CANADA HEMP FOODS - Omega Fats

Omega 3

DHA & the Omega-3 Revolution
Better Nutrition, August, 2001 by Liz Brown

How the margarine craze brought America to the brink of Nutritional Armageddon--and how omega-3s brought us back

BY NOW YOU'VE HEARD THE ADVICE TO BOOST OMEGA-3 fatty acid intake in order to improve your health. It's no wonder. In tandem with omega-6 fatty acids, omega-3s help balance the body by keeping inflammation in check, and by helping mental function, vision, blood pressure, immunity, metabolism and cell-membrane health, notes Andrew L. Stoll, M.D., in The Omega-3 Connection.

But how do you decide what form of omega-3 fatty acids to seek out in food or supplement form, and in what amounts? Where do all of the acronyms DHA, EPA, ALA fit into the equation? And what does the latest research suggest in regard to potential health benefits of these friendly fatty acids?

While the topic of omega-3s can seem complex and confusing, it is possible to make sense of it all--and the effort is likely to pay off, health-wise. So sit back, take a deep breath and read on.

Essential facts about essential fats

There are four major kinds of fats found in foods we eat: cholesterol, saturated fat, monounsaturated fat and polyunsaturated fat. All fats are made up of the same basic building blocks--carbon, oxygen and hydrogen. In saturated fats, the carbons in the chain are completely "saturated," meaning that they are "saturated" with all of the hydrogen atoms they can carry. Although most of us don't think about it, some plants and nuts are fairly high in saturated fat--coconut oil, palm/palm-kernel oil, peanuts and walnuts. Other examples of saturated-fat rich sources include butter, animal fat, shea nut butter and cocoa butter.

Monounsaturated fats, part of the now-famous Mediterranean Diet, include olive and almond oils, pecans, cashews and macadamia nuts. Unsaturated fats with two or more double bonds are known as "polyunsaturated," which includes both omega-3 fats (found mostly in algae, cold-water fish, dark-green vegetables and certain plants) and omega-6 fats (found mostly in nuts and seeds). Examples of foods rich in omega-3-rich polyunsaturated fats are ocean-dwelling microalgae, fish oil, flaxseed oil, hemp oil, pumpkin seed oil. Examples of foods rich in omega-6 polyunsaturated fats are vegetable and seed oils. Some excellent omega-6-rich foods are borage, evening primrose oil, safflower oil, sunflower seeds, hemp seeds, corn and pumpkin seeds.

Fats out of balance

"The good news is that our evolutionary ancestors didn't have a problem with an imbalance of omega-6 fats compared to omega-3 fats - their ratio was close to 1:1," said James Gormley in DHA, A Good Fat (1999). "The bad news is that we do have a problem. The typical U.S. diet has a profile of anywhere from 10:1 to 22:1 omega-6 to omega fats."

Over the past 50 years, the cholesterol/low-fat craze pushed Americans into a diet top-heavy in omega-6 seed oils and trans fatty acids (from traditional stick margarine and fried foods). In other words, most of us get plenty of omega-6s in our diets, but not enough omega-3s.

The omega-3 polyunsaturated fats are headed up by alpha-linolenic acid, or ALA from this, the following fats can be produced: eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA), docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) and docosapentaenoic acid (DPA). The "mother of all omega-6 fats" is linoleic acid, from which we can produce gamma-linolenic acid (GLA), dihomogamma-linolenic acid (DGLA) and arachidonic acid (AA).

Hearts love omega-3s

Heart disease kills roughly half a million Americans each year, so eating right for heart health should be high on everyone's priority list. Harvard's Walter Willett, Ph.D., M.D., wrote: "It can be conservatively estimated that approximately 30,000 deaths per year in the U.S. are attributable to trans fatty acids from partially hydrogenated vegetable oil" [e.g. traditional stick margarine]. While cholesterol and saturated fat contribute to heart disease, omega-3 fatty acids can actually reduce the risk of heart disease in several ways.

For one, they keep inflammatory processes associated with coronary artery disease and driven by omega-6s in check. If our intake of omega-6s isn't balanced by omega-3s, this can encourage heart attack, atherosclerosis and fatal cardiac arrhythmias, explains Stoll in The Omega 3 Connection. Inflammation caused by excess omega-6 fats plays a major role in promoting the development and buildup of plaques in coronary arteries, which can be damaged by inflammation and eventually lead to narrowing or entire blockage of the coronary artery, resulting in a heart attack. Excess omega-6 fats also increase platelet aggregation (or stickiness), potentially causing blood clots that, when large enough, can block blood flow and result, again, in a heart attack.

The omega-3s, EPA and DHA, conversely, reduce platelet stickiness and clotting, also preventing plaque buildup by raising levels of HDL, or good cholesterol.

DHA/omega-3 research and the heart

1997. Balance of good fats and reduction of trans fats are most important to reducing the risk of coronary heart disease, especially in women. A landmark study came out in the New England Journal of Medicine on November 20, 1997 that looked at 80,082 women who, in 1980, did not have any sign or history of coronary disease, stroke, cancer, hypercholesterolemia or diabetes. In 14 years of follow-up, the authors documented 959 cases of non-fatal myocardial infarction or death from coronary heart disease. Total consumption of fat was "not significantly" related with the risk of coronary disease. The authors calculated that replacing a portion of trans fats (like margarine and other partially hydrogenated oils) with monounsaturated fats (like olive oil) and polunsaturated fats (like DHA) "would decrease [coronary heart disease] risk by 53 percent"!

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