We have received numerous inquiries about a recent article published in Nexus Magazine (January-February 2007) entitled “EFAs, Oxygenation and Cancer Prevention” by Brian Peskin. His message is summed up at the beginning of the article as follows: Cancer as well as heart disease can be prevented by taking a ratio of at least 1:1 up to 2.5:1 unadulterated parent omega-6 to omega-3 essential fatty acids plus specific vitamins and minerals.
Who Is Brian Peskin?
We learn from his website, www.brian-peskin.com, that Professor Brian Scott Peskin, BSEE (MIT) is the “World’s Most Trusted Authority on Health and Nutrition” and that “The professor thrives on feedback from his legions of supporters.” Peskin has a degree in Electrical Engineering and he claims an appointment as “adjunct professor at Texas Southern University in the Department of Pharmacy and Health Sciences in 1998-1999.” This professorship apparently qualifies him as the “world’s most trusted authority on health and nutrition.” He has just published a book called The Hidden Story of Cancer, with Amid Habib, MD, FAAP, FACE.
We also learn from the website that Peskin is a consultant to four companies: 2-B Slim Corporation, Glu-Pro Corporation, Healthy for Life Corporation and Your Essential Supplements, Inc. (Y.E.S.). The first three on this list do not come up in a Google search. However, Y.E.S. has a website selling three products: an herbal blend of burdock, sheep sorrel, cat’s claw bark, slippery elm and Chinese rhubarb; a mineral blend of iron, magnesium, zinc, selenium, copper, manganese, chromium and boron; and an organic EFA blend of evening primrose oil, high-linoleic safflower oil, flax oil, pumpkin oil and extra virgin coconut oil. The oil blend label does not provide amounts or ratios of omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids.
In April, 2002, the state of Texas charged Peskin with “making a long list of unsubstantiated claims about their Radiant Health Products and Peskin’s credentials.” The products listed in the complaint include an herbal blend containing the same herbs listed in the Y.E.S. product, a mineral blend and an oil blend. Peskin is accused of falsely representing himself as “a doctor, scientist and professor” and failing “to disclose that he has a degree in electrical engineering.”
A move to Iowa, renaming of the supplement company, removal of the three products from the website making claims for them, a more accurate description of his credentials and a new book seems to have allowed Peskin to reinvent himself.
What’s It All About?
Portions of the Nexus article are in line with WAPF principles, indeed seem to be taken from our own website (although WAPF is never mentioned or referenced), but then fluffed up with a high-bravado writing style. The article contains a baffling mixture of strange errors and obvious truths.
Peskin warns about the dangers of soy and trans fats while promoting eggs, meats, nuts including walnuts, seafood and seeds because they are good sources of essential fatty acids. He recommends raw milk cheeses but claims that pasteurized milk is deficient in EFAs. (Pasteurization destroys a lot of good things in milk, and may make the EFAs become rancid, but it doesn’t get rid of them.) He claims, without reference, that humans cannot extract EFAs out of fruits, vegetables, grains and cereals but doesn’t elaborate on whether we should eat these foods for other reasons.
Much of the article Peskin devotes to debunking various popular solutions to cancer—fruits and vegetables, fiber, mammography and fish oils. He then describes the research of Dr. Otto Warburg, who showed that cancer develops when cells are not sufficiently oxygenated. “In the 1920s, Dr. Warburg carried on the research on respiratory enzymes, certain vitamins and minerals that the body requires for the utilization of oxygen in the cells, which eventually earned him the Nobel Price in 1931.”
The key to cell oxygenation, according to Peskin, is what he refers to as “parent” essential fatty acids, the 18-carbon omega-6 and omega-3 fatty acids, which he calls “oxygen magnets,” as they play a role in attracting oxygen from the bloodstream and transferring it into the cell. He is critical of those who claim we are ingesting too much omega-6—”We are told that we are ingesting upwards of 20 times too much omega-6. This is wrong . . .” Yet his solution—one he claims will prevent all cancer—is an oil blend with an omega-6 to omega-3 ratio of 2.5 to 1, definitely lower than the 20-to-one ratio he seems to think is okay.
Over-Simplification
While the mixture of fact and fantasy in Peskin’s message results in much confusion on the part of the reader, what emerges is over-simplification in two major areas.
First, our bodies can obviously handle a range of omega-6 to omega-3 ratios—if our body chemistry could only function at a precise ratio, the human race would have died out long ago. What we have learned from research on EFAs is that it is not good to have an extreme imbalance. The modern diet, in which omega-6 fatty acids predominate at a ratio of 20 to 1—with most of these omega-6 fatty acids rendered rancid by processing—creates serious imbalances on the cellular level; likewise, overdosing on flax oil or fish oil creates an imbalance in which omega-3s predominate, leading to lowered immunity—a finding of long standing which Peskin announces as though it were his own discovery.
Modern research has also indicated that it is not healthy to consume too much of either of the EFAs, even though they may be in the “right” balance, and that the body uses EFAs to best advantage when the diet contains adequate saturated fat, an important fact which Peskin does not mention.
Secondly, while the cells indeed need oxygen and EFAs in the cell membrane play a role in transporting oxygen into the cell, this is not a simple process, but one that depends on numerous co-factors, as Warburg rightly observed. These include the myriad components of the cell membrane, such as cholesterol, proteins and a variety of fatty acids, and minerals such as magnesium and manganese.
As far as cancer prevention is concerned, EFAs represent a two-edged sword. Small numbers in the cell membrane do allow oxygen to enter the cell, but if the cell membrane contains too many unsaturated fatty acids, the cell becomes “leaky,” with all sorts of compounds going into and out of the cell when they are not supposed to. EFAs can easily become rancid, meaning that free radicals develop during processing, cooking and exposure to air, causing uncontrolled reactions in the body. And finally, as mentioned earlier, a surfeit of EFAs lowers immunity. For these reasons, EFAs can contribute to cancer, even though they also play a role in preventing cancer.
The upshot is that oil blends with magical EFA ratios are no panacea and claims that these products will definitively prevent cancer represent huckstering, however well disguised. Small amounts of essential fatty acids are available to us in all whole foods; the body uses these best in the context of a nutrient-dense diet containing adequate amounts of saturated fat. Foods rich in certain fatty acids—such as coconut oil, flax oil, evening primrose oil and cod liver oil—can play a role in the treatment and prevention of disease, but only when used with care along with a diet of real food.
This article appeared in Wise Traditions in Food, Farming and the Healing Arts, the quarterly magazine of the Weston A. Price Foundation, Spring 2007.
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Well, a degree in electrical engineering is a good thing since every single thing on earth has an electrical charge so Brian has an edge on how things attract & repel & combine with each other. We all need degrees in bio-chemistry & electrical engineering these days to figure ourselves out & choose the right remedies for what ails us. I have a nursing degree. That helps, but I’m mostly self-taught in holistic & natural medicine, too. The quality of “health” care I get from conventional practitioners today is sadly lacking because the business majors are running the medicine show. I’m on my own.
I’m concerned about rancidity. If we need to get the oils already cold-pressed instead of eating the seeds, as Peskin adamantly insists – & you say they quickly go rancid – then, what should we do to balance our omegas? I know mine are out of balance AND I have an absorption problem – maybe more than one – so I believe I need to supplement. Coconut oil is fantastic. It doesn’t get rancid & has a shelf life of 2 years at room temperature but I know many other oils spoil quickly after pressing & I don’t have a way of doing that. Coconut oil can’t do it all. Does it help to keep the others refrigerated?
Peskin says seed hulls & other fibers damage the intestinal lining but whether or not he is correct, I cannot tolerate much fiber or seed hulls. Apple pectin is as close as I can get.
Since all chemistry relies on electrons, wouldn’t a degree in chemistry, preferably organic, be more useful than a degree in designing electronic equipment?
It is best to buy high linoleic oils, such as sunflower oil, that come in a dark bottle and kept in dark cool place away from sunlight and heat. Also, try to finish it by the end date. Flora has the born on date and expiration date on the label. The oils are most nutrient dense. Sunflower oil (high linoleic) contains 65% omega 6, sunflower seeds about 38%. Coconut oil is 93% saturated fat. Are you sure you read Peskin’s work? You don’t seem to understand what’s going on. Coconut oil is not an essential fatty acid. Olive oil is not an EFA either. Neither is fish oil. Fish oil is processed omega 3. DHA and EPA is made from linolenic acid. By definition it is not essential. The industry keeps bamboozling the public. As does this article. Fiber is also a bamboozle. Google Monastyrski high fiber menace for more info.
One can keep cold pressed organic oils fresh in a dark bottle and a vacuum bottle stopper.
I keep my fish oil in the refrigerator. It must be refrigerated. It’s a liquid, so this is all the more important.
Brian Peskin has an Electrical Engineering phd., the hero of this site Weston a Doctor of Dentistry, and Mary Eng Phd? (what is the phd degree you hold? Lose the Ad Hominem attack arguing over authorities.
You admit Peskin has a point, and your caution on his point is also valid. (over-simplification) Have you read his book? Do you have a point by point refutation? However, I came here looking for foods to eat to make sure I have the balance, and instead the first article is an attack on someone, who steered me in a better direction. (not that I agree with him 100%, hence the trying to switch to whole foods) Everyone has an agenda, a pill and a book to sell. Perhaps you do to? I don’t know! Which after years of search is why I’m so jaded.
I’ve read a lot of Peskin on his website. There he constantly references studies found in such places as the New England Journal of Medicine. To suggest he makes claims without reference may be to true the article you quote but if you ever looked at his website you’d see a different story altogether. Peskin doesn’t make things up, he researches the researchers and most all of his points have multiple sources of studies backing them up. He also pushes ratios of 1~3 to 1 and never has supported a 20 to 1 ratio as this author suggests.
There lies the problem. Peskin is one of so many online who use ‘others’ works to build their case by cherry picking from numerous research papers, so in fact ‘fashion’ their own story which has a bundle of half truth, half wrong info. With respect after 17 years for me, just read the research paper originals, NOT someone’s ‘spin’ on it.
Yes, it can be tough reading, from which you have to make your own interpretation because findings are never definitive and where Peskin or whoever does make,definitive statements, you’ll know it’ll be wrong by default. I wrote to him to challenge several points. He wrote back calling mr a ‘robot’ not believing Im human. Read the orig. papers only my friend, not Pectin.
I believe Peskin says that the Omega-6’s we’re getting in our diet are the wrong type; the body uses them anyway, but he suggests the 2:1 ratio of parent Omega-6 to 3, from plant oils rather than fish oils which he feels are harmful. Articles shouldn’t take things out of context and attack the person. I’d rather follow an intelligent MIT engineer than my doctor who keeps pushing statins and saying cholesterol and animal fat is the cause of heart disease when we all know that was proved incorrect many years ago.
Right on…been a follower of Peskin for 10 yrs…
this article is somewhat misleading regarding Peskin’s stance after reviewing a myriad of interviews as well as looking into his books. His research comes from 5years of evaluating the science already documented at md anderson. if someone can be self taught, maybe they will escape the indoctrination of the limitations imposed on man’s degrees or titles. the science had already been done….we just needed an unbiased unpaid evaluation of what was already documented. Maybe you are unaware of the many doctors who have vetted his findings or the myriad of public who have benefitted
I’ve read all of Brian Peskin’s books and most of what is in this article is pure and simple bunk. Maybe he isn’t 100% because I don’t think any human is but this sounds like attacking someone. I really don’t trust nutritionist right now. They’ve been so wrong so many times. If you read his books you find out about oils and it is pure knowledge. I’ve followed him a few years ago and have added parent essential oils to my diet. I haven’t added the other things he recommends but still may do that some day.
Can you please comment on lipidologist Dr. Patricia Kane’s claim that all fish oils are rancid due to the high heat used in CO2 extraction (500 degrees). She also recommends a much different omega 6:3 ratio of 4 Omega 6 to 1omega 3.
It is very different than everything said elsewhere, but she is getting great results with kids who have seizures, autism and other neurologic disorders.
http://patriciakane.net
http://www.bodybio.com/v/BodyBio/docs/BodyBioBulletin-4to1Oil.pdf
It seems that some appear they can blatantly express bias without repercussions. It also seems that some don’t see the need to retract articles after further (scientific) observations establish that the targeted scientist’s findings have been validated beyond reasonable doubt. What use is this article erroneously claiming that Prof. Peskin’s work is fraught with error? How does the Weston Price Foundation consider itself a legitimate partner in the science of nutrition by propagating the lies about Prof. Peskin’s valid and extremely beneficial research to all of us who potentially suffer from cardiovascular or oncology related conditions? Under the direct clinical observation of a two cardiologists and a primary care physician, thanks to Prof. Peskin’s YES PEOs, my mother recovered dramatically from cardiovascular disease. I personally have completely reversed cardiovascular decline thanks to daily intake of the recommended dosage of PEOs purchased directly from Peskin’s supplement company YES. Several of my friends, aged 55 and older, experienced the same results. Scientific? No. That’s Peskin’s contribution in the trials that he conducted. Clinical observations? Yes, confirmed. Peskin is a hero. While I wholeheartedly applaud Weston Price’s efforts in nutritional research, those of the foundation that bears his name appear to be questionable in light of Mary Enig seemingly obviously biased and ill-informed writing. By the way, I have been taking Peskin’s PEOs for 7 years now on the recommendation of one of only four leading homeopathic eye doctors in the world, the highly acclaimed Dr. Edward Kondrot. If he is willing to risk his reputation on Peskin’s work, there has to be some truth to what Peskin’s has established. And no, I have never taken fish oil, the molecules of which are so big that they cause eye damage at a later age. That alone is why Peskin’s PEOs appear worth taking.
All I know is Peskin’s EFA formula STOPPED my migraine headaches. I have tested this 4-5 times by stopping the supplements. EVERY single time the headaches come back and stop when I start taking the supplement.
Peskin writes a quite decent rebuttal to this article:
https://brianpeskin.com/professor-brian-peskin-responds-to-critics/
Seems that Mary and Brian agree on a lot of points… and Mary does appear to be misquoting Brian on a few others.
🙂
As it turns out, Brian Peskin was right about almost everything he published and recent “discoveries” about C15:0 deficiency have proven that he’s always been on the right track. His supplements have been enormously helpful to me. His recommendation to not shun full-fat dairy products turns out to be correct.