Fish Oil: You're Using It Wrong

Fish Oil Is Awesome. But Are You Using It Correctly?

by TC Luoma | 11/18/15

Tags:
Dietary Myth Busting

Here's what you need to know...

1.

Some people aren't seeing results from using fish oil. They're
missing a couple of pieces of the puzzle.
2.
We have way too many omega-6 fatty acids in our diet. This is
causing inflammation, innumerable diseases, insulin resistance, and
obesity.
3.
We have way too few omega-3 fatty acids in our diet. Their role is
to counter the negative effects of omega-6 fatty acids.
4.
Omega-6s and omega-3s compete with each other for space in the
cell membrane. You can't just take omega-3s and expect to change the
ratio without also addressing excessive intake of omega-6s.

Do It Right and You're Indestructible

When used properly, fish oil can make your cardiovascular system damn
near indestructible, tamp down virtually all inflammation, improve your
insulin sensitivity, and turn you into a lean, fat-burning machine.
Unfortunately, a lot of people aren't doing it right and they're not
experiencing those great things. They take the capsules but they usually
don't feel any different. The problem is that they don't have a
fundamental understanding of how fish oils, or more precisely, omega-3
fatty acids, work. This lack of universal effects has forced some doctors
to second-guess the benefits of fish oil. But they, along with many of the

people taking fish oil or other omega-3 fatty acid supplements, have
overlooked a couple of crucial points.

Good Business Messed Up Our Chemistry

In order to understand how you're/they're messing up, we need to look at
the fascinating story of how we got to the point of needing to take fish oil
capsules in the first place. It comes down to one seemingly disparate
fact: Leaves rot quickly but seeds don't.
If you're a food manufacturer, you want to make foods out of plant matter
that lasts a long time. Spoilage of greens means less green in your
pocket, so plant breeders deliberately seek out plants, or parts of plants,
that have a low spoilage rate and that last a long time. That means
seeds and grains.
The reason leaves spoil so quickly is that they contain a lot of omega-3
fatty acids, while the long-lasting seeds and grains contain a lot of
omega-6 fatty acids, which serve as an energy store for developing
seedlings. Omega-6s are much more chemically stable, so it's no
random happenstance that between 60 and 90% of the world's foodstuff
comes from seeds and grains.
Pretty much every food item that comes in a box or wrapper is sourced
from one of the three or four big grains. Salad dressings, cooking oils,
peanut butter, snacks of any kind, and anything wrapped in plastic and
decorated with some anthropomorphic dancing bear is full of omega-6s.
Grain is so cheap and plentiful (farmers even get paid extra by the
government to grow certain types) that we feed it to every animal we're
interested in eating. Cattle normally eat grass throughout their lives, but

we force-feed them grains to fatten them up. Not only does it make them
sick, necessitating the use of antibiotics, but it changes their fatty-acid
profile so that they turn into four-legged, cud-chewing omega-6 bombs.
Even the fish we used to covet for their omega-3 fatty acids are raised
on pellets made largely from soy, making them not much better
nutritionally than some Frankenfood plastic-wrapped cheese-like product
found in a refrigerated bin in the grocery store. Chickens aren't safe from
these fatty-acid atrocities, either, as they too are fed grain-sourced
pellets instead of the balanced diet of seeds and omega-3 rich grubs and
insects they're supposed to eat. And of course this fatty practice trickles
down into our dairy products and eggs.
No longer do any of these food items contain appreciable amounts of
omega-3 fatty acids. It's even estimated that 9% of the calories in the
American diet come from one solitary omega-6 fatty acid, linoleic acid,
most of it from soybean oil. It's a pellet based, Soylent-Green world, but
hey, it's good business!

This is Likely What Killed Your Grandpa

As a result of all this good business, the ratio of omega-6s to omega-3s

in these animals is way out of whack. It's something on the order of 10,
20, or even 25 to 1, when it should be about 3 to 1. And, of course, we
are what we eat, so our ratio is no different than that of the animal foods
we eat.
Neither can you discount the "fat equals heart attack" theory that came
to light in the '70s. People began avoiding saturated fats from animals
and switched to seed oils. The trouble was, back then at least, animal
fats contained respectable amounts of omega-3 fatty acids and seed oils
didn't. Likewise, people transitioned from butter to margarine, which had
the double whammy of a high concentration of omega-6s and a high
concentration of trans fatty acids, which are an entirely different breed of
dietary demon. If your father or grandfather died prematurely from heart
disease or stroke, this probably had something to do with it.

100 of the Greatest Plagues of Mankind

Omega-6 fatty acids are the building blocks for a class of proinflammatory chemicals that coax red blood cells into forming clots, but
it's the pro-inflammatory modifier that should concern you. Inflammation
is insidiously and intimately connected with at least 100 of the greatest
plagues of mankind, including heart disease, cancer, stroke, Alzheimer's,
and any rotten autoimmune disorder known to science. But inflammation
also plays a big part in obesity as it can further insulin resistance.
Researcher Joseph Hibben believes that the billions we spend on antiinflammatory drugs (like aspirin, ibuprofen, and acetaminophen) are the
direct effect of having too much omega-6 in the diet. Omega-3s, on the
other hand, slow the clotting process and they check the proinflammatory chemicals associated with omega-6s. Furthermore, they

make the cells more insulin sensitive by increasing cell membrane

permeability, which both increases the metabolism and protects against
obesity as well.
Clearly, it would behoove the human race if we could keep the ratio of
omega-6 fatty acids to omega-3 fatty acids at approximately 3 to 1, the
way that nature intended. That's why most well meaning people take fish
oil capsules (remember, fish in the wild eat algae, a plant material, that
contains a lot of omega-3s).

Omega-6s Drive Omega-3s Away

But there's a simple part of the puzzle that people are missing and it's
this: Omega-6s and Omega-3s appear to compete with each other for
space in the cell membrane and consequently, for the attention of
various pro- or anti-inflammatory enzymes.
You can't just take a few fish oil capsules and expect everything to click
into place like a fatty-acid Rubik's cube without simultaneously reducing
your omega-6 intake because the existing omega-6s will bully the
omega-3s away. Each time someone tries to attack the omega-6 fatty
acid bulwark, it's like the 300 Spartans trying to take on the entire
Persian army, and we all know how that turned out.

4 Ways to Fix the Problem

1.

Definitely augment your omega-3 intake with a high-quality fish

oil.Biotest Flameout is the top choice. But you need to
simultaneously reduce your intake of omega-6s. You can do this by:

Avoiding most foods that come in a box or polyethylene bags

as they include foods generally made from grains chosen for their
long shelf life (i.e., high concentration of omega 6's).

Avoiding cooking oils like sunflower, soy, corn, safflower, and

cottonseed and instead use olive oil or high-oleic versions of
safflower or sunflower oil.

Avoiding consumption of restaurant-fried food, as they're

almost always fried in high-omega-6 cooking oils. In fact, it's a pretty
safe bet most restaurant dishes are messed up.

Choose grass-fed and grass-finished beef. All cattle are

initially grass fed before being fattened up with grains, so make sure
the meat you buy is from grass-finished livestock.
2.
Remember that the ratio of the two fatty acids is more important
than the quantity. If you eat more omega-6s, eat more omega-3s.
3.

Switch to eating green plants whenever possible instead of foods

derived from seeds.

4.

Tell your doctor to go ahead and do his little cholesterol test if it

makes him happy, but that you also want a blood test to determine your
omega-6/omega-3 fatty acid ratio to determine your real risk of heart
disease.