The Right Way to Get Your Omega-3s and -6s
Omega-3s sometimes come up short; are omega-6s bad?
Cruise any grocery store, and you'll find packages of enriched eggs, orange juice, margarine, and even peanut butter emblazoned with enthusiastic statements about their omega-3 content. Marketers have taken health research on the fatty acids and run with it, but there's more to the omega story than is apparent on food packaging.
The case for omega-3s' role in heart protection is stronger than ever. A recent study led by epidemiologist Akira Sekikawa of the University of Pittsburgh, for example, found that eating lots of fish rich in omega-3s may protect against atherosclerosis. Prior research had suggested omega-3s may help control or protect against rheumatoid arthritis, cancer, asthma, depression, and other conditions. Yet omega-3s are not all the same. Those from fish may be more beneficial than those found in plants (and typically used to fortify processed foods). What's more, scientists disagree over the role played by related fatty acids called omega-6s; some believe they can be harmful if out of balance with omega-3s.
Essential fats. Both kinds of fatty acids serve critical roles—omega-3s assist neurological development and help reduce excess inflammation, for example, while omega-6s aid blood clotting and help battle infection. The human body can't make either substance from scratch, so we must get them from food sources. The American Heart Association recommends getting at least two weekly servings of fish, preferably fatty, omega-3-rich varieties like salmon and tuna. But the typical American diet provides scant omega-3 and loads of omega-6. And a recent study suggests that certain kinds of nonfatty, farm-raised fish—tilapia and catfish—may actually worsen that imbalance.
Fatty fish is generally the best source of two types of omega-3s—eicosapentaenoic acid and docosahexaenoic acid —that the human body needs. Plant sources like flaxseed, canola oil, and walnuts contain a different kind of omega-3—alpha-linolenic acid—that has a shorter chain of carbons. In the body, "plant-derived omega-3 fatty acid can be elongated to EPA or DHA, but the conversion rate is extremely low—about 5 percent or less," says Pitt's Sekikawa. By comparison, omega-6s are abundant in vegetable oils used in processed and baked foods (including soybean, corn, and cottonseed oils) and also in meats and egg yolks.
Experts diverge on whether Americans' considerable intake of omega-6 should be of concern. Some theorize that excess consumption of omega-6s may contribute to harmful inflammation and encourage cardiovascular disease, and a 2004 study in people suggested that a type of omega-6 called arachidonic acid promotes inflammation that may lead to atherosclerosis in genetically susceptible people. According to Floyd Chilton, director of Wake Forest University's Center for Botanical Lipids, the ratio of omega-6 to omega-3 in the typical American diet has gone from about 2 to 1 in previous generations to as high as 40 to 1 today. That shift, he says, is "at least partially responsible for the epidemic of inflammatory diseases" such as asthma, arthritis, and diabetes.
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Reader Comments
Omega 6-3 updated information
http://brianpeskin.com/reports/Truth%20of%20PEOs%20CAMB.pdf
Says it all.......
The link is incorrect!
There is an additional space in the hyperlink, please could you correct the hyperlink? It is http://efaeducation.nih.gov/sig/kim.html
Coconut fat contains important short chain fats which are essential to health. Mary G Enig writes about them extensively. The benefits of prudent intake of saturate fats is a subject on its own.
The EFAs Omega 3 and 6 are far more important. They are external controllers. The body cannot make the 'mother' fats. Only plants make the 18 carbon chain mother fats. To get a supply of mother fats humans have to eat plants or things that have eaten plants.
In land based nature in plants omega 3 and 6 are more or less in balance. The exception are seeds and nuts which are high mainly in Omega 6. Seeds and nuts are scarce and seasonal. We turn seeds into vegetable oil high in Omega 6 and eat far to much of it.
Humans would have had a range of Omega 3;6 balances between about 1:4 and 4:1. Now the balances range form 10:1 and up.
We are overloading on Omega 6 and removing Omega 3 from the food chain. We store Omega 6. We burn Omega 3.
The consequence is cellular imbalance. Imbalanced cells produce imbalanced down stream chemical products, which equate to body malfunction, illness if you like.
The dietary imbalance between Omega 3 and 6 is arguably at the foundation of the growing numbers with western inflammatory conditions. Read round the subject and the conclusion is pretty much inescapable.
Why is this message not reaching us, and why is research into Omega 6 limited? Because it is a message that has no financial worth. You cannot make money out of a don't. It is the down stream effect of excess Omega 6 that many drugs and health solutions seek to target.
So the public and policy makes remain largely uneducated on the subject. Those nations that have grasped or are looking at the issue will have healthier happier more cost effective populations.
The truth about the effects of excess Omega 6 will be heard. It is simply a question of time. There will come a point were it is recognised budgets are exhausted and it is time to look seriously at prevention. That is assuming we have not all destroyed ourselves or our civilization in the interim by out consuming our environment in common with many other extinct species.
Omega 6 by moderating hormone and neurosteroid pathways arguably alters our behaviour to be subtly more aggressive acquisitive impulsive and self-interested.
One day governments and health organisations will tell their citizens about the consequences of excess Omega 6. In the interim nations and families will suffer the downstream chemical consequences of excess Omega 6 and a lack of Omega 3 in the diet.
Robert Brown
Author "Omega Six The Devils Fat"
www.Omegasixthedevilsfat.com
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