Fats for health

Fats are ESSENTIAL for our health. They are required to build cell walls, they are the pre-cursors for hormones which regulate essential body processes, they are also responsible for bile (a gross substance in the stomach needed to breakdown food)which also protects the stomach itself.

A diet deficient in essential fatty acids can cause a variety of problems, and for this reason we should not try to avoid fats in out diet, it is just good to know which are better.

Saturated or unsaturated? 

Saturated fats saturated because their carbon skeleton is surrounded by hydrogen atoms. Examples of this type of fat in out diet are animal fats like butter and lard. These fats are solid at room temperature. Unsaturated fats are not 'saturated' by these hydrogen atoms and are liquid at room temperature (oils) an example would be vegetable oils.

What are trans fats? 

You will have heard of these, but what really are they? and why should we avoid them? So, pretty much..the oils you started with, they add hydrogen atoms in a process called hydrogenation. The natural structure of the fatty acid is thus changed, allowing the oil to now be solid at room temperature. This is how margarine is made. The problem with trans fats is that this unnatural state causes a raise in LDL cholesterol, and lowers the beneficial HDL cholesterol. This, in the long term is what causes cardiovascular disease. The bottom line is, healthy or good fats that our bodies are properly equipt to deal with have been transformed for convenience into synthetic fats. These fats are new to us, and thus our bodies haven't evolved enough to deal with them.

There are 3 types of unsaturated fats; omega-3/6/9. The oils we use everyday are composed of these fatty acids. The imbalance of these, along with too much saturated and trans fats is the cause of disease and obesity.

Why is the balance important? 

As stated previously, fats make up our cell walls. The fats we consume determine which fats are incorporated in our cell walls. Our cell walls need to have a certain fluidity and integrity to function correctly, and as most of us are not consuming these fats in the correct ratio. Alterations in the cell membrane means that they simply do not function how they should, cells cannot communicate with each other correctly, they also lose their ability to hold water and vital nutrients. On researching this, a major thing that came apparent to me was the effect of this on our hormones, especially insulin. Insulin is essential in the maintenance of blood sugar. Typically, the cell membrane profile associated with diabetes is high saturated fats and low essential fatty acids. Many studies indicate that the consumption of omega-3 fatty acids along with the decreased consumption of saturated fats hugely protects against developing diabetes.

The importance of omega6-3 ratio is also very important. The western world typically consumes far too much omega 6 compared to omega-3.I won't go too far into this, but what will say is that ratio of omega-3:omega 6 determines have a profound effect on the prostaglandin metabolism. These are hormone like structures, series 1&2 come from omega-6, series 3 comes from omega-6. As for as the 'series' go the prostaglandins considered healthy are 1 and 3. Omega 3, the precusor for the healthy series 3 prostaglandins come from fish such as salmon and mackerel, is it also found in flaxseed oil. The reason they are considered healthy is because they improve blood flow, prevent platelets sticking together and reduce inflammation. Series 2 the 'unhealthy' prostaglandin derived from omega-6 (too much omega-6) is found in animal fats. The reason it is considered bad or unhealthy is that it promotes platelets sticking together resulting in heart disease and strokes. 

Another major factor in disease is cholstererol, we've all heard of this but what is 'good' or 'bad' cholsterol. The body needs cholesterol to synthesize various hormones and bile acids therefore is is essential. However, our diets are leading us to have far too much of this 'bad' cholesterol called LDL. LDL is responsible for transporting cholesterol to the proteins, HDL or 'good' cholesterol transports cholesterol for excretion via the kidneys. Therefore, the balance of these in the body largely determines how healthy an individual is. 

Supplementation of flaxseed or fish oils significantly lowers LDL levels and increases HDL levels and has been proven to do so in many studies. 

How do we use this information in our diets? 

Simple, we reduce the amounts of animal fats, trans fats and saturated fats in our diet and supplement healthy oils such as fish oils and flaxseed oil. 

The optimal ratio of omega 6 to omega 3 is 4:1, the average person actually consumes the ratio 20:1. This is a major problem, as this ratio is a major contributor to the diseases that are so very present in our world today. 

Flaxseed oil or fish oil? 

Of course both offer amazing benefits. The thing I would look out for though is the processing of these products. For instance, a fish oil in a gel capsule found cheaply in your local supermarket, it's processing has more than likely disrupted its benefits. These oils have usually been treated with heat, when such oils are exposed to heat they turn into lipid peroxides. Lipid peroxides are actually toxic to the body.

When it comes to oils, what you're looking for is an oil that has been minimally processed. Things to look out for when it comes to selecting an omega 3 oil such as flaxseed or fish oil are oils that have been certified organic, products in opaque or light resistant containers, products that need to be refrigerated and ones which display processing methods as well as an use by date. If you're going buy an oil supplement, go with high quality or nothing at all to reap the benefits.

I use both flaxseed and fish oils, but when it comes to cost flaxseed is definitely more cost effective. It also offers a wider variety of nutrients and unlike commercial fish oil supplements does not contain lipid peroxides. 

Flaxseed oil and intense exercise - an interesting study 

Intense exercise is well known to suppress the immune system. Scientists decided to conduct an experiment whereby they examined the supplementation of flaxseed oil combined with intense exercise in mice. There was an exercised group who used flaxseed oil, and one which did not. In the exercised animals, the immune response was suppressed by intense exercise (swimming until exhaustion) as they thought. ONLY the group supplementing with flaxseed oil demonstrated a normal immure response. Thus, people who are subjecting themselves to intense exercise regularly may want to be supplementing with flaxseed oil in order to counteract the destructive effect it has on the immune system!

I hope this post was an interesting read! Let me know what you think of these sciencey posts.