omega-3 fatty acids

I've mentioned Susan Allport's book The Queen of Fats on this blog when taking about fatty acids because it's a fairly good simple primer on the subject. So today via Seth's Blog I found that she abandoned her omega-3/omega-6 balanced diet to do a "Super Size Me" article for O Magazine. They didn't pick it up because the changes she saw were subtle but important...and women's magazines just care about weight. You can read the draft here.

Most medical organizations, as I’ve said, wouldn’t see anything harmful in this change, but a large number of scientists believe that our reliance on cheap, high omega-6 vegetable oils is the underlying cause of many of our health problems. Both omega-3s and omega-6s are essential: we can’t make them ourselves and must consume them in our diet. But a balance between them creates tissues with just the right amount of speed and activity, inflammation and blood flow. Ever since vegetable oil consumption began to skyrocket in the 1950s (replacing butter and lard) so has the incidence of inflammatory diseases, such as heart disease, and metabolic diseases, such as obesity and diabetes.

It's interesting because she mentions she usually consumes canola oil, which is a cheap oil fairly low in omega-6 that has become fairly ubiquitous in restaurants and on ingredient lists of processed foods. Canola oil is not popular in the paleo community because it's so highly refined and probably contains excess polyunsaturated fatty acids, but compared to soybean oil, it's an angel. Considering the low price of canola and how much healthier it is, it's kind of unconscionable that companies like Annie's are still using soybean.

So what effects did the high omega-6 diet experiment produce? Thickening of belly fat, upset stomach, shortness of breath... and get this... a drop in metabolic rate. The conventional wisdom is that people who struggle with health problems related to weight eat more, but there is more and more evidence that what you eat is more important than how much you eat. Her arteries also became stiffer.

Something striking is that a main omega-6 source in her experiment seemed to be peanut butter, a food commonly thought of as healthy. Unfortunately, this is a food I crave often.

It would be interesting to do a third experience where Allport reduces total polyunsaturated fatty acids and increases saturated fats. But for those not interested in paleo, it's at least worth eliminating corn/soy oils and getting some DHA(seafood or supplements).