One of the takeaways from the weekend I spent recently learning about the latest information for managing the hormone systems of the body is the importance of getting rid of the inflammation in our system. Excess inflammation drives all sorts of disease states in the body, including imbalances in our hormone systems.
We have all heard about how inflammatory omega 6 fats are and I have been telling everybody to stop eating omega 6 oils all together. These are the vegetable oils and seed oils – soy, corn, sunflower, safflower, cottonseed, canola, and so on. Don’t eat them, don’t cook with them, and don’t eat foods with them in it. Sadly that includes my favorite mayonnaise. I had to start making my own mayo several years ago to avoid the inflammatory effects of the canola oil in the famous commercial mayo.
What was new for me was the information that simply avoiding the omega 6 oils was not enough. I have been using avocado oil for some time now, which is a good oil like olive and coconut oils. But these are simply neutral oils, and not able to actually reduce inflammation. To reduce inflammation we need to take omega 3 oils, specifically fish oil. The vegetarian sources of omega 3, like flax seed, do not help us. Men can’t convert them to the active forms in the body and women can only convert at most 8% – not nearly enough to do much good. More importantly metabolic syndrome also shuts down the conversion pathway, so even if you had the good genetics to convert the plant omega 3s to an active form, most likely you couldn’t anyway since ¾ of Americans have insulin resistance. So we need fish oils.
Many years ago I got on to taking fish oils and did so for some time, but never noticed much benefit, so I dropped it. The big news from the conference was how much you need to take to produce the desired effects. Apparently I was taking way too little to have any effect. That couple of capsules a day barely touched what is actually needed by the body.
The research and the clinical experience of the doctors teaching the conference put the dose needed at a minimum of 6 grams per day and up to 25 grams per day of EPA and DHA combined. In terms of the amount I was getting in my fish oil capsules, that meant I would need 20 to 75 capsules a day. I was nowhere close.
EPA and DHA are the two main fatty acids that have been shown to produce the anti-inflammatory effects in the body. The EPA is more for the body and the DHA is more for the brain. In fact the brain is literally made out of DHA. The problem of course is that the level of these components in the fish oil is only a small portion. So more recently companies have been producing concentrates of these components to boost the levels. Now there are products that contain 3 ½ grams of EPA + DHA per teaspoon. At that level only a couple teaspoons will give you the minimum dose for some people, while others will need 3, 4 ,or 5 teaspoons a day.
How much do you need? The simple answer is “as much as it takes to drop your symptoms of inflammation or pain.” One of the great tests suggested was to take an over the counter pain reliever and see if it helps you feel better. If it does, then you need omega 3 fish oils. The pathway aspirin and NSAIDS use to control pain and inflammation is the pathway created by the omega oils. If that pathway is balanced with enough omega 3 oils, the inflammatory and anti-inflammatory parts to that pathway should balance against each other so they are able to do their job quietly in the background without us being aware of any pain.
The omega 3 and 6 oils also get incorporated into the outer cell membranes of every cell in the body. So even if you have avoided omega 6 oils for years, you could still have a dominance of omega 6 oils in your body. By taking high doses of the omega 3 oils, they gradually replace the omega 6 oils in the outer membranes of the cells.
The basic bottom line here is that every one of us needs much higher doses of omega 3 oils in our daily diet. We could get this by eating a lot more wild caught salmon, anchovy, herring, and other oily fish like they do in Japan, or we could take daily doses of fish oil. This balance is vital to our health and well being on very many levels. We notice it most obviously as a way to reduce pain, but the real importance is to our metabolic, hormonal, and neurologic health. Aging is mostly the process of inflammation destroying our health, and this is a fundamental source of chronic inflammation.
I did the math in my head and figured out how many fish oil capsules a day I would need and concluded that no one would ever take that many, they would end up with diarrhea if they did. So at the break I asked the lecturer what he used in his practice to get the dosages needed and he referred me to a company called SFH. They produce one of the concentrated fish oils and their price is at least 30% less expensive than any other brands I could find on the internet. I signed up with the company and should have my first dozen bottles in the office just about the time this newsletter comes out. I have already tried some and it does not taste fishy at all, just a slight orange flavor. It mixes nicely into my morning smoothie or I can take it straight. It is only $59 a bottle for a 48 teaspoon supply at my office. If you are not local you can go directly to SFH.com and order some SO3+D3 with pump for only slightly more ($54.99 + 6.95 shipping.)
I am starting out taking 3 teaspoons a day and will do an aspirin test after about a week, then will adjust up or down based on the results. Do you need this to bring the pain and inflammation causing pathways created by years of omega 6 oil consumption back into balance? Here are the questions from my Health Assessment Questionnaire that relate to prostaglandin balance. If you answer yes or sometimes to three or more of these questions then you need extra Omega 3s.
Do you have dry and unhealthy skin
Do you have dandruff or flaky scalp
Do you have allergies
Do you have Pre-menstrual syndrome
Do you have arthritis
Do you have headaches
Do you have joint or muscle pain
Do you have hardening of the Arteries
Do you have inflammation in your tissues
Do you use Soy, Corn, Sunflower or Canola Oils
Do you use grain fed beef, pork, or lamb
Do you use “farmed” salmon, trout or catfish
Do you use Margarine, Shortening or Mayonnaise
Do you eat processed foods that are bagged or boxed
Do you eat fried foods
Do you avoid eating raw seeds or nuts
Do you avoid eating fish (other than fried)
Does aspirin, Tylenol, Advil, or Ibuprofen help you feel better?
It does not matter if you have chronic pain or or not, almost all of us have too much omega 6 in our bodies. The only way to balance it is with active forms omega 3.
This looks to me to be the easiest and least expensive way to achieve this health goal.