
00:16:55
Max
Yeah.
00:16:56
Bill Harris
Yeah, right.
00:16:57
Max
There's no, I mean, it's so strange.
00:16:57
Bill Harris
right
00:16:58
Max
Like, why would you still talk? You're still talking about um an absolute 0.6% difference. Right. It's not, you know, you're sensationalizing at 13%.
00:17:03
Bill Harris
Right.
00:17:06
Max
And there's no, you know, there's, there was no actual evidence that they were actually taking the omega threes. They just said they were. And you don't need a 10 years prior and you don't know how consistent they were with it. And so it's not, it's not really,
00:17:19
Bill Harris
Right.
00:17:22
Max
I mean, you can't really conclude on that. Like it's not something you can hang that on, right?
00:17:24
Bill Harris
Well, I mean, yeah, i I take your point.
00:17:26
Max
Like it's.
00:17:28
Bill Harris
It's a good point. um It is a very blunt instrument and it's it's very sloppy. And you would think if anything, because it's such a sloppy exposure marker, you probably get a non-significant outcome because it's just noise.
00:17:42
Max
Right.
00:17:43
Bill Harris
But what you what I think is really important is to realize that there were something like 17 other papers that have been published you using exactly the same people and exactly the same exposure marker, do you take fish oil or not?
00:18:01
Max
Mm hmm.
00:18:02
Bill Harris
And out of those papers, there were 25 statistically significant relationships between taking fish oil supplements and a disease. 25 significant relationships. One of them was negative, atrial fibrillation.
00:18:15
Max
Mm hmm.
00:18:19
Bill Harris
24 of them were all statistically significantly positive for taking fish oil. And those things, you know, ran the gamut from from developing dementia, from developing Alzheimer's, from developing ah ah lupus, erythematomatosis. Liver cancer, developing kidney stones, all of these. I'm just reading my list of all the different outcomes that have been reported, published in the medical literature, available for the press to talk about if they want to. Available for Chen and his colleagues to write about in their discussion, because if they're vilifying Omega-3s from this one study, how come you didn't talk about the 17 other studies?
00:19:02
Max
right
00:19:03
Bill Harris
that looked at exactly the same thing, reported fish oil use, whether it's good or bad.
00:19:03
Max
I'm right.
00:19:08
Bill Harris
I mean, if you're going to believe the Chen paper, you got to believe these other ones too, because it's the same question.
00:19:13
Max
Aren't you supposed to be unbiased? Like when you're, when you're doing this type of research, you're supposed to look it up from an advice.
00:19:17
Bill Harris
Well, yeah, right. They're supposed to be, and they're supposed to be more thorough and they're supposed to be more thoughtful. And the reviewers of this paper that got into British medical journals should have raised a red flag and said, hey, you're telling a little piece of the story when you could be telling a bigger story.
00:19:29
Max
Yeah.
00:19:33
Max
Yeah. So this should have been picked up in the peer review, right? Like it's like, so who's financing these negative status?
00:19:36
Bill Harris
I would think so. I would certainly have peer reviewed it like that. um So I think that's really an important oversight that was made.
00:19:47
Max
Cause we've seen that we've seen it time and time again. Like it's gotta, there's gotta be an agenda behind it. It's not, you know, like. It's like I was telling you before, like we've experienced this ourselves personally when when a Quebec media outlet reached out to our company and said, hey, we're going to do we're going to publish this negative report on Omega 3 saying that you know taking Omega 3 has absolutely no health benefits. And they went and got their own experts. And we said, OK, can you you know send us what you have, and we would like to, you know, present our opinion on this. And so we went, we we worked with, with, like, ah again, half a dozen naturopathic doctors, presented a bunch of positive information, debunked the studies that they were referencing. Again, you know, like I said before, 1000 milligrams, Omega-3 daily has no impact. Well, this study was using ALA, not the same, not the same as EPA or DHA. And after they got all that,
00:20:40
Max
I don't even know if they looked at it. They just said, we're not going to use this. We're going with our original report.
00:20:44
Bill Harris
Thank
00:20:44
Max
That's not, you know, that's not really reporting. And I think, again, it's just, it's, it's more click bait, right? Like a negative report gets more attention and gets more picked up by more media. yeah And that's what, that's what they're chasing. Either, either it's, you know, there's a ah hidden agenda behind it where they, you know, they don't want people to really know the health benefits of omega threes.
00:21:04
Bill Harris
you.
00:21:07
Max
Um, or they're just trying to drive traffic to their website. Well, you know, a healthy, it sounds like, sounds like a healthy omega three index is bad for a big, big pharma, right? It's bad for business.
00:21:16
Bill Harris
Well, now that yeah, there's a conspiracy theory idea that's maybe more than a theory, right?
00:21:18
Max
but you
00:21:23
Max
Yeah.
00:21:23
Bill Harris
um I think the other thing that people need to consider is as we've talked about this, so just clicking a button that yes, I take fish or oil. No, I don't. Um, is a very crude method of measuring your omega three status, which is really what we care about. And so when we, and we've, we've published a paper recently in the UK biobank, the same group of people, exactly the same people, same data, except instead of looking at, you know, do they report taking fish oil or not? We look at their blood levels of omega three.
00:21:56
Max
Right.
00:21:57
Bill Harris
which is a much more objective measure of how much omega-3 you're really taking. And we looked at our outcome here was kind of like that paper we talked about with omega-3 and in the force project and total mortality. We looked at total mortality in the UK biobank based on omega-3 levels. Not on reported intake, but on actual blood level.
00:22:18
Max
right
00:22:19
Bill Harris
And we found exactly what we found in that previous paper that had 17 different cohorts. The higher the omega-3, the lower the risk for death, the lower the risk for cardiovascular death, lower risk for cancer, lower risk for all other causes. Exactly the same story. And that is a much more believable ah way of looking at, I think, the question of it does having a higher omega-3
00:22:35
Max
Right.
00:22:40
Max
National.
Omega-3 Benefits and Blood Level Testing
00:22:42
Max
Yeah, you can't just, you can't just say, yeah, i yeah, yeah, I'm doing, I'm taking away, like, it's a much more definitive way to look at it to say, yeah, you say you're taking it and yeah, we can see that you're taking it because we can see it in your, in your blood levels, then you can make it real, then you can make make a real claim, right?
00:22:42
Bill Harris
help you or her?
00:22:57
Bill Harris
Right.
00:22:59
Max
So if they had done that and referenced in like, like they say, they would have worked with the, the Omega quant testing to say, yeah, we're measuring the Omega threes. Oh, higher levels of Omega threes have a ah direct correlation with an increased risk of a fib. Then, then that's something to talk about it, but doesn't, that's not what they did at all. Was there a change?
00:23:18
Bill Harris
No, and what and when you mention AFib, again, that brings us back to the the hot button on this top on this particular paper. When we did this the same kind of study, when I what i mentioned where we pooled together a bunch of different our groups of people and would have omega-3 levels, and we looked at the risk for AFib, logical thing to do. And we found that the people that had the highest omega-3s were lower risk for developing AFib.
00:23:47
Max
Right?
00:23:48
Bill Harris
Yeah, so the whole AFib story is kind of coming out of, it came out of randomized trials with pretty high dose omega-3, you know, two, three, four grams a day of omega-3 in people with cardiovascular disease.
00:23:48
Max
Good.
00:24:04
Bill Harris
And we're using typically ah an ethyl ester form of omega-3.
00:24:08
Max
But that's the reduced IT study, right? The viscy of the, yeah.
00:24:10
Bill Harris
Reduce it, reduce it in strength. Yeah, right. And so they, and they Pulled together, those studies found about an absolute increased risk of about 1%. Instead of 0.6%, they found about 1% increased from from like 2% risk to 3% risk for developing.
00:24:30
Max
Okay.
00:24:31
Bill Harris
and But that's what calls all the fluff up on AFib and A3.
00:24:34
Max
But also had a, a pretty significant, I mean, what they found, I mean, when they got their, their drug approval, it was a reduction of risk of cardiovascular event, right?
00:24:42
Bill Harris
Oh, yeah. Yeah.
00:24:44
Max
So like your, and it was, that was a substantial reduction of risk of a, of an occurrence and of a reoccurrence. I can't remember the stats exactly, but I think it was in the 20% range.
00:24:53
Bill Harris
Oh, it was, it was a significant reduction.
00:24:54
Max
I think the, I think the occurrence
00:24:55
Bill Harris
It was, it was a great finding then reduced it. Yeah. That was EPA.
00:24:59
Max
I think the percentage of the reduction of reoccurrence was a ah lot higher, but it also like from an actual event, it was, it was significant.
00:25:06
Bill Harris
Yeah. Right. Right. So a mountain has been made out of the mole Hill of a fib in omega three. Uh, and there's good evidence that there's evidence on the contrary that it doesn't raise risk. Um, we're actually in the process right now of trying to look at. blood levels of omega-3 in, again, in the UK biobank and incident AFib and see if we can figure out what the what that tells, what story that tells. Because it's it's if the fish oil supplementation thing is true, theoretically, people who supplement with fish oil should have a higher omega-3 index.
00:25:43
Max
Right.
00:25:43
Bill Harris
and We published a paper. They have a little bit higher, but not much than people that don't because it's, this doesn't take into account how much fish you eat, how much omega three you're eating, getting elsewhere in your diet, whether you just take supplements or not.
00:25:54
Max
Right.
00:25:56
Bill Harris
Uh, so blood levels again are more important and we'll, we'll find out soon if there's a risk, increased risk for a fib in the UK biobank with based on omega three levels. So that's, that's two.
00:26:07
Max
That'll be interesting. One of you guys, when do you think you'll be publishing that paper?
00:26:11
Bill Harris
Um, oh, we're just starting to gear up to pull all the proper data into the big data sets and try to analyze it. So, uh, by the end of the year, I'm sure we'll have that.
00:26:21
Max
um very soon yeah we look forward to that
00:26:24
Bill Harris
Yeah. Right.
00:26:24
Max
we
00:26:24
Bill Harris
Right.
00:26:25
Max
yes so
00:26:26
Bill Harris
So that's, that's the story on Chan. I think, I think the, I've written a, you know, formal commentary on it and submitted it.
00:26:33
Max
and we should point yeah <unk> we'll post up We'll post up the formal commentary as well.
00:26:38
Bill Harris
Okay.
00:26:39
Max
ah So are you going to stop taking Omega-3s based on this study? Maybe I can ask you guys both this question. ta Is it going to prevent you?
00:26:44
Bill Harris
No, absolutely not.
00:26:45
Max
No. Absolutely.
00:26:46
Bill Harris
Absolutely not.
00:26:48
Max
That is good to know. And um you you would have mentioned your the blood testing levels.
00:26:49
Bill Harris
No.
00:26:53
Max
um That's a it's a business that you work with, right? The owns.
OmegaQuant's Testing Services
00:26:58
Bill Harris
Yeah. Yeah. Omega quant analytics is a laboratory that I started about 12 years ago to offer the Omega three index blood tests.
00:27:03
Max
Okay.
00:27:06
Max
And for any of our listeners who would be interested in doing that, what would be the best way for them to take that test?
00:27:06
Bill Harris
Um,
00:27:12
Bill Harris
They would um go directly to the website, our website, OmegaQuant, O-M-E-G-A, then Quant, like quantity, you know Q-U-A-N-T, dot com. And yeah, you can order a um ah kit that'll be sent to your house for like, you know, in in the US, I think the basic kit is 50 bucks.
00:27:33
Max
Perfect.
00:27:33
Bill Harris
And you get a You get a little kit, put a prick your finger, put a drop of blood in a piece of paper, mail it back in, get your omega-3 index about five days after you, the thing is in the lab.
00:27:38
Max
It's very.
00:27:43
Max
Not just here, not just here, it actually like with your associated risk or for like, you know, developing, there's a whole bunch of literature that comes with it. It's very, very cool. And there's the basic test, but there's also some more complete tests where you can actually measure, measure your, your, your lipid levels, your, let's see.
00:28:01
Bill Harris
Well, other other fatty acids, other ratios, trans fats, things like that.
00:28:02
Max
Yeah. Yeah. a Yeah, your AA EPA levels, try to some inflammatory markers, you have a vitamin D test as well.
00:28:08
Bill Harris
Yeah.
00:28:11
Max
I think they do. you ah Do you have the breast milk test as well? I think that's really interesting too, right?
00:28:16
Bill Harris
Yeah, yeah. We can, in the same way as you can prick your finger and get blood, ah a lactating mom can just put a drop of milk on a card and mail it in. We'll tell how much how much omega-3 is in the milk.
00:28:24
Max
Measure the level up, which is very important for those developing, you know, brains and those young babies. that's fantastic
00:28:30
Bill Harris
Oh yeah, absolutely.
00:28:31
Max
We'll be sure to have the link to, uh, to OmegaQuant in the description here. So that way anyone who's interested can check that out. Um,
Conclusion: Insights on Omega-3
00:28:38
Max
Dr. Bill Harris, I want to thank you again so much for being on our podcast.
00:28:41
Bill Harris
Great.
00:28:41
Max
Just a wealth of knowledge. And I think you, you kind of did a great job of taking this study and letting everyone who's has a difficult time kind of reading through these studies. Cause it can be confusing at times and just breaking it down and letting us all learn. And Collins, Collins, Collins referencing himself. Oh yeah. Anytime I say our listeners, I mean, I'm pretty sure.
00:28:57
Bill Harris
Oh. I mean, I had to read it two or three times to understand what they did. It was, it was complicated.
00:29:03
Max
Yeah. It was not clear, right?
00:29:05
Bill Harris
Yeah. wow So in ah any event, but I appreciate being on on the show and getting together again with you guys and if you want to do it again, let me know.
00:29:08
Max
Yeah.
00:29:13
Max
That's awesome. Thanks so much. I'm going to get you in for the next season. And for all our listeners, you made it this far and you liked the podcast.
00:29:17
Bill Harris
Okay. Great. Take care.
00:29:21
Max
Be sure to and share with your friends and family. Thank you.