Thanks Alex for taking the time to explain your thoughts and the work of Dr Martinovic. Does he suggest a lower fat intake, or just a lowering of foods high in arachidonic acid (never heard of it beofre - sounds like spiders! yuck.)
Take care, Justy.
Hi, the aim is to regulate arachidonic acid, which is the quintessential omega-6 fat. So it needs to be decreased, but he also regulated other fats. How our body handles other fats affects how we handle arachidonic acid (according to his model, and in his clinical findings). In my case I think my ideal was about 2.2% by calorie of polunsaturated fat, the same for saturated, and about 6% monounsaturated fat. Having to analyze this on a regular basis is extremely hard for sick patients, even with a computer program that did it for you. Each of these fats was individually titrated to symptoms, using what is called a hill climbing method. There were extensive symptom charts and a few tests that were used, and changes were made in the diet. If the symptoms improved, the direction of change was continued, in small increments. If it got worse, the direction was altered.
Other factors into play as well. Redox balance is critical, and especially the absolute concentration of reduced glutathione. So antioxidants and even the methylation issues are important, not to mention nitrosative stress. Martinovic tried to account for nitrosative stress, but I never heard him discuss the methylation cycle in the context of our more recent understanding - his work was a decade and a half too soon for that.
One thing needs to be made very clear though: decreasing omega-6 levels too far will have very severe negative consequences. This is about balance, these fats are essential fats and cannot be eliminated from the diet without drastic consequences.
There is a problem with hill climbing methods, called false optima. If there is a local condition that is an improvement but not a good one the patient could go there and not improve further. If that happened it was back to the start and do it all over again.
He never got around to splitting the polyunsaturated fat into omega-6 and -3 in his research that I know of, but this might have made a difference.
Just a caution: only one other doctor that I know of ever worked on this model, it was not widely replicated. However I have seen long term highly disabled patients improve enough to regularly exercise. Thats a big deal. I think there were a very small number of spontaneous full remissions, but he never figured out why. In his later research he was tying this in with hormonal cycles, but at about that point he got out of research and I do not think it was ever published.
This is not an approach that most patients can take on their own, it is too complicated and easy to do wrong. In addition if complications arise the patient had to go back to the doctor. Since he no longer does this, none of us have that option.
Dr Sears' Zone diet aimed at doing something similar, but in this case it was a higher protein and fat diet, with decreased carbs, a very different approach. It can work but not as well, and is also difficult to sustain during relapses as its too much work to buy and prep the food, at least that was my experience.
Bye, Alex