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Essential Fatty Acids and Your Health: We're constantly bombarded with messages that fats are bad for us. We hear that fats cause weight gain, contribute to heart disease, might be implicated in certain cancers, and on and on. It's easy to conclude that we'd be better off avoiding fats altogether. The truth is certain fats seem to be as vital to our health as vitamins. These are the fats known as essential fatty acids, or EFAs. EFAs are needed as building blocks for key body structures, including cell membranes. Because our bodies manufacture EFAs, we must get them in our diet. You might have heard of one type of EFA: the omega-3 fatty acids, which have been found to help prevent heart attacks. There's one other category of EFA—the omega-6 variety. Both types are necessary, and might help with different health conditions. Therapeutic Uses of Omega-3 EFAs Omega-3 EFAs hit the news in a big way because of a discovery involving the Inuits, or Eskimos. Two things interested scientists about the Inuits: their diets and their health. The Inuit diet is rich in cold-water fish and the fat of whales and seals. All of these foods contain large amounts of omega-3 fatty acids. Yet the Inuits have very low levels of heart disease despite their massive fat intake—and low levels of rheumatoid arthritis as well. Scientists have found that a diet high in fish—especially cold-water fish such as salmon, sardines, and mackerel—reduces the incidence of heart disease. Since then, they've been investigating omega-3 fatty acids in the form of fish oil supplements. Although eating fish has been found to reduce heart disease, no one yet knows if fish oil supplements do. However, we know that fish oil can decrease certain heart disease risk factors. Fish oil has been found to decrease certain blood fats called triglycerides, raise HDL ("good") cholesterol, and thin the blood a bit. These effects might be why eating fish prevents heart attacks. Concerning arthritis, 12 double-blind studies of more than 500 people found that fish oil supplements reduced symptoms of rheumatoid arthritis. This strong evidence has impressed many conventional physicians. However, unlike some conventional treatments, fish oil does not slow the progression of rheumatoid arthritis. Some studies suggest fish oil might also be useful for menstrual pain, bipolar disease (manic-depressive disorder), Raynaud's phenomenon (an extreme response to cold in the fingers and toes), osteoporosis, and lupus. Flaxseed oil also contains large amounts of omega-3 fatty acids, but they are somewhat different from the fatty acids in fish oil. No evidence shows that flaxseed oil has the same health benefits as fish oil or fish. Therapeutic Uses of Omega-6 EFAs The main omega-6 fatty acid is called gamma-linolenic acid or GLA. GLA in the form of evening primrose oil is a standard treatment for premenstrual breast tenderness in Europe and the United States. It is even mentioned in the AMA's official textbook evaluating drugs. GLA is also used for treating diabetic nerve damage. Two recent double-blind studies found that diabetic patients taking GLA or evening primrose oil for months scored better on objective tests of their nerve function than those taking placebo. There might be additional benefits in combining lipoic acid with GLA. Many physicians in Europe use GLA for treating eczema, although the scientific evidence of its usefulness is mixed. Very high doses of GLA might be helpful for rheumatoid arthritis. Normally, the body makes GLA from linolenic acid, an omega-6 EFA found in many foods. However, some people—people with diabetes, the elderly, and others—seem to have difficulty converting linolenic acid to GLA. They might do better taking supplements. The richest food sources are borage oil, evening primrose oil, or black currant oil. |
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