Evening Primrose Oil? Most people get enough GLA from their diet? So why take EPO supplements?

I tried it and it gave me diahrea. I suspect it's effects have been greatly overstated.

Evening Primrose Oil? Most people get enough GLA from their diet? So why take EPO supplements?
Hi Sara. What are your scientific references (ie, the research) that support your claim that most people get enough GLA from their diet? I haven't seen this research.



GLA is synthesized in the human body from Linoleic Acid (an omega-6). There are a lot of potential problems with this biochemical pathway that can lead to an inadequate biosynthesis of GLA.



Many, many people have fat malabsorption problems (e.g. Celiac Disease, Gallbladder problems, pancreatic insufficiency, etc.). These people can be at risk for deficiency.



Lastly, biochemical individuality can create a wide variation in 'requirements' for any specific nutrient. What is adequate for one person, may be totally inadequate for another.



Best wishes.
Reply:Evening Primrose is used by many women as a method to control PMS and other womens health issues.
Reply:Evening Primrose Oil increases your body's ability to benefit from omega 3 fatty acids EPA/DHA, which the average American diet is horribly low in.
Reply:Actually, most people might get a minimum amount of GLA in their diets (from nuts and seeds, for example), but not an optimal amount. Ideally, yes, it would be great if everyone had a balanced enough diet where nobody needed to supplement with anything, but most people just don't eat well enough. Heck, I work in a vitamin company, and I only know 2 or 3 people (out of 400 employees in our building) that eat as well as we all know we should.



Simply put, if you get enough GLA in your daily diet, great! If not, that's what EPO and Borage Oil supplements are for.





(edit): Regarding the person that said they got diarrhea from it.... it's unfortunate when people have allergic reactions like you had to any natural products. It has to be less than 3% of the population that would have an allergic reaction to a product without requiring a warning label to be put on it. I believe EPO has an allergy rating under 0.5%, if I recall.
Reply:With a typical North American diet most people consume approximately an omega 6 to omega 3 ratio of 25:1 (which has been greatly researched). The ratio that should be consumed of omega 6 to omega 3 is 1:2. What happens in the body when you have too much omega 6 (which is what is found in Evening Primrose Oil) is that it gets shunted into a pathway in your body that can actually create inflammation. When you are deficient in certain vitamins (such as B vitamins) this EPO is also more likely to create inflammation. The only real reason to ever supplement people with EPO (the GLA is the product that you want out of EPO and they have found that borage oil is actually a much better source of GLA) is for hormonal regulation. During days 15-28 of a menstral cycle, EPO has been shown to be "progesterogenic" which can help to regulate the progesterone hormones during this phase of one's cycle. During days 1-15 it is better to supplement with fish oil or to consume ground flax seeds and pumpkin seeds (for the healthy oils) because they tend to be "estrogenic" which is the hormone in control of the first half of the menstral cycle.
Reply:Yet another benefit of EPO is for cancer patients who have been given chemo or radiation.



Those two horrendous excuses for treatment severely disturb the metabolism, making it too catabolic...a potentially deadly outcome. (They also interfere with the body's ability to convert oils to GLA.



EPO is the one anabolic oil that contains GLA in high amounts.



The best to you.



Kelley