Fish Oil

I've been using a linear programming model to look at how different foods combine to provide nutritional requirements that both meet minimums for nutritional items and avoid going over limits for some items for a diabetic with bad kidneys and hypertension.

The model I've been using has some pretty tight restrictions on fat (65 g. on an 1,800 calorie diet). That's not really achievable, especially since the model also calls for a minimum level of omega-3 fats of 1,600 mg. It seems to be impossible to achieve that level of omega-3 fats from the foods I normally eat without exceeding 65 g. of fat by quite a bit.

Such a confilict isn't really unusual when trying to formulate a diet with multiple objectives (In my case, weight loss, low sugar, low protein, low sodium, and meets minimum nutritional requirements otherwise). Such conflicts are why I started using the linear programming formulation to put together a personal diet plan in the first place.

The linear programming formulation helps answer questions such as “Does adding a fish oil supplement to my diet help me achieve minimum levels of omega-3 oils without exceeding desired levels of overall fat?”

The answer is No.

Using olive oil in my food preparation works better than taking a fish oil supplement.

My optimal daily diet plan is a mixture of

pinto beans
bread
fat free margarine
spaghetti
tuna
grilled peppers
olive oil
tomato
spinach

and that provides daily requirements of omega-3, fiber, vitamin A and vitamin C (it's actually just a little light in fiber) without exceeding dietary restrictions on calories, sodium, saturated fats, sugar, and protein. The diet does, however, exeed restrictions on total calories from fat (123 g. fat).

Forcing one 1200 mg fish oil tablet doesn't really change things much. The adjusted diet with that one pill added is the same as the above an addition of some carrots (the quantities of the food list isn't the same) and the only nutritional change is that the diet with the fish oil tablet has slightly higher overall fat (124g) and doesn't quite meet the daily requirement for magnesium and fiber).

My conclusion is that fish oil supplements won't do anything for you that just using olive oil doesn't already do.

Another update on the original diet problem

Yesterday I did a quick cost update on Stigler's 1939 minimum cost diet recommendation (it was published in 1945 but based on 1939 prices).

An update of his study was published in 2002 (based on 1998 prices). Written by Susan Garner Garille and Saul I Gass it appeared as "Stigler's Diet Problem Revisited" in Operations Research, Jan 2001.

A review of the article is here.

The researchers updated the original data to reflect price changes, revised values of the RDA's, and current evaluations of the nutrient content of the 77 foods chosen by Stigler. The updated problem shows that the optimal solution diet for a 25-50 year old man consists, on a daily basis, of 1.31 cups of wheat flour, 1.32 cups of rolled oats, 16 fluid ounces of milk, 3.86 tablespoons of peanut butter, 7.28 tablespoons of lard, 0.0108 ounces of beef liver, 1.77 bananas, 0.0824 of an orange, 0.707 cup of shredded cabbage, 0.314 of a carrot, 0.387 of a potato, and 0.53 cup of pork and beans. The daily cost of this diet is $1.78.

These costs are actually higher than the estimates I made yesterday for the Stigler diet. But they updated the model with more restrictions than in the original model, which would tend to cause an increase in minimum cost.

Both diets provides servings from all six food groups established by the USDA: 1) fats, oils, and sweets group; 2) milk group; 3) meats and beans group; 4) vegetable group; 5) fruit group; and 6) grain product group.