Omega 3s: Its Importance and a New Discovered Source

Omegas use to take up one shelf in a health food store but now they take up a bookcase. True or not true?

The source of omegas is vitally important. It has been my journey to learn more about nutrition, the optimum nutrition required by the body in order to help others prevent and reverse diseases (ok myself too!). You need the basic building blocks, like building a house, else the body doesn’t function correctly nor does your house stand up.

Omegas support many functions in our body, such as, decreasing inflammation, improving circulation, brain and hormonal functioning, and much more. My favourite is the importance around the cell wall. The cell wall acts as a gateway to nutrients entering into the cells and processed material out including cellular waste. Have you heard…we are only as healthy as our cell wall! Can you imagine not having a door on your house to let you in or out? Nor having windows to let light and fresh air in?

One of the most important factors to consider is the body’s balance of Omega 6 and 3. The ratio in our bodies is currently being communicated as 1:1, Omega 6 to Omega 3 just like in breast milk and in the baby’s blood serum as well as for the brain and nervous system.

A deficiency of Omega 3 is positively correlated with over 50 diseases and illnesses including Cancer, Heart Disease, Diabetes, Stroke, and Arthritis.

A landmark study by Japanese researchers show scientific evidence that the leading cause of disease in Japan, if not the world is the increase amounts of unhealthy Omega 6s and decreased amounts of healthy Omega 3s. Western degenerative diseases have risen in a near perfect linear fashion with the eliminated of Omega 3, and the over consumption of Omega 6 in the diet. It appears that saturated fats may not be the issue, as it appears to be more closely related to a rise in vegetable oil consumption.

With the review of over 600 peer-reviewed studies accounting for all known and suspected causes for degenerative illnesses, let’s consider what the Japanese researchers have to say themselves as taken from the study summary:

“We summarize the evidence that increased dietary linoleic acid (Omega 6) and relative Omega 3 deficiencies are risk factors for western type cancers, cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases and also for allergic hyper-reactivity. We also raise the possibility that a relative Omega 3 deficiency may be affecting the behavioural patterns of a proportion of the young generation in the industrialized countries.”

Since the Industrial Revolution, our diet has caused our ratios to be at least 10:1, and up to 20:1 or even as high as 50:1. Too much Omega 6s in our diet causes it to produce arachidonic acid which causes inflammation. Common ailments include arthritis, lung cancer, MS, inflammatory bowel syndrome (IBS)or Crohn’s disease but because every disease has an inflammatory component then diabetes, cardiovascular and cancers are also included.

There are three sources of Omega 3s, plant, fish and mammal (breast milk or harp seal). The problem with plant sources is that we do not convert much of what we consume, perhaps 2-5% if we are fortunate to have the system/digestion to make the conversions and there is a high oxidative factor to consider with plant oils. Fish is a popular source; however, fish is naturally high in Omega 6s, an average ratio of 10:1 depending on the fish source. Could fish oils be problematic for those that already have a disease? Yes.
Prof. Brian Peskin shares in his article on The Hidden Story of Cancer:
Fish oil recommendations are worthless in preventing cancer and may be hazardous to your health. The International Society for the Study of Fatty Acids and Lipids (ISSFAL) 4th Congress, which met on June 4-9, 2000 in Tsukuba, Japan, reported the following:1 “…[S]tudies indicate that at the levels used, fish oil [comprised of omega-3 derivatives] decrease a wide range of immune cell responses (natural killer cell, cytotoxic T lymphocyte activities, lymphocyte proliferation and production of IL-2 and IFN-y (1,2))…”
and
Fish oil is worthless in preventing heart disease, too, and Harvard Medical School warned us years ago, but too few Americans listened.2

A mammal source of an Omega 3 such as the harp seal has been recently discovered (1990s) as a result of studies done on the Inuits. The Inuits on their natural diet of raw seal blubber twice a day (with only fish twice a week) seemed to produce no cardiovascular disease. Omega 3s were only discovered in the 1970s and fish oils were found to have omega 3s in the 1980s.

Healthy omegas from a raw whole mammalian source with the correct ratios, proves to be very beneficial to our health versus cooked oils, plant sources (due to conversions) and fish oils. Raw and whole and naturally toxic free is important here. Dr. Stanley Bass and many others are supportive of raw mammalian sources.This would match the experience of Artic explorer Vihajálmur Stefánsson, who lived with the Eskimos for eleven years between 1906 and 1918. The Eskimos enjoyed good health living on a fat-rich diet of a raw meat including seal blubber.

From primitive to civilized diets, the diet has been changed to include white flour, white sugar, salt, spices, canned food and more recently GMO foods. So processed foods are not the way to go! Many cultures on their primitive diets benefit from white teeth, good bone structure, strong immune systems and more.

In June of 2008, I added a raw whole mammalian source of essential fatty acids to my diet which to my surprise brought on more mental clarity immediately then more energy. The benefits are many.

The quality and source of omegas will make a difference to our health every time. The correct balance of Omega 6 to Omega 3 is vitally important as it exists for other nutrients.