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The Basics Of Omega Fats
Unless you live in an isolated bubble, you have likely seen the bounty of headline-grabbing studies on omega-3 fats, with their far-reaching benefits from preventing cancer and heart attacks to treating depression and arthritis. Indeed, short of describing these fats as a panacea, the research is quite astounding.
How can one type of fat affect so many different parts of your body (such as your brain and heart) and ultimately influence your health and well-being? There are two key reasons. First, omega-3 fats are really like vitamins (originally called vitamin F when discovered). Unfortunately, the vast majority of Americans are deficient in vitamin F or omega-3 fats.
Second, although few people know it, we have a striking fat imbalance in our diet. The typical American diet dramatically antagonizes the benefi ts of omega-3 fats in the body. Even if you consider yourself health-conscious, you are not likely free of this problem! The problem of this dietary fat imbalance affects you whether you eat heart-healthy, are a strict vegetarian, have become an Atkins carnivore, or something in between. We eat too much of the so-called heart-healthy fats, which, ironically, interfere with the benefits of omega-3 fats in our bodies. These supposedly healthful fats are the omega-6 fats, which have flooded our food supply in the forms of margarine, soybean oil, corn oil, safflower oil, cottonseed oil, and sunflower oil.
In short, we have two key problems. We don’t eat enough (and the right kinds) of omega-3 fats; call this problem omega-3 fat deficiency. And we eat too much of the so-called healthy fats that hamper omega-3 fat’s benefits, causing what some researchers call omega-6 fat syndrome. Let’s take a closer look.
Related posts:
- Omega Fats Basics, Most Omega-6 Fats Are Found in “Healthy” Oils The paradox is that omega-6 fats have been indiscriminately promoted as “heart-healthy fats.” Many well-meaning health organizations touted “heart-healthy”...
- Omega Fats Basics, We Need to Fix the Omega Fat Imbalance Indeed, the typical Western diet delivers a double whammy: insufficient omega-3 fats and too many omega-6 fats. The consequence is...
- Omega Fats Basics, Omega-6 Fat Syndrome The last reason that omega-3 fats affect so many different aspects of your body and, ultimately, your health involves their...
- Omega-6 Fat Syndrome, Why You Need to Balance the Fats It’s not enough to supplement your diet with fi sh oils or to eat enough omega-3 fats in your diet—it’s...
- Omega Fats Basics, Omega-3 Fat Is a Vitamin In the 1920s, one of the several omega-3 fats was discovered. The researchers determined that it is essential for health...
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