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This month’s Healthy for Life Newsletter is going to focus on the problem of too much inflammation in our bodies. Everyone in the medical community agrees with the fact that we have too much inflammation in our bodies. That is the underlying cause of a multitude of diseases. Inflammation increases the risk of many different diseases. Heart disease is an inflammatory disease and NOT a disease of cholesterol. Other diseases that have a major inflammatory component are asthma, arthritis, major depression, autoimmune diseases, inflammatory bowel disease, and psoriasis.Essential fats are just that—essential. These are the
fats
that the body is unable to make. The only way it can get them is from our diet or via
supplementation
. There are two primary types of essential fats—Omega 6 and Omega 3 essential fatty acids. Medical research has shown us that these essential fats have a totally opposite effect on the body. Omega-6 fatty acids produce natural inflammatory products in the body and Omega-3 produce natural anti-inflammatory products. It is critical for the proper and healthy function of the body to be able to create inflammation in its healing process when it is injured or attacked. However; it is also important to be able to bring this inflammation back under control when the healing is over. This is why it is important for our bodies to have a very fine balance between our natural inflammatory ability and our anti-inflammatory ability. These two essential fats need to be taken into the body in approximately the same ratio (1:1 or at least 2:1).
Omega-6 fatty acids, known as linolenic acid (LA), are found in abundance in the American diet. They are found in meat, chicken, dairy products, processed carbohydrates, corn oil, cottonseed oil, peanut oil, and safflower oil just to mention a few. As you can see by this list of foods that contain Omega-6 fatty acids, you are most likely getting plenty of this fat in your diet. On the contrary, Omega-3 fatty acids known as linoleic acid (LNA) are not as abundant in our modern Western diet. Sources for Omega-3 fatty acids are cold-water fish, flaxseed, flaxseed oil, hemp seeds, soybean oil, walnuts, and range fed chicken eggs. Again, it is important to realize that for our optimal health we need to consume these two fats in equal amounts or at least 1 Omega-3 fatty acid for every 2 Omega-6 fatty acid. However, it is estimated, that in today’s diet most individuals are getting Omega-6 to Omega-3 fatty acids in a ratio of 20 to 1 or even 40 to 1. We must understand why the imbalance of how we are consuming these essential fatty acids is affecting our health.
The essential fatty acids are essential ingredients and necessary nutrients for the body to produce key hormones called eicasionoids. These have been referred to as the body’s superhormones.
Unlike insulin or glucagon that are made and stored in a specialized organ—the pancreas, eicasinoids are powerful, fleeting hormones, which are made by every cell in the body. There are several different eicasinoids that have the opposite effect on the body’s functions. Just like insulin has an opposite and competing hormone—glucagon, eicasinoids either increase inflammation or decrease inflammation. Both of these functions are critical for optimal health. In general, the Omega-3 fatty acids become eicasinoids that decrease inflammation in our bodies (natural anti-inflammatories) and Omega-6 fatty acids become eicasinoids that cause inflammation. So if you are injured or get cut, you want to have an inflammatory reaction in order to heal this injury. However, once the injury or wound is healed you want to have this inflammatory process settle down. Therefore, eicasinoids have the ability to either intensify or diminish inflammation in the body. They can also increase or decrease the clotting tendency of the blood. It is critical that these two potentials are well balanced.
Therefore, the balance with which we take in the Omega-3 to Omega-6 fatty acids becomes critical to our health. In fact, even if there are some Omega-3 fatty acids present in our diet, a high Omega-6 to Omega-3 ratio actually blocks the production the anti-inflammatory hormones.
We simply have too much inflammation in our bodies and we must make a concerted effort to get more Omega-3 fatty acids into our diet and decrease our amount of Omega-6 intake.
Since many people are so out of balance between their Omega-3 and Omega-6 intake, individuals are trying to consume more cold-water fish like salmon, mackerel, tuna, sardines, and trout. This way they can get EPA and DHA, which is the precursor to our natural anti-inflammatories. They can then produce anti-inflammatory hormones very easily and quickly correct this imbalance. Since it is critical that we increase our intake of Omega-3 fatty acids, I strongly recommend supplementing our diet with pharmaceutical-grade filtered fish oil capsules that are high in both EPA and DHA. Not only can they reduce inflammation in your body but also improve brain function, cholesterol levels, and cell membranes. In fact, several studies are now showing that people can improve depression, bipolar tendencies, asthma, autoimmune diseases, heart disease, and a host of other inflammatory diseases by simply supplementing their diet with fish oil capsules. There have been many studies that have shown a significant health benefit when this is done.
Heart Disease
Dr. Terry Jacobson reviewed over a dozen large clinical trials that looked at the health benefits of supplementing Omega-3 fatty acids in over 20,000 participants. All of the participants had known coronary artery disease and these studies looked at the health benefits of adding Omega-3 fatty acids to their treatment regime. These clinical trials showed that the group who consumed the Omega-3 fatty acids in the form of fish oil capsules had more than a 20% decreased risk in overall mortality and more than a 45% decreased risk of sudden death when compared to the control group. Omega-3 fatty acids were shown to promote atherosclerotic plaque stability and decrease the incidence of heart rhythm problems.
Almost all of these clinical trials showed nearly a 20% decreased incidence of cardiovascular events. When the researchers provided the Omega-3 fatty acids in supplementation to their patients’ drug regime, they saw additional improvement in all of the cardiovascular end points they were monitoring. These were nonfatal heart attacks, deaths due to heart attacks, unstable heart pain, and the need for further surgery. In other words, this is not alternative therapy, but instead, complimentary.
The researchers concluded that the reason they were seeing these amazing health benefits to simply taking fish oil capsules was because the amount of inflammation the participants had was significantly decreased. They were actually going after the underlying or root cause of this disease. It is reasonable to believe that if you are able to improve the health of those individuals who already have heart disease that you would be able to better prevent this disease in healthy individuals.
Adding Omega-3 fatty acids to your diet, has been shown to not only lower inflammation, but also to lower one’s total and LDL or bad cholesterol.
In fact, this health benefit is even more evident in those populations that are not consuming much in the way of cold-water fish or other sources of Omega-3 fatty acids.
In 2005, a study was released in the Archives of Internal Medicine that actually compared various lipid lowering drugs to Omega-3 fatty acids in regards to decreasing overall mortality. The Omega-3 fatty acids were twice as effective in decreasing mortality than were the lipid lowering statin drugs. Statin drugs lowered mortality about 10% while the Omega-3 fatty acids lowered mortality over 20%. I need to remind you that there are no harmful or adverse effects of taking Omega-3 fatty acids in supplementation and a host of problems taking statin drugs.
Rheumatoid Arthritis
There are thirteen clinical trials that show benefits of supplementing Omega-3 fatty acids for patients with rheumatoid arthritis. The most common response was an improvement in all their symptoms such as early morning stiffness, pain, and in the number of tender joints. There was a decreased dependence on pain medication. One of the major findings in the clinical trials was the fact that there was a measurable decrease in the inflammatory products being produced by the body and a stabilization in the course of their disease.
Inflammatory Bowel Disease (Crohn’s disease and Ulcerative Colitis)
Inflammation is a major aspect of both of these diseases. In fact, many clinical trials have actually measured the body’s increased production of these inflammatory products. When fish oil supplementation was added to their regime, not only were these inflammatory products reduced but the patients experienced significant, although modest, clinical improvements. The most exciting thing that was observed in several of these studies was the fact that many of the participants were able to reduce their dependence on steroid medication. Also, when these patients underwent repeat biopsies, their bowel pattern showed significant improvement.
Asthma
Asthma is primarily an inflammatory disease of the lungs. It is this inflammation that sets off the bronchospasm that is so characteristic of this disease. Again, these patients have a significant increase in the amount of inflammation and inflammatory products found in the lungs. Those patients who received Omega-3 fatty acids in supplementation showed many who responded favorably to the higher-dosed supplementation. It is believed that more studies need to be done; however, the results that were seen were definitely encouraging.
Major Depression and Bipolar Disorder
Psychological stress
has been shown in humans to produce a significant increase in these inflammatory products. An imbalance of Omega-6 to Omega-3 fatty acids is felt to lead to over- production of these inflammatory products. The medical community now believes this to be a major aspect to the development of depression. Several studies are now in progress looking at the benefits of providing Omega-3 fatty acids in supplementation to patients suffering from major depression. In fact, studies are already showing prolonged remission with the reduction of relapse in patients with bipolar disorder in those who supplement with Omega-3 fatty acids.
Conclusion
It has become very evident that the general population simply has too much inflammation in their bodies. Inflammation is being shown to be the root cause of many of our chronic degenerative diseases like heart disease, diabetes, arthritis, autoimmune diseases, asthma, psoriasis, Alzheimer’s dementia, and depression. One of the main reasons that we have this increased amount of inflammation that our bodies are producing can be traced back to the fact that we are consuming too much Omega-6 fatty acids in our diets and not enough Omega-3 fatty acids.
It is critical that we begin to decrease our intake of the Omega-6 fatty acids as we increase the amount of Omega-3 fatty acid intake. Because most individuals have trouble accomplishing this goal, I recommend that everyone begin supplementing their diet with high-quality, filtered, pharmaceutical-grade fish oil capsules. Taking in flaxseed or cold-pressed flaxseed oil is certainly an alternative for those who just do not want to take fish oil capsules. However, this additional Omega-3 fatty acid intake will begin to compete with the production of our inflammatory products as it offers the building blocks to produce our natural anti-inflammatory products. As we bring inflammation back into a normal balance, individuals are going to begin to see significant improvement in their health as they decrease their risk of heart attacks and sudden death.
References:
-Lee KW, Lip GY, “The role of Omega-3 fatty acids in the secondary prevention of cardiovascular disease.” QJM. 2003 Jul;96(7):465-80
-Studer M, Briel M, et al. “Effect of different antilipidemic agents and diets on mortality: a systemic review.” Arch Intern Med. 2005 Apr 11;165(7):725-30
-Biscione F, Pignalberi C, et al. “Cardiovascular effects of Omega-3 Fatty Acids.” Curr Vasc Pharmacol. 2007 Apr;5(2):163-72
-Simopoulos AP, ”Omega-3 fatty acids in inflammation and autoimmune diseases.” J AM Coll Nutr. 2002 Dec;216(6):495-505
Reprinted with permission from Dr. Strand. Please do not reprint without permission from the author.
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Ray Strand, M.D.
Quickly becoming one of the world's leading authorities in nutritional medicine, Dr. Ray Strand has been involved in a private family practice for over 30 years. During the past 12 years, he has focused his practice on preventive and nutritional medicine. He has lectured on this subject across the United States, Canada, and Australia. He is the author of Releasing Fat, What Your Doctor Doesn't Know about Nutritional Medicine, and Death by Prescription.
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