Demonized N-6 Pufas Surprisingly Ergogenic: Safflower Oil More Than Doubles Swimming Endurance of Aging Mice.
Image 1: Unexpectedly ergogenic - Carthamus tinctorius L., better known as "safflower", a highly branched, herbaceous, thistle-like annual. As a regular visitor of the SuppVersity and/or listener of SuperHumanRadio, you will be familiar with my skepticism towards fish oil supplementation as the "good for all" wonder-supplement in an athletic population. You will also be familiar with studies such as Filaire et al. (2010) which showed increased MDA (malondyaldehide) levels (and thus more, not less toxic waste) in athletes receiving 600mg of EPA and 400mg of DHA for 6 weeks. Thusly, it may not come as a total surprise that Guihua Zhang and his colleagues the National Food Research Institute and the National Institute of Vegetable and Tea Sciences in Japan found that 12 weeks on a diet containing 6% fish oil reduced endurance performance in aged mice by -20% . What may be more surprising, though, is that the vilified n6-pufas from safflower oil more than d...
