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Omega-3: The Good Fat
If you're expecting yet another 'Don't eat butter and lard' article, you're in for a surprise. There are two families of essential fats: Omega-3 and Omega-6. Both types of fats are critical for survival. If you don't get enough, you can die. These two fats cannot be generated in your body - it must be consumed through your diet. Occasionally, you'll hear about Omega-9. Omega-9 is NOT essential because your body can make Omega-9 from Omega-6. You should: MODERATE: Saturated fats like cream, butter, and lard. DO NOT AVOID THESE FATS! This must be slightly shocking to read on an Omega-3 website. We understand. As scientists understand fats and their role in our health, we need to keep up and alter our diets accordingly. Limited amounts of saturated fats are necessary for proper cell membranes. The same goes for Cholesterol. Big-bad-cholesterol is not-so-bad after all. Your body NEEDS cholesterol for many functions. AVOID: Trans fats found in snacks, fried foods, pastries, and margarines. Trans-fats in processed foods are man-made. Trans-fats rarely occur in nature. Look for the words "partially hydrogenated oil" in the nutrition panel of processed foods. It is the food industry language for trans fat. Food processors use trans fat because it is cheap and lasts a long time. Many fast food outlets still use trans fats to deep-fry because it can be used over and over. AVOID: Omega-6: Corn oil, Soy oil (often sold as Vegetable oil), Sunflower oil and Safflower oil. That's right! We said 'Avoid Omega-6.' Why? Because our diets and these oils are too high in Omega-6. Omega-6 and Omega-3 compete for positions in your body's tissues. And Omega-6 usually wins because there is so much of it in our diet. We used to eat Omega-3 and 6 in roughly equal parts. Now our diets contain almost 20 to 30 times more Omega-6. Too much Omega-6 makes is hard for Omega-3 to do its job. As a result, your daily need for Omega-3 keeps increasing. Replace your corn and vegetable oil with Coconut or Olive oil instead. When there is not enough Omega-3 or 6, your body will make do with Omega-9. This has serious health consequences. Similarly, when there is not enough Omega-3, your body will make do with Omega-6. This has even more serious health consequences. For ideal health, you need 2 parts Omega-6 to 1 part Omega-3 in your diet. But the average American diet has 20 to 30 parts Omega-6 to 1 part Omega-3. This is a recipe for disaster! Why Too Much of a Good Thing (Omega-6) is a Recipe for Disaster? Omega-3 and Omega-6 compete for the same position in our tissues. When there are 2 parts Omega-6 and 1 part Omega-3 in your diet (ideal ratio), Omega-3 always wins. But the average American diet has 20 to 30 parts Omega-6 and 1 part Omega-3. This imbalance has severe consequences: excess Omega-6 fats cab be pro-inflammatory. In other words, in excess, they may cause joint pain, obesity, and several chronic illnesses. And they out compete Omega-3 for spots in your body's tissues. So you have to continue taking more and more Omega-3 for it to be effective. If you eliminate Corn oil and Soy (vegetable) oil and any foods with it from your diet, your Omega-3 pills will become super-powered!
What are the Health Benefits of Omega-3 Fish Oil?
Fish Oil Benefits come from the Omega-3 fats naturally found in fish oil. Benefits are not limited to your heart health. Scientifically Studied Fish Oil Benefits* Fish Oil & Your Joints: Comfort Your Joints Fish Oil & Heart: Protect Your Heart Fish Oil & Brain: Feed Your Brain Fish Oil & Your Mood: Support Your Mood Naturally Eye & Vision: Maintain Healthy Eyes Skin Care: Keep Your Skin Supple Triglycerides: Manage it Naturally* Blood Pressure: Manage it Naturally* How much fish oil do YOU need? Read more about fish oil dosage here. But how can one nutrient do so much? Well, Omega-3 does not "fix" or "cure" anything. Your body needs Omega-3 for almost every function. When you are deficient in Omega-3, your body functions poorly. Getting enough Omega-3 from fish oil just allows your body to go back to working normally. Fish Oil Benefits: Just One Pill a Day OmegaVia gives you a large dose of Omega-3 you need in just one pill. Because it is the only fish oil pill with 1105 mg of Omega-3 - in just one pill. Simple and easy. Fish Oil Benefits Heart Health Fish oil helps: Promote healthy heart beat Naturally balance triglycerides, an important heart health marker, when combined with a healthy diet and daily exercise. This is why the American Heart Association recommends that you take 1000 mg of Omega-3 everyday. Joint Care Omega-3 is a comforting effect on your joints. Omega-3: Reduces joint discomfort Reduces occasional aches from overexertion Helps reduces enzymes that harm cartilage Increases grip strength Enhances walking pace Brain Health More than half the fats in the brain is Omega-3 DHA. And the lining of the nerve cells in the brain is lined with Omega-3. So, brain performance and function (cognition) is strongly influenced by the amount of Omega-3 in your diet. Increased levels of Omega-3 helps: Helps supports proper brain function Provides DHA for proper brain membrane development Mood EPA Omega-3 is helpful in maintaining mood health. In several (but not all) studies, EPA has been found to be helpful in supporting a positive outlook. This is why Omega-3 Has Become a Buzzword. Major health organizations want you to take Omega-3: American Heart Association (AHA) Food and Drug Administration (FDA) National Institute of Health (NIH) World Health Organization (WHO) Solid scientific proof for health benefits Media coverage New research and studies are constantly unearthing additional fish oil benefits. Visit OmegaVia Blog to stay up-to-date with the latest science. * Clinical research suggests the omega-3 dosage needed to help maintain already healthy triglycerides and blood pressure is 2000-3000 mg per day when used as part of healthy diet and exercise regimen. These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.
Should you eat like an Inuit?
I wouldn’t! Fermented seal flippers. Enough said. Inuits’ ice-covered homelands don’t offer a fun, varied diet. Traditionally, they had a subsistence way of life. Whatever they caught on their hunts was eaten. They typically eat seal, walrus, fish and an occasional whale or reindeer. They use seal oil for dipping sauce. They eat something called Stink fish, which is fish, wrapped in seal and allowed to ferment underground. Eskimo ice cream? Blubber mixed with summer berries. I think you get the idea. These days, for the Inuit of Canada and Yupiks of Alaska, modern western foods are ever easier to get. Cheap carbs can be had from pizza, soda and french fries. Their diet had not changed for thousands of years, but in the last 30 years, it has changed and so have the rates of obesity, diabetes and poor heart health. It wasn’t always this way. They ate mostly fat and protein with hardly any fruits and vegetables for millennia. You could say they were the first Atkins low-carb dieters. Most importantly, the fat they ate was not the bad Omega-6 kind. Most of the fat was healthy Omega-3 from fish and other wild animals that ate fish. Wild animals have very different fats than farm-raised or mass-produced animals. It’s hard to argue that it’s easier to drive to a grocery store than have to hunt for your food! As the old 'Eskimo' way of life disappears, new health problems are cropping up. Grain-fed farm animals cooped up in pens have a lot of bad Omega-6 fats. Back in the 1970s, a Danish scientist named Jorn Dyerberg went to Greenland because he know that only 5% of the local Inuit die from poor heart health. But 40% of the rest of us die from poor heart health. To him, it made no sense. After all, how can a group of people who eat so much blubber not get heart attacks? When Jorn and his colleagues took blood samples of 130 Inuits, everything seemed normal but for one thing. Their blood was very high in Omega-3 EPA and DHA. That was the beginning of the gold rush in Omega-3 research.
OmegaVia Blog - your source for information on Fish Oil and Omega-3
Welcome to OmegaVia Blog! The goal of this blog is to share relevant dietary info, new and important scientific findings about Omega-3, and occasional irreverence. We, at OmegaVia, are a bunch of health nuts. It seems someone here is always running a marathon or hiking. We are also constantly reading about health and nutrition. So we are looking forward to sharing what we know and learn with you. Our nutritionists will do most of the blogging. We’re the type who somehow steer the conversation to fish oil at public gatherings like weddings receptions, super bowl parties and probably even funerals! We’ll translate the complicated stuff into down-to-earth English. What good is high-tech science if you can’t benefit from it? We spend a lot of time reading scientific journals, understanding the latest research on the benefits of fish oil and Omega-3. It turns out some scientist at some university is always doing research on this topic. We will read it, summarize it and share the findings. The good news: just about every published study on fish oil says the stuff is great for you. One common thread in all the published science articles is the amount of Omega-3 used on the patients. It is usually more than 1000 mg of Omega-3. That’s not the same as 1000 mg of fish oil! 1000 mg of fish oil pills only have 300 mg of Omega-3. That means you have to eat a handful of pills a day. As Wall Street Journal put it in a special report on Jan 8, 2008, “pop a daily dozen” of the standard fish oil pills. To feel the real benefits of fish oil, you need a super-pure, ultra-concentrated fish oil. With concentrated Omega-3, you don’t have to take a dozen pills to feel the benefits. Just one. May be two. That’s why we created OmegaVia.