As I blogged earlier, my arithmetic performance suddenly improved about a month ago (close-up above). How fast the change: On February 2 at 8 am I took the test; my scores were roughly the same as they had been the past month. At 2 pm the same day, I took the test again and was about 50 msec faster. (In reaction-time experiments, a surprising 50-msec effect is huge.) I remained faster for at least several weeks. Comparing the last 30 sessions before the shift to the first 30 sessions after the shift, t (38) = 11, p = extremely small. In an experiment, comparing treatment and baseline, t> 3 is very good and t > 4 is extremely good.
What might have caused this?
I moved to Beijing in October. Eventually I ran out of the Spectrum Organic flaxseed oil I’d brought with me and started drinking a Beijing brand called Joyful Organic. When I returned to Berkeley I brought a few bottles of it with me and continued to drink it. In late January I ran out; the evening of January 29 I started drinking Spectrum Organic again. Four days later my arithmetic scores sharply improved.
It’s really plausible that the improvement was due to the change in flaxseed oils. Flaxseed oil had made a difference (versus nothing) with a very similar task. A few weeks before the shift, a friend had asked how I knew if my Chinese flaxseed oil was good; I’d said I’d find out when I switched back to Spectrum Organic.
But why was the improvement delayed four days? I started studying flaxseed oil because one evening I took several capsules and the next morning noticed my balance was better. And if the improvement is going to take that long, why would it happen so sharply after the delay? I can’t even begin to answer these questions.
Interesting observations. Perhaps when you initially noticed an effect the day after taking capsules, it was because you’re body was in an omega-3 FA deficient state and the effect could be seen immediately. When you recently switched back to the Spectrum brand, your body probably wasn’t in a deficient state. In fact, you may have had enough omega-3 FA in your system to prevent the rapid utilization of each daily dose. Perhaps over the course of four days after switching back to the Spectrum brand, the reserves in your body gradually increased. Just some speculation.
Seth,
Just curious, why flax seed oil and not fish oil. Does flax seed deliver anything that fish oil does not deliver better?
I had something similar happen with flax.
I experienced some pretty severe cognitive difficulties a few years ago when attempting grad school. As you can imagine, the entire episode was not pleasant, especially when my doctor told me that I had attention deficit disorder and promptly put me on stimulants. After a few months of enduring meds that didn’t really do anything except dry out my mouth, give me the jitters, and stifle my creativity, I decided to consult an old friend at my former workplace, the local Whole Foods. A licensed pharmacist and practitioner of Chinese medicine, he recommended that I try flax seed oil. The problem was gone within a few days.
My doctor originally attributed my condition to school. Undiagnosed folks with ADD often develop coping mechanisms that fail at a later stage in their lives, often as adults. In my case, according to my doctor, the stress of school caused my ADD to become unmanageable. To be honest, I’m not sure if I have ADD (I’m not sure I care) or if I was just Omega-3 deficient at the time. I’ve always had a pretty oil-heavy (the good kind) diet, but school forced me to cut some pretty severe corners out of my daily rituals.
As far as the delay goes- this is going to sound kind of funny, but I think I can explain it. You know when you take a multivitamin and pee funny colors? Have you ever taken a multivitamin and not peed funny colors? I have. I remember once taking vitamin C tablets for three days and not experiencing the florescent pee. My poor body was sucking up everything it could and building up its reserves. I think something similar may be going on in your case.
Side note: Interestingly, my herbalist friend also suggested that eating papaya enzymes (usually a digestive aid) specifically on an empty stomach could help. Apparently, when you eat them in this fashion, the enzymes that would normally help break down food in your stomach go to work in your bloodstream, instead. I’m not sure if they helped me, cognitively, but they did make me feel great.
I read this a couple times, but don’t understand why switching BACK to spectrum organic would cause the drop. Unless there a corresponding increase in times when you switched to the Chinese brand.
I’d suggest that it’s independent of flax seed oil but rather a result of your move. First, the drop in reaction time coincides with roughly the same amount of time it takes to overcome jetlag. Second, the cognitive load in berkeley is probably lower than in China (no unfamiliar accents, all english, more familiar faces/surroundings). So your attention was probably seeking more stimulation/challenge in berkeley while it was satiated by all the ‘new’ stuff in beijing.
Todd, why not fish oil? because the first time I took fish oil I got a headache. Flax oil has been less trouble. I’ll study fish oil eventually.
mike, was there “a corresponding increase in times when I switched to the Chinese brand”? I don’t know because I wasn’t doing this test at the time. But, as you say, my explanation predicts such an increase.
bennetta, your explanation makes sense. perhaps for reasons of gravity the lower parts of my body soaked up the omega-3 first. Still it is puzzling that the very first time I took flaxseed oil — much less than what I take now — it had an immediate effect. Perhaps the brain can go quickly from zero –> some deficiency but only after the rest of the body is satisfied does it go from some deficiency –> no deficiency.
posted for someone else: The last sentence of the previous comment (“Perhaps the brain can go quickly….”) sounds related to Bruce Ames’s triage hypothesis for the allocation of scarce micronutrients:
https://www.pnas.org/content/103/47/17589.abstract?ck=nck