Essential Fatty Acids
(EFAs) & Weight Loss

Below is an excerpt from Part Two of

The 2004 Multi-Diet

by Anderson A. Anonymous, M.D., Ph.D.

EFA Deficiency Symptoms

As I pointed out in my rant in Part One, there is a serious tendency for people to try to eliminate fat altogether when they diet. But this is also a serious mistake!  You need your EFAs to remain healthy and The Beast will make your diet a miserable and possibly dangerous experience without them.

So if you are one of those people who wish to ignore my wondrous words of wisdom and do entirely without “demon-fat”,  first please go and re-read my rant about this.

Then if you are still determined to do this unwise thing, read the sections below concerning the known EFA clinical deficiency symptoms so that you’ll at least have a chance to recognize the deficiency when it happens to you.  (But keep in mind that these clinical deficiency symptoms are only the most obvious signs of poor health.)

The most noticeable symptoms of a deficiency of either LA or ALA are various skin problems. (These may not show up for weeks if you happen to have large reserves of the EFAs.) There may also be other symptoms. Perhaps you may already have some of them. 

Alpha linolenic acid (ALA) Deficiency

Alpha linolenic acid (ALA) deficiency symptoms are very subtle and easier to miss than those of LA (even professionals miss them). This is most likely the reason why they were not scientifically recognized in humans until fairly recently. However, ALA deficiency can be confirmed by blood tests that measure the amount of Omega-3 fatty acids in circulation.

Clinically recognizable ALA deficiency symptoms usually take the form of  "scaly skin  (much like dandruff)  together with skin atrophy" (very thin skin). Other symptoms can be scaly dermatitis and/or small rips or abrasions (excoriations) in the skin. In one case, a  "thickened, crusty, and scaly skin"  was reported.

These symptoms can probably occur anywhere on the body, but have been reported particularly on hands, forearms, shoulders, and face. (In my own case, the skin on the backs of my hands becomes dry and rough. This clears up in less than two days when I take the recommended amounts of the EFAs.)

The first reported case of ALA deficiency also found neurological (nerve) symptoms that cleared up immediately when ALA supplementation was begun.

The symptoms were periods of numbness, particularly on the bottom of the feet with prickling and tingling sensations sometimes extending as high as the thigh area, which could make walking difficult. There were also short-duration episodes of visual blurring.

These neurological symptoms of ALA deficiency should surprise no one. Normal brain and nerve cells typically contain large amounts of various Omega-3 fatty acids, therefore a lack of ALA would naturally be expected to impair their function.

In my opinion, ALA deficiencies are more likely to occur than LA deficiencies. This is both because of people’s eating habits (that "chocolate cheesecake" doesn’t have much ALA in it J) and because modern agricultural and food processing techniques are generally “hard” on ALA.  ALA oxidizes quickly and then it tastes bad so processors tend to remove it before this can spoil the food.

Linoleic Acid (LA) Deficiency

Because linoleic acid (LA) is necessary for so many biochemical functions, the list of possible deficiency symptoms is quite long. In humans, drying and flaking of the skin are the most obvious short-term symptoms.

Classic symptoms are skin problems; reduced growth rate; increased loss of water due to a change in skin permeability; male and female infertility; kidney damage; and eventual death. Other symptoms are usually sub-clinical and must be determined by laboratory tests.

Until recently, the development of human EFA deficiency was considered extremely rare. However, more recently, with the development of sensitive lab tests for such indices as the triene/tetraene ratio, EFA deficiency has been documented in many groups, particularly the elderly, hospitalized, and/or physically stressed individuals. It may well (now) also be more common in the general population. As scientists say, “more investigation is required”.