The Omega3 Omega 6 Ratio, And Why It Affects Your Health?

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The Omega3 Omega 6 Ratio, And Why It Affects Your Health?

Friday, January 22nd, 2010 Subscribe To Our Feed

You may be well aware of the health benefits of what are known as Omega 3 essential fatty acids. It’s been in the news lately and more and more people are understanding the importance of maintaining an adequate intake of the important essential fatty acids known as Omega 3, and most of us are deficient in these. But you may not have heard of Omega 6 fats and may not be aware of the importance of these to your health, and you may not have heard of the Omega 3 Omega 6 ratio.

Essential fatty acids are good fats that we need for good health every day but which we cannot manufacture in our body and so need to obtain from our diet each day. Omega 3 fats are found primarily in fish, and over 90 percent of the US population is deficient in Omega 3 essential fatty acids.

Omega 6 essential fatty acids, on the other hand, are found in other food sources, and we are not generally deficient in these. For example you find Omega6 fats in many of the oils that we eat from day to day such as corn oil, safflower oil, sunflower oil, sesame oil and peanut oil, and soy oil is almost completely comprised of omega6 fats.

Because many of these vegetable oils are very cheap they are used extensively in processed foods, particularly in margarine, for this reason our intake of Omega 6 fats, though important for our diet in limited amounts, is excessive.

Scientific research has shown that in the past we had an Omega 3 Omega 6 ratio of roughly 1 to 1, or in other words we ate roughly the same amount of each of these fats in our diet. However estimates now are that the Omega3 Omega 6 ratio in the average US citizen is somewhere from 10 to 1, or even, according to some estimates up to 30 to 1. Because of our reliance on vegetable oils and processed foods we are now eating far more Omega 6 fats than we ever did in the past.

It is true that Omega 6 fats are important to our health however it is also true that the Omega3 Omega 6 ratio, or the ratio between how much of each of the 2 types of fats that we eat, is also very important, and that by eating too much Omega 6, whilst at the same time eating too little Omega 3, we are running the risk of a range of health problems including the possibility of a range of cancers as well as coronary artery disease and inflammatory diseases like arthritis.

And there is also an issue with our meat. Traditionally our farm animals have been raised on grass and this produces meat higher in Omega3. However farming practices have changed over the last hundred years and most of our meat now comes from grain fed animals which produces meat lower in Omega 3 and higher in Omega 6.

So whilst it is important to get enough Omega3 fats in our diet is also vitally important to reduce our reliance on foods high in Omega 6 fats. This produces a much more healthy omega 3 Omega 6 ratio. For all these reasons we need to reduce our reliance on foods high in Omega 6. We can do this by changing our diet to a lower intake of processed foods and by changing our cooking oils from vegetable oils to healthy oils such as olive oil. And equally important is to increase our intake of Omega 3 and the single best way to do this is to take daily fish oil supplements.

Note that although fish oil supplements are extremely cost-effective not all are as good as others, you need to know how to compare the different fish oil supplements available to make an effective choice.

Visit my website to find out more about the Omega3 Omega 6 ratio and also about how to compare the different fish oil supplements available.

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