3 Comments
Jan 15Liked by John Lawrence Aspden

Very interesting article. Will have to read more about your diet. I'm 38 and have been taking levothyroxine since I was about 13 years old. I've had horrible years with crippling anxiety that only an SSRI seems to fix (on one now, actually). When my son was born, I couldn't pick him up. Any exercise drains me. I eat healthy and avoid seed oils, but probably need to pay more attention to PUFAs.

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Jan 16·edited Jan 16Author

If you were prescribed thyroxine then you probably had primary hypothyroidism, i.e. actual gland failure. If you've still got symptoms you may just be a bit undertreated.

PUFAs is the thing to worry about. Avoiding PUFAs includes avoiding seed oils, but it's easy to make the mistake I did and replace all the PUFAs you've just given up with PUFAs from other sources like peanut butter.

You actually need some PUFA. But the amounts are small. It's not supposed to be a macronutrient.

There are different types of PUFAs. The one everyone seems to worry about is linoleic acid. The sorts of PUFAs that come in fish are (probably) fine. Humans have eaten fish for a long time.

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i've also been diagnosed with mecfs and am interested in a possible pufa connection. there's plenty of research on lipid metabolism issues in mecfs.

The following quote has been chosen via confirmation bias so take it with a grain of salt, but

"omega-6 linoleic acid-derived oxylipins were significantly increased in male ME/CFS patients versus male controls."

https://translational-medicine.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12967-021-03035-6

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