Re: Evening Primrose Oil Effective for Neuropathy

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On Wed, 28 Jun 2006 12:20:42 +0530, "Just" <just@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

This is something which has always confused me. Everyone says that
Western diets have more than neccessary omega-6. How is it then
that taking EPO etc helps in case of diabetic neuropathy, cyclic
breast pain & several other problems.
A supplement usually helps with a problem if a person is deficient
in that ingredient or needs more than the required amount to cure
the problem. In this case, EPO shouldn't help, because of us already
have more than neccessary - so how does it work?

G'day G'day Just,

That's a good question. Gamma linolenic acid, GLA found in evening
primrose oil GLA is an omega-6 and it helps yet Western diets already
have an excess of omega-6 oils. It does indeed seem strange. Well the
answer as I understand it is that the omega-6 compounds found in the
typical Western diet are the precursors of GLA such as linoleic acid.
Given the right environment linoleic acid could be converted to GLA.
Unfortunately the metabolism of a T2 does not generally provide the
right environment. All manner of other food items inhibit the
conversion of linoleic acid to GLA. Trans fat is the most obvious
inhibitor that comes to mind. As I see it the deadly combination is
the partially hydrogenated omega-6 oils hidden in Western diets as
vegetable shortening etc. The trans fat content prevents the omega-6
linoleic acid being converted to GLA.

One peril for T2 diabetics who go in for sports and carb load is that
GLA gets converted to dihomogamma linolenic acid which would be fine
except that in a high insulin environment this is rapidly converted to
arachidonic acid AA which is not. The ratio of DGLA:AA drops 50%.
Their performance promptly suffers.

Also EPO is that EPO contains GLA which is
supposed to be the one helping with the neuropathy. Are there
any other ingredients in EPO other than GLA?

There is linoleic acid but I don't think that plays any active role.

Do they also help.

I don't think so.

Borage oil also contains GLA. So can borage oil be subsituted
where primrose oil is used?

This gets a bit tricky. The oils have three fatty acids bound
together by glycerol to form a fat. The activity of fatty acid is a
bit dependent on where is fits on the glycerol. Is it on the inside or
the outside? Put simply it is not just the GLA content of the oil
that matters in determining its efficacy. The folks who sell evening
primrose oil maintain that borage oil contains substances that inhibit
the action of the GLA in borage oil. A few years ago I looked at
various oils for example black currant oil. It also is an excellent
source of GLA and has the added benefit of providing some longer chain
stearidonic acid an omega-3 oil only two steps short of EPA. This
made it popular with vegans.

Best wishes,

--
Quentin Grady ^ ^ /
New Zealand, >#,#< [
/ \ /\
"... and the blind dog was leading."

http://homepages.paradise.net.nz/quentin
.

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