During a trip to Los Angeles a few weeks ago, I noticed that my scores on several mental tests were better all of a sudden. The apparent cause was that I had taken flaxseed oil at an unusual time. Normally I took it about 10 hours before the tests; in this case I had taken it about 4 hours before.
Does flaxseed oil have a short-lived effect on brain function? When I got home I tried to find out. Rather than doing a set of four tests once per day I switched to one test many times per day (e.g., 10 times). This would allow detection of short-lived ups and downs in my mental function.
The test I used required nothing but my laptop. I usually have my laptop with me so such a test is much easier to do throughout the day than a task that requires other equipment. The test consisted of four blocks of 50 trials each. For each block I memorized a new set of three digits (e.g., 0 1 7). On each trial I saw 1, 3, or 5 digits and pressed a keyboard key as quickly as possible to indicate if any of the memorized digits is in the displayed set. For example, if the memory set was 0 1 7 and the display set was 3 2 8 the correct answer was “no” (which I indicated by pressing “4″).
The trials were packed together as closely as possible: As soon as I answered, the next set appeared. It took about 3 minutes to do 200 trials.
I did frequent measurements for four or five days. They appeared to confirm what the Los Angeles measurements suggested: Flaxseed oil did have a short-term effect. But two things muddied the water:
1. Baseline measurements were not always as steady as I would like. There were ups and downs that seemed too large to be random variation. The curious and exciting thing was that these ups and downs usually had a possible explanation — something had changed. For example, the measurements would be X1, X2, X3, Y. X1, X2, and X3 are close; Y is quite different. Between X3 and Y I had eaten a meal.
2. The task was difficult. I was about 88% correct and it was hard to do better. With any reaction-time task there is a speed-accuracy tradeoff: If you are slower, you can be more accurate. In this particular case this is a problem because it is an added source of variation and may reduce reaction-time differences: Rather than becoming slower, I become less accurate (or rather than becoming faster I become more accurate).
Problem #1 is easy (if slightly unpleasant) to solve: Keep the situation more constant. Eat less during the measurement period, etc.
To reduce Problem #2 I am learning a new task. I will go into detail tomorrow.
Seth, I’m not sure why you seem to think that the flax oil is changing the brain’s composition. Such an effect would surely take months to manifest. What’s clearly happening is the brain is burning flax oil (probably as ketones) for fuel. Then the meal effect is not curious; it’s the expected result of the brain changing fuel sources from omega-3 derived ketones to carb-derived glucose.
The first question I want to answer is whether it really is cause and effect. Later I’ll try to answer questions about mechanism — if flax oil causes a certain change, why?
I’m much less sure than you what’s going on. I found that olive and flaxseed oil appeared to have effects on balance in opposite directions. These effects appeared within a day or so — much less than months. Can you explain this?
About the meal effect: according to your explanation, did the meal increase or decrease reaction time?
Well, I apologize for the word “clearly” — it’s just my hunch about a possible explanation.
That the effects of flax and olive oil would show within a day would also seem to support the idea that these oils are being used by the brain for energy, rather than incorporated into the structure of brain cells.
And an explanation for the different effects of these oils might be found in their fatty acid profiles. Olive oil is largely n-9 oleic acid, right? Flax contains a lot of n-3 ALA…it seems possible that the brain might perform differently on different oils, and differently yet again on blood sugar from a (presumably) carb-heavy meal.
(I think how your brain would perform after a meal might depend on what the meal was. You might have better balance after a filet of wild salmon than you do after chicken fried in transfats with a side of french fries, for example.)
It would certainly be interesting to construct a matrix of various oils and frequent tests and see which oils and carbohydrates made you smarter!
Are you familiar with the card game known as Set? You can enjoy this as solitaire as well as playing against other persons. Set is a neat and fun abstract matching test that might be useful for your experiments.
https://www.setgame.com/
I can sometimes do the online Daily Puzzle in under a minute but a minute and a half is more typical. I would expect a newbie to take several minutes.
Tom, I’m sure Seth will probably chime in. But he has tested other oils — with olive oil performing poorly! You should read his other posts on the subject — this one is mainly a follow up. He’s explained more of his methodologies and theories in other posts. Unfortunately Seth is a one-man laboratory, I wish he had an army of subjects or at least an army of highly trainable rats! Maybe a MacArthur genius grant will come his way.
The effects of flaxseed oil can be summed up like this:
1. going from low level to high level: fast (overnight) improvement.
2. going from high level to low level: slow (a few weeks) decline.
This is the pattern seen with vitamins:
1. going from low level (e.g., scurvy) to high (sufficient) level: fast improvement
2. going from high level to low level: slow decline.
With the difference that with vitamins the time course is slower: Scurvy takes a few weeks to fully recover from and takes months to develop.
The fuel/structure dichotomy doesn’t exhaust the possibilities. Think of oil: Adding oil to an under-oiled engine produces very fast improvement and it takes a long time without enough oil before performance gets a lot worse.
I can’t claim to be an expert of any kind, so I’ll simply point to what I’ve read for what it’s worth. You might find at least some possible explanations in “The Ultimate Omega-3 Diet” (https://www.amazon.com/Ultimate-Omega-3-Diet-Evelyn-Tribole/dp/0071469869/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/002-3939287-9868043?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1185024664&sr=8-1).
This topic is covered in Chapter 7 “Omega-3s, the Brain and Mood”. According to the author, with what appears to be an awful lot of evidence to back her up, Omega-3s affect the brain in two ways. The first is in reducing inflammation, which she claims is one of the major causes of disease in all areas of the body, including the brain. More specific to the brain, Omega 3s appear to have a strong effect on the fluidity of the brain’s cell membranes.
Both of these seem to be more long-term benefits than what you are seeing, but it may help you piece the puzzle together a little bit.
The major message of that book is that our diet includes way too much Omega-6, and not nearly enough Omega-3. All Omega-3 processes depend on certain enzymes, and Omega-3 competes with Omega-6 for these enzymes. With too much Omega-6, and not enough Omega-3, the Omega-3 can not be as effective as it should be. If this is correct, then the amount of Omega-6 in your meal could have a substantial effect on the bioavailability of the Omega-3s from your Flax Oil.
She also asserts that you need an additional source of Omega-3 beyond what you get with Flax Oil. With Flax Oil you only get one of the three essential fatty acids: ALA. You also need two others, EPA and DLA every day, which can be obtained from fish sources, fish concentrates (e.g. Fish Oil), and supplements made from Algae. Your body can create EPA and DLA from ALA, but at a very low efficiency rate. The ALA seems to be more important than EPA and DLA, which would explain why you get good results with Flax Oil only. If this is all correct, you should get even better results by mixing in either some EPA/DLA supplements. I’ve been doing this by simply taking Fish Oil tablets with my Flax Oil or ELOO, to increase my update of EPA/DLA, but I haven’t been doing it is systematically as you are.
Olive oil was entirely Omega-3 neutral, meaning that it doesn’t change the Omega-3/Omega-6 ratio at all, partly because it’s mostly Omega-9, and the remaining essential fatty acids are properly balanced.
I also think that Tom’s point about blood sugar and insulin spikes seems like something that could have a big effect on your results. It’s relatively easy to prove that a carbohydrate heavy meal has an effect on brain function. Just eat one, and try to stay awake an hour later.
It would be interesting if you could post a link to your mental test that you’re using, so others could repeat the experiment.
If I read the scientificese correctly in this abstract, it says that ALA (such as in flax) converts into ketones:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/14769482
If so, Tom’s hypothesis of a ketone explanation seems more plausible. Also, it suggests that coconut and MCT oil might have similar effects.