Are you confused about essential fatty acids, omega 3, 6 and 9, ALA, EPA, DHA, arachidonic
acid and so on, and what they all mean for your health, dietary choices and supplementation?
Well you've come to the right place!
Apologies first of all for the length of this video guys, I tried to make it as short as
possible but I also wanted to make sure that it is a complete guide to this topic, so bear
with me!
A little bit of background first.
Fat is one of the three main macronutrients, along with protein and carbohydrate.
We require a certain amount of fat for metabolism and structure, in addition to it's use as
a source of energy.
"Fat" usually refers to lipids that are solid at room temperature, while "oil" refers to
liquid lipids, but for simplicity I will use these terms interchangeably.
I'll start the discussion off with a tiny bit of organic chemistry first.
Fats are usually made up of three fatty acids attached to a glycerol backbone.
The huge variability in different kinds of fats comes from the fatty acids; the glycerol
remains constant.
Fatty acids vary in two main ways - length and saturation.
The length is determined by the number of carbon atoms they contain.
The saturation is determined by the number of hydrogen atoms bonded to those carbon atoms.
Saturated fatty acids contain the maximal amount of hydrogen atoms bonded to the carbons.
Unsaturated fatty acids may be missing two hydrogen atoms, making them monounsaturated,
or more than two, making them polyunsaturated.
Unsaturated fats are classed by which carbon atom is the first to be missing a hydrogen
atom.
In omega-3 fatty acids it is the third carbon atom from the end, in omega-6 fatty acids
it is the 6th carbon atom and so on.
Unsaturated fatty acids can also be divided into cis- and trans-fatty acids, according
to how this carbon atom missing a hydrogen kinks the chain.
Different fatty acids have different functions in the body, and we are able to synthesize
or interconvert fatty acids as structural or metabolic need dictates.
However, there are two fatty acids which we require but cannot synthesize or convert others
into: Alpha-linolenic acid, an omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acid abbreviated as "ALA"; and linoleic
acid, an omega-6 polyunsaturated fatty acid abbreviated as "LA."
That's it - there are only two fatty acids known to be essential and that we cannot live
without.
Omega-9 fatty acids are not essential as they can be synthesized by the body.
Let's explore each of these fatty acids and their implications for diet and supplementation.
Linoleic acid is an omega-6 fatty acid found in abundance in our diet.
In fact, probably the best was to increase your LA intake is to eat more junk food, because
the vegetable oils used in the cooking and manufacture of junk food contain high amounts
of LA.
An excuse to eat junk food?
I'm afraid not - and this is where things get a little tricky, so bear with me!
As I mentioned, fat is required by the body as an energy source and for structural and
metabolic functions.
However, the short chain polyunsaturated fatty acids LA and ALA additionally serve as precursors
for mediators involved in cellular signalling, especially and most importantly for inflammatory
pathways, and structure and signalling in the brain and central nervous system.
Despite LA and ALA being labelled essential fatty acids, we do not consume them for any
special intrinsic properties of these molecules themselves, but for what the body can make
with them - the LONG-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids.
In simplified terms, LA is the precursor to the long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acid
arachidonic acid, abbreviated as "AA", which itself is the precursor of pro-inflammatory
mediators.
ALA is the precursor of mediators that displace or inhibit AA and its products, essentially
acting as anti-inflammatory mediators, the most important of which are the well-known
long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids eicosapentaenoic acid and docosahexaenoic acid, abbreviated
as "EPA" and "DHA."
The problem is that it is the same rate-limiting enzyme that converts both LA and ALA into
their products.
If you take in too much LA, ALA becomes crowded out from this enzyme and the vital anti-inflammatory
products of ALA cannot be made.
This leads to a shift in the balance towards increasing inflammation in the body above
what it would be if we were consuming a more natural, junk-free diet, and inflammation
is becoming more and more implicated in a diverse range of chronic diseases.
While indeed LA is an essential fatty acid, there is absolutely no need to concern yourself
with seeking good sources of it - almost everyone consumes enough, and indeed far more than
enough as it is.
And this brings me to the first myth that must be dispelled - supplements that contain
omega-6 and/or omega-9 are unneccesary for the vast majority of people.
These supplements, especially omega 3-6-9 supplements, are designed to prey on consumer
ignorance regarding essential fatty acids.
Most people who walk into a health food store would automatically assume an omega 3-6-9
supplement is better than an omega-3 supplement, and understandably so.
This is largely the reason why a market force for these supplements exists.
As long as you are eating a range of healthy fat-containing whole plant foods, you need
not worry any more about getting enough LA or other omega-6 fatty acids in the diet than
enough water - yes, both are essential for life, but both are so abundant in the diet
as it is that there is no need to specifically seek them out.
Indeed, we should be actively trying to reduce the amount of LA in our diet, in addition
to increasing the amount of ALA.
With this in mind, it is useful to think about essential fatty acid consumption in terms
of a ratio.
In the standard Western pattern diet our comsumption of omega-6 to omega-3 is around 15:1 or more,
providing a miniscule anti-inflammatory effect as our bodies become swamped with pro-inflammatory
mediators derived from LA.
It is likely that for long periods of our evolution we consumed a ratio of closer to
1:1, because most of this time we ate wild plants and no junk, and our inflammatory pathways
and other physiological processes evolved to depend on this ratio.
The good news is that the enzymes that convert both ALA and LA to their products appear to
have a higher affinity for ALA, and to get enough omega-3-derived mediators we only need
to get our ratio down to around 3:1.
This is why it is helpful to think about EFAs in terms of this ratio - to change the ratio
you can (and should) increase the intake of omega-3 in addition to decreasing the intake
of omega-6.
And that's easy!
First, let's take a look at decreasing omega-6 intake.
As I mentioned, junk food is the biggest offender here and reducing your intake of processed
foods is the best place to start - fast food, crisps, biscuits and so on.
You shouldn't cook with oil for many reasons, but if you must you're better off using an
oil rich in monounsaturated fatty acids that won't affect your ratio as much - olive oil
or canola oil are probably the best.
Next we'll look at increasing omega-3 intake.
Dark green leafy vegetables usually contain a ratio in favour of omega-3.
However, the absolute amount of fat is quite low in these vegetables, even if the ratio
is ideal.
Luckily, there is an easier way - flax seeds!
Flax seeds are an amazing food with a substantial range of benefits for human health.
However, of relevance to our current discussion, they contain an EFA ratio of around 1:4 - they
actually contain 4 times more omega-3 than omega-6!
Consuming flax seeds is a super-easy way of tipping the balance back in favour of omega-3,
and for this and for lots of other reasons I strongly encourage everyone to consume them
every day, regardless of diet.
Just make sure you grind them up for maximum bioavailability.
If you want to vary things up a bit, chia seeds are an excellent alternative with a
solid 1:3 ratio.
Some of you may be wondering where the PRE-formed long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids fit
into all of this.
After all, the reason we want to consume lots of ALA is not for the ALA itself, but for
the anti-inflammatory mediators derived from it - EPA and DHA.
Does it not just make more sense to consume EPA and DHA pre-formed instead of making the
body do all the work?
Arguably I think yes, it does.
There are a number of potential issues that can hinder the conversion of ALA to EPA and
DHA.
By far the biggest one we have already discussed - taking in too much LA and crowding out ALA
from the enzymes that elongate both these fatty acids.
Additionally, there is some inter-individual variability in the effectiveness of these
enzymes, and their activity may be further affected by micronutrient status and by taking
in pre-formed long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids due to the resultant lower precursor:product
ratio.
Taking the long-chains in pre-formed may possibly also alter the expression of these
enzymes both in the individual and trans-generationally.
The bottom line though, is that if our intake ratio of LA and ALA is low enough and close
to the 1:1 ratio we evolved eating these factors would likely not be a problem, but for peace
of mind and practicality I recommend taking in some pre-formed EPA and DHA as well.
However, the source of these long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids is vitally important.
Oily fish are one of the best sources, but they are also the best source of many toxic
pollutants, including mercury, dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane, polychlorinated biphenyls and perfluorinated
compounds to name but a few, many of which end up in fish oil supplements even if purified
using the gold standard molecular distillation method.
The solution?
Get your EPA and DHA from a pollution-free source, a source that the fish get them from
themselves - golden algae.
Golden algae EPA/DHA supplements are becoming more and more widely-available and it has
never been easier to get them.
I recommend ordering online because I have found that they are still a little too expensive
to buy in the pharmacy.
That brings me to the next myth that must be dispelled - if a whole foods, plant-based
diet is the most natural for our dietary needs, why do we need to supplement EPA and DHA?
The answer is that we don't - if we ate a true whole foods, plant-based diet with an
appropriate omega-6 to omega-3 ratio as nature intended, we would not need these supplements,
and even if we don't have this optimal ratio most people probably still don't need them.
However, since omega-6 is so abundant in almost every modern day diet and most people do consume
some amount of junk and oil, it is prudent to err on the side of caution and help the
body on the way a little bit with some pre-formed long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids.
One of the reasons that there is so much confusion about EPA and DHA is because it is still unclear
as to whether or not these supplements actually provide any benefit when it comes to hard
clinical endpoints, and that these molecules themselves are not the essential fatty acids
- remember that that title goes to LA and ALA.
As a result, no RDA numbers have been set and thus, confusion as to supplementation
ensues when no concrete guidelines can be pointed to.
It also speaks to the importance of the ratio of omega-6 to omega-3, rather than absolute
RDAs and numbers.
So to summarise - a high ratio of omega-6 to omega-3 in the diet is pro-inflammatory
and implicated in the development of chronic disease.
To improve this ratio, we must eat less omega-6-rich oil and junk food and more flax seeds, chia
seeds and dark green leafy vegetables.
Since it can be difficult to emulate all aspects of our natural diet, especially the fatty
acid ratio, it is prudent to take a pollution-free golden algae-based EPA/DHA supplement and
give yourself some peace of mind.
Simple!
Thanks for watching, I hope you found the video informative and that it cleared up some
stuff about essential fatty acids!
I'll probably be doing a follow-up video on some specific omega-3 supplements I recommend
and why, so make sure you subscribe if you haven't already so you don't miss that.
If there's anything you'd like clarification on or you have any questions or comments,
post them in the comment section below and I'll get back to you.
Other than that, I'll just finish off with 2 addenda to the main content of this video
on some other stuff relevant to the discussion.
Aspirin exerts it's anti-inflammatory effect by blocking the conversion of arachidonic
acid to it's pro-inflammatory products and instead causes the responsible enzyme to form
more anti-inflammatory mediators.
The salicylate levels of those eating lots of whole plant foods approach those of people
taking 75 mg aspirin per day, the dose used to prevent cardiovascular disease, without
risking the side-effects of the drug, as I have discussed previously.
This is especially true if consuming lots of herbs and spices (which you definitely
should be doing!).
So those eating a healthy enough diet can theoretically block some of the deleteterious
effects of omega-6 fatty acids in addition to crowding them out with their high omega-3
intake!
No discussion on EFAs is complete without mentioning gamma-linolenic acid, or "GLA,"
but bear in mind this last section is going to get quite technical.
GLA is a non-essential polyunsaturated omega-6 fatty acid synthesized from LA in the body
as an intermediate during elongation of LA to arachidonic acid, in addition to being
a precursor to some mildly anti-inflammatory mediators itself.
However, if pre-formed GLA is taken in, it can act as a substrate for arachidonic acid
formation directly without having to be first formed from LA, freeing up the rate-limiting
enzyme which would otherwise be convering LA to GLA to instead convert ALA to an intermediate
that will eventually become EPA and DHA as we have discussed.
This is the proposed scientific basis for GLA supplements - it allows arachidonic acid
to be formed without impairing synthesis of EPA and DHA, whilst also forming some anti-inflammatory
mediators itself.
However, the anti-inflammatory effect of GLA is small and more variable between individuals
compared with omega-3 fatty acids, hence I do not recommend these supplements as part
of a healthy diet.
Okay, that really is it this time guys!
Talk to ye soon.
Sláinte!