Things You Never Guessed Fats Could Do For You

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Things You Never Guessed Fats Could Do For You JoAnn Guest

Nov 19, 2002 13:49 PST

 

The fat in food wields surprising power

over your cells.

 

A cell's biological activity—thus its propensity to promote or

discourage disease processes

–often hangs on fragile balance of food-derived fatty acids within

the cell.

 

This means the type of fat you eat is of enormous consequence to your

overall health!

 

New research shows that eating any type of fat

sets off biochemical fireworks of exquisite complexity in cells.

 

The result may be the dispatching of hormone-like messengers to

stimulate inflammation, immune responses, blood clotting, headaches,

constriction of blood vessels, pain and growth of malignant tumors.

 

In contrast, certain fats incite cells to make chemicals that break

up undesirable blood clots, fight off joint pain and frustrate cancer

cells. Although fat pharmacology is a very complex process, involving

enzymes, many metabolic steps and a delicate balance of fats in

cells, it has thrilling possibilities for deterring and ameliorating

disease.

 

The knowledge of how fat reigns over certain critical cellular

functions hinges on two recent major discoveries.

 

`First came the discovery that numerous bodily processes, such as

blood

clotting and inflammation are largely controlled by very potent

hormone-like substances—prostaglandins, thromboxanes and

leukotrienes—collectively called eicosanoids.

 

Then, even more momentous, researchers learned that the raw material

from which these mighty eicosanoid messengers are made is fat from

food! In other words, the diet serves up raw material of fatty acids

for

the

cellular factories that turn out these all-important eicosanoids. Not

surprisingly, the type and quantities of specific fatty acids that go

in determine the type and amounts of eicosanoids that come out.

 

They can be biologically friendly or dangerous. In any event, the

profound message is that, through the type of fat you eat, you can

manipulate the levels and biological activity of eicosanoids

circulating in your body.

 

You Are The Fat You Eat!

 

Very quickly after you eat fat, it shows up in the membranes of your

cells where its metabolic fate is determined.

 

Although fatty acids come in many subtle variations of molecular

arrangement, two major categories are most important in making

eicosanoids; omega-3 fatty acids, concentrated marine life as well as

afew land plants such as Extra-Virgin Olive oil.

 

When you consume land-based omega-6 fatty acids from a piece of meat,

or corn oil, they are more apt to be changed into a substance called

*arachadonic* acid, which in turn spawns substances that are highly

inflammatory or promote blood stickiness and blood vessel

constriction.

 

Fat from seafoods are radically different and more benign. Its omega-

3fatty acids are apt to be converted into substances that counteract

blood platelet clumping, dilate blood vessels and reduce inflammation

and cell damage.

 

Since food is made of mixtures of omega-3s and omega-6s, obviously

these two fatty acids are continuously giving contradictory

instructions to cells.

 

Which prevails—those for health or those for disease—

depends on the ratio of the two fatty acids in your diet and hence

your cells, says William E. M. Lands, Ph. D., a pioneering

researcher on fish oils and formerly a professor of biochemistry at

the University of Illinois at Chicago.

 

If your cells are flooded with omega-6 fatty acids, the resulting

oversupply of overactive prostaglandins is apt to run amok,

generating disease.

 

If you have sufficient omega-3 fatty acids, they can check or cool

down the arachidonic engine that is spewing out the disease-promoting

eicosanoids.

 

The Battles Between Fish and Corn Oils

 

At the cellular level, the stakes are high.

 

In short, as Dr. Lands explains, your cells are a battleground where

omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids compete for supremacy.

And which one wins day after day helps determine the state of your

health.

The truth is that for most Americans and people of other Western

countries, it is continual defeat.

 

We get far too much omega-6 and too little omega-3 in our diet. Dr.

Lands says Americans eat at least 10 to 15 times more terrestrial

omega-6s than marine omega-3s— " a horrible proportion. "

 

By contrast, Eskimos, who are known for their very low rates of

chronic disease, eat three times more omegs-3s than omega-6s,

primarily because they eat significant amounts of seafood.

 

Proof of the problem is found in the tissues of Americans. In recent

studies, Phyliss Bowen, associate professor in the Department of

Nutrition and Medical Dietetics at the University of Illinois at

Chicago, found that omega-6 levels were closer to 65 percent in the

French, 50 percent in the Japanese and only 22 percent in Greenland

Eskimos.

 

Omega-6 excesses worry experts,such as Professor Emeritus Alexander

Leaf of the Harvard University medical School.

 

When our bodies evolved eons ago they were nourished by lots of

omega-3s and virtually no omega-6s, he notes. Now, with the

invention of processed vegetable oils, the ratio is

upside-down in many cultures.

 

Today's fish-deficient diets leave our cells starved of marine oil

andoverburdened by modern processed oils and meat fats—

 

Big Macs and Mazola oil—foreign to our cells.

 

He believes our relatively new fatty-acid imbalance throws cells into

major malfunction, precipitating our current epidemic of chronic

illnesses, such as heart disease, cancer, diabetes and arthritis. Dr.

Leaf suggests human bodies require a minimum dose of fish oil and

that

not getting it brings revenge by way of multiple diseases.

 

" Our epidemic of heart disease and cancer may be the result of a

human fish oil deficiency state so enormous we fail to recognize it. "

Ewan Cameron, M.D., Linus Pauling Institute of Science and Medicine

in California

 

New research underscores the enormous lifesaving power of fat in

fish. Eating fatty fish can directly intervene to save people from

death and disability from heart attacks.

 

Studies have found that atherosclerosis—diseased and clogged

arteries –worsens, the less marine oil a person eats. Dr. Lands has

developed a formula that he says can precisely predict an

individual's odds of heart

attack; a simple finger-prick test measures a person's blood ratio of

marine omega-3s to omega-6 fatty acids.

 

The higher the proportion of marine omega-3s to omega-6s, the lower

the risk of heart attack. Similarly, studies reveal that a high

ratio of omega-3 fatty acids to omega-6 fatty acids in the blood

cuts your chances of cancer.

 

Although it's largely unappreciated,

our overconsumption of omega-6 oils, prevalent in margarines, salad

dressings soybean, corn oils and processed foods, is helping create

a health

disaster, says Artemis Simopoulos, M.D., president of the Center for

Genetics, Nutrition and Health in Washington, D.C.

 

True, heart authorities first encouraged the widespread use of such

vegetable oils to lower blood cholesterol, not suspecting the oils

could have detrimental effects on other aspects of health, such as

fostering inflammatory diseases, lowering immunity and promoting

cancer.

 

Such omega-6 oils are well-documented villains in augmenting cancer

incidence, cancer spread and deaths in laboratory animals.

 

The only way to correct this abnormal and alarming fat imbalance in

cells is to cut back drastically on foods rich in omega-6s and

increase the intake of marine omega-3s, say experts.

 

The impact is almost immediate. Within 72 hours, you can see a

beneficial biochemical impact in tissue by eating three and a half

ounces of fish a day, studies indicate.

 

It is smart to eat fish, especially fatty fish such as salmon,

sardines,mackerel, herring and tuna, at least two or three times a

week.However,adding any amount of seafood to a seafood-poor diet can

readjust our fatty acid balance somewhat, helping curtail not only

heart disease,but the many modern disorders linked to a seafood fat

deficiency.

 

Research shows that eating just an ounce of fish a day may help

restore our cells to healthy functioning, saving countless people

from

disability and premature death inflicted by the unimagined

consequences of a fats pharmacological powers.

 

Disorders that fish oil may alleviate or prevent

Rheumatoid arthritis

Heart attack

Clogged arteries

High Blood pressure

Ulcerative colitis

Psoriasis

Multiple sclerosis

Asthma

Migraine headaches

ADD

Maniac Depressive disorders

PMS

Endometriosis

 

Richest sources are mackerel, anchovies, herring, alaskan salmon,

water-packed sardines,lake trout.

 

Moderate amounts are found in turbot, bluefish, striped bass, shark,

rainbow smelt, swordfish, and rainbow trout.

 

Choose smaller fish over larger fish. Small fish, like sardines, have

had fewer years of exposure to pollutants.

 

Choose sardines canned without oil, unless

it is sardine oil, noted on the label as sild. Added oils, such as

soybean oils, can diminish significant amounts of omega-3s.

 

Don't eat fish skins. They are a prime depository of toxic chemicals.

 

To obtain maximum omega-3 benefits, bake or poach fish. Frying or

otherwise adding fat (especially vegetable oils high in omega-6)

decreases the omega-3 potency in the fish.

 

You also get some omega-3s in certain plant foods. The highest

concentrations are in walnuts, flaxseed, and purslane, a green leafy

vegetable that grows wild in the United States and is commonly eaten

in

the Europe and the Middle East.

 

However, plant omega-3s appear to be only one-fifth as potent as

marineomega-3s in fostering beneficial reactions in cells.

 

 

JoAnn Guest

mrsjoguest

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