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Phytanic acid and docosahexaenoic acid(DHA)
Phytanic acid and docosahexaenoic acid increase the metabolism of all-trans-retinoic acid and CYP26 gene expression in intestinal cells.
Abstract
Retinoids are essential for growth and cell differentiation of epithelial tissues. The effects of the food compounds phytol, the phytol metabolite phytanic acid, and the fatty acid docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) on the retinoid signaling pathway in intestinal cells were studied. Phytol inhibited the formation of all-trans-retinoic acid (RA) from dietary retinol in intestinal cells. Phytanic acid, a known retinoic X receptor (RXRalpha) and peroxisome proliferator activating receptor (PPARalpha) activator, also activated PPARdelta, and to a lesser degree PPARgamma, in a transactivation assay. Phytanic acid had no effect on intestinal RA hydroxylase CYP26 (also named P450RAI) gene expression and metabolism of all-trans-RA in intestinal Caco-2 cells. However, in combination with retinoic acid receptor (RAR)-ligands (all-trans-RA or synthetic Am580) phytanic acid enhanced the induction of CYP26 and RA-metabolism in comparison to treatments with all-trans-RA or Am580 alone. Also treatment with DHA did not affect CYP26 gene expression and RA-metabolism but cotreatment of the cells with DHA and all-trans-RA or Am580 enhanced the induction of CYP26, in comparison to the induction caused by all-trans-RA or Am580 alone. This study indicates that food compounds such as phytanic acid and DHA that are RXR-agonists and have an impact on intestinal CYP26 gene expression and metabolism of all-trans-RA in intestinal cells.
Effect of dairy fat on plasma phytanic acid in healthy volunteers - a randomized controlled study
Participants were stratified according to baseline phytanic acid concentration in plasma and sex into two treatment groups receiving either a diet with a higher content of phytanic acid, phytanic acid group, than the control diet with a low content of phytanic acid, control group. We assessed all outcome variables at the start and end of the intervention period.
"Milk for the human study was produced by the experimental organic herd at Aarhus University by 56 Danish Holstein cows with an average daily milk production of 39 kg with 4.46% fat. The cows were divided into two groups and fed a concentrate consisting of 1:1 mixture of oat grain and rapeseed cake with 11% fat. This concentrate constituted 40% of the diet. The remaining 60% of the diet consisted of two types of silage, a "green" silage aiming after a high content of phytanic acid and a "yellow" silage aiming after a low content of phytanic acid. The green silage consisted of a mixture of white clover grass and alfalfa silage, while the "yellow" silage consisted of a mixture of corn silage, pea-barley whole crop silage with a small proportion of white clover grass silage. Feeding of the cows was initiated in November 2008 and milk was collected from both groups over one week in February. The milk was transported to Thise Dairy (Roslev, Denmark), where it was processed into butter and cheese. The higher intake of chlorophyll-containing "green" silage resulted in a phytanic acid content of 0.24 wt% in the butter and cheese used for the phytanic acid group compared to the control group were the "yellow" silage resulted in a phytanic acid content of 0.13 wt%."
"The butter and cheese were incorporated into buns and each day during the intervention the subjects were provided with 3 buns each day; two buns with butter and one with cheese."
Blood samples
There tended to be a slight difference in plasma phytanic acid (P = 0.073) between the two groups (Table (Table3).3). The study was not designed to compare baseline and treatment, however, due to the explorative approach we considered important to report that the results showed a significant increase (P < 0.05) of plasma phytanic acid within both groups. Noteworthingly, the increase was highest in the control group where an average increase of 24% was observed compared to an increase of 15% in the phytanic acid group.
In case, you didn't catch that:
The main finding of this study was a significant increase of plasma phytanic acid within both groups, regardless of cows feeding regime and test diet phytanic acid content. The higher increase in plasma phytanic acid in the control group compare to the phytanic acid group is opposed to what we have expected. This could be due to different compliance and/or random differences in phytanic acid metabolism between the groups. Since phytanic acid is not produced endogenously in human [25], the presence in the human body is of exogenous origin and ingested from the diet almost exclusively as preformed phytanic acid [26].
YH, you have to dumb this down for me lol So are you saying that DHA and phytanic acid lowers Vitamin A?
Quote from Doublecapricorn on February 12, 2019, 5:15 amYH, you have to dumb this down for me lol So are you saying that DHA and phytanic acid lowers Vitamin A?
I honestly don't know. The research on DHA and Phytanic Acid is not clear.
According to the first study, Phytanic acid helps degrade retinol in the intestines. This may mean that less Vitamin A makes it into the serum, which helps makes sense of the second study.
The second study was confusing because the control group was consuming less phytanic acid via dairy fat, yet they had much higher serum levels. Since the control group was consuming dairy fat that wasn't grass fed(yellow silage), it would theoretically mean the dairy was much lower in Vitamin A. So maybe, when there is less Vitamin A in the dairy fat, more phytanic acid makes into the serum.
Higher phytanic acid levels in the serum isn't necessarily good. There are some studies linking phytanic acid to cancer.
Sources of Phytanic Acid: How Diet Affects Thiamine
In ruminant animals, our source of beef, the gut fermentation of consumed plant materials liberates phytol, a constituent of chlorophyll, which is then converted to phytanic acid and stored in fat. The major source of phytol in our diet is, however, milk and dairy products. It raises several important questions. If thiamine deficiency is capable of causing an increase in phytanic acid in blood and urine, it might be a means of depicting such a deficiency in a patient with confusing symptoms. It might also explain why some individuals who have been shown to have thiamine deficiency by means of an abnormal transketolase test have symptoms that are not traditionally accepted as those of such a deficiency, perhaps because of loss of efficiency in HACL1.If an excess of sugar in the diet gives rise to a secondary (relative) thiamine deficiency, we are provided with an excellent view of the extraordinary danger of empty simple carbohydrate and fat calories, perhaps explaining much widespread illness in Western civilization. Interestingly, it would also suggest that something as benign as milk could give rise to abnormal brain action in the presence of thiamine deficiency, because of phytanic acid accumulation. Our problems with dairy products may go well beyond lactose intolerance and immune dysregulation.
http://www.hormonesmatter.com/thiamine-deficiency-aberrant-fat/
Unless we are aliens (which could be LOL), I would guess that we are more likely not intended to eat loads of white sugar, rather than we are not intended to eat loads of foods derived from grasses.
I'm thinking of an idea and attributing it to Price, but not remembering anything specific, that native people's health got pretty screwed up eating even small amounts of white sugar.
I'm also remembering that early European colonists only survived when they brought along their ruminants to turn grasses etc into food for them.