flaxseed and the flaccid
Seth Roberts, author of the Shangri-la Diet, has been conducting a self-experiment with large doses of flaxseed oil to see if the increase in Omega-3 fatty acids creates noticeable benefits across functions such as balance, arithmetic and memory.
The Knackered Hack has been “using” flaxseed oil for some considerable time, but intermittently and in much smaller doses than Seth is recommending. The two Chips off the old Hack are expected to take the nasty liquor each morning, although invariably one slinks out of it, while the other spills it.
So, in the interests of science (or at least productivity), I’m going to up my intake and see what happens, following some email reassurance from Seth. The metric of success will be whether I can update this blog more frequently, while simultaneously making the posts more readable.
The serious point in Seth’s article is that if balance is indeed affected, this finding could be particularly useful to the elderly.
Balance is also a function of core stability. Without varied exercise, our sedentary lifestyles tend to weaken the muscles in our trunk. I’ve been working on this a little of late and will provide more updates soon as that program develops.
Incidentally, eight hours after starting this regime, I nearly fell over. I was trying to turn off my MP3 player while walking down two stone steps, and started falling, almost twisting my ankle. Was this the oil not working? Or maybe without it things might have turned out a lot worse…?
[PS The word ‘flaccid’ has only been re-introduced into the Knackered Hack House Style Guide since we turned off the Google ads a few weeks ago. Let’s hope we don’t attract too much spam for our boldness.]
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Tags: balance, behaviour, core-stability, creativity, flaxseed-oil, mood, nutrition, Omega-3, Seth-Roberts, Shangri-La-Diet, training, weight loss, writing
Sir..please read the uber brill but awfully entitled The Protein Power Lifeplan by the Drs Eades.
The best book on paleo nutrition i’ve read.
And even though sellers would have you believe otherwise you’d be far better taking something like Cardiozen(best EPA-DHA ratio in the UK as i recall) with flax dribbled cold on food than taker larger amounts of the latter and less of the fmr.
Read Andrew Stolls work too or go interview Prof Malcolm Peat at Sheff and tell him i suggested it!
He and Horrobin we pioneers when folk just laughed at them for suggesting that EPA might affect mood and a slew of other thangs.
Simon, thanks your suggestions. We definitely need to “do” a bit more oily fish as well. We’ll try and cover that in a bit more detail over time as we look more at mood.
ref mood and Eicosap acid..then Stolls yer man. Done two DB studies with manics and it basically came out about as good as modern drugs but the massive diff of course is..no side effects.
Stolls at Harvard and Macleans Hosp unless he recently changed and if you want it and email me i can give you his email.
Also eat sardines..cheap as chips, small so they don’t bioaccumulate much sh*te, oodles of EPA, and apparently they are far from overfished……. so all in all a win-win situ…unless you happen to be a member of the Family Clupeidae that is !!
My dad put me on Cod Liver Oil when I was a lad. It seemed to keep me from getting ill quite as much as I had done previously thanks to my gruelling school commuting regime.