The PMS Diet?

Back when the Iraq war was beginning, Bush's aides gave him daily updates on the conflict. One time, they told him that two Brazilian soldiers had been killed.  "Oh, my God!!!" he exclaimed,  "That's horrible!!!"  His aides were taken aback.  "Yes, Mr. President, it is horrible. But why are you reacting so much more strongly than usual?"  He paused, then said, "Oh. Well, how many is a Brazilian?"

Quick segway to premenstrual syndrome.  I've never had it and won't ever get it, LOL!  However, four Brazilian researchers, a great many, recently wrote an article, "Essential fatty acids for premenstrual syndrome..."  They showed that consumption of several essential fatty acids probably helps reduce symptoms of PMS.

What did those women take, and how can you get it?  The key bit is this: "...each 1-gram capsule contained a mean of 210 mg of gamma linolenic acid, 175 mg of oleic acid, 345 mg of linoleic acid, 250 mg of other polyunsaturated acids and 20 mg of vitamin E."  The paper also says, "Improvement in symptoms was higher when the 2-gram dose was used." So as far as I can tell, here's what you need:

- 420 mg of gamma linolenic acid,
- 350 mg of oleic acid,
- 690 mg of linoleic acid,
- 40 mg of vitamin E.
- 500 mg of some other unspecified polyunsaturated fatty acids.

Now you could run out to your local pharmacy to seek a pill with those ingredients.  You may get lucky and find something from Hebron Farmaceutica.  You would pay a lot of money for it.

Or you could fire up Wagmu, and change your Nutrient Settings to include:
- Fatty acid ω6 18:3 n6 ccc γ-linolenic.  That's gamma-linolenic acid.
- Fatty acid 18:1c oleic. There's more than one isomer of oleic acid, and the Brazilian paper doesn't which say kind they used. But the USDA SR 22 database documentation, page 19, indicates "oleic" means the 18:1c isomer.
- Linoleic acid.  Watch those spellings, as linoleic acid is different from linolenic acid.

While you're at it, you may as well add 

- α-linolenic acid" (that's alpha-linolenic acid), and 

- "Fatty acid ω3 22:6 n3 DHA" (that's your omega-3 fatty acid).

Set the quantities as you please.  If you don't know what to enter, have a look at the official report, "Dietary Reference Intakes for Energy, ...", maybe focusing on pages 1324-1325. (A gram is the same as a thousand milligrams, 1g=1000mg, which makes me think of my dad's MG sports car, which I cracked up into a 1000mg pieces when I was 16.)

Sorry, I can't make the quantities easy for you yet.  In the next month or so, I hope to load appropriate default values for some of these nutrients to all Wagmu members' Nutrient Settings.  The Wagmu disclaimer applies here.

Wagmu will already have vitamin E listed for your needs as recommended by the U.S. government, but you may wish to change the amount.

Then in the Food Plan, type in what you ate today.  You'll almost certainly see that you're short of many nutrients, not just these fatty acids.

Finally, you can use the Suggest button to help you adjust your food quantities, and add new foods, to get what you need.  Click the pumpkin!  You will have to change your diet!

Supposedly a Brazilian can improve your life.  I wouldn't know.  But maybe four Brazilians can improve your life.  Good job, Edilberto Filho, José Lima, João Neto and Ulisses Montarroyos.