Healthy Andy

“Fish Oil May Not Prevent Depression, Says Study”, says the headline on a leading news website, even though the study isn’t about taking fish oil. Lies and misrepresentations tend to make me froth at the mouth in furious anger, so I just can’t let this go unanswered.

The latest in a long tradition of crappy science mixed with crappy journalism, this MSNBC article summarizes the results of a poorly-designed study which leaps to incorrect conclusions, and in the process, misleads the reader even more by interchanging the words “fish” and “fish oil”. Well, let’s see if Healthy Andy can’t untangle this mess for you.

First off, the study is question was published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, and was based off of a large nutritional survey that followed over 50,000 nurses over ten years. To sum up, the researchers checked to see who was eating fish, compared that to who ended up getting depressed, and found no correlation. Then, they declared that EPA and DHA, the main active ingredients in fish oil, have no effect on preventing depression.

Hang on, buster. Not so fast.

Let’s start by correcting the journalist who wrote that misleading headline. This study did NOT study the effect of taking fish oils. It studied the effect of eating fish. It’s not the same thing.

Does it sound like I’m splitting hairs? Here’s why there’s a difference: dosage. Eating fish obviously will provide EPA and DHA from the oils naturally present in the fish. However, it’s nowhere near as much as you get by taking a fish oil supplement.

In fact, dosage is the big reason why this entire study and subsequent news article should be kicked in the head and shown the door. If you eat some high Omega-3 fish every day, you MIGHT end up with a gram or two of EPA and DHA. And while that’s the dosage range I recommend for people without any problems to use as a basic health maintenance dose, if you look at the dosage used to actually treat depression, that’s a whole other story.

If you want to actually treat depression or similar mood disorders, you need to think bigger than a gram or two a day.  Try more like nine or ten grams a day of EPA and DHA.

So, not surprisingly, if you only give someone about one tenth the required dose to make a certain change in the body, YOU’RE NOT GOING TO SEE ANY CHANGE.

Plus, how much fish were these women eating?  What counts as “eating fish”?  Do shellfish count?  Farm-raised fish (which has very little Omega-3)? Did they calculate out the EPA and DHA content of the fish?  That would be pretty hard to do in this case, seeing as how they are relying on a recall survey (“what did you eat yesterday?”), and people really suck at estimating portion size.  Did these women eat fish every day?  Every other day?  How much and what kind (since different varieties of fish have differing Omega-3 contents)?

The bottom line is, the researchers really can’t tell how much EPA and DHA these people were ingesting on a regular basis.  Which means, they really can’t reach any conclusions about anything.

At best… at BEST… if you ignore the  fact that the researchers couldn’t accurately estimate Omega-3 intake, this study suggests that it’s hard to eat enough fish to improve mental health.  Which, I could’ve told you before, simply by looking at the dosage used to treat depression (nine to ten grams daily… you’re talking several pounds of high-quality fish here).  But to use a headline stating that fish OIL doesn’t have any effect on depression, is just plain wrong and misleading.

In fact, fish oil does seem to have a positive effect on depression.  You just have to take a sufficient dosage.  So shut your face, MSNBC, and do your homework before you go writing headlines.

Pretty much everybody has heard of the benefits of fish oil, but I do get a lot of questions about what the best fish oil dosage is.  It actually gets a little tricky figuring out your dosage properly; it isn’t just a matter of giving you a simple number.  But, don’t worry, we’ll walk through it by steps and you’ll be taking the right amount of fish oils in no time.

Essential Fatty Acids

How much is enough?

The most important thing to remember when you’re buying fish oils and calculating the correct dosage is to understand that you’re taking fish oils for the essential fatty acids (EFAs) in them.  EFAs are what they sound like; fats that are necessary (essential) to the proper biochemistry of your body.

In this case, we’re talking about two EFAs: DHA (Docosahexaenoic acid) and EPA (Eicosapentaenoic acid).  You don’t need to remember the big ugly hairy names, that’s why we use acronyms.  In fact, you barely need to remember EPA and DHA… it’s the only acronyms that will be listed on the label in the dosage section.

What you DO need to remember is, to add these amounts up on the label to see exactly how much useable fish oil you’re getting.  You see, fish oil isn’t 100% EPA and DHA.  The  purity varies wildly from brand to brand.  So, in order to accurately assess your fish oil dosage, you need to check the label of whatever product you’re buying.  The good quality products go about 50% purity; that is, if you take 1000 mg of fish oils, you’ll get 500 mg of EPA and DHA (total).

So the question is not, what should my fish oil dosage be, but what dosage of EPA and DHA should I be taking?

Fish Oil Dosage = EPA and DHA Total

Now that we have that sorted out, just how much EPA and DHA do we need?  As usual, the answer is, it depends.  How good is your diet?  People eating a whole foods diet get some EFAs from their food, and don’t need as much Omega-3 fatty acids (that’s the name of the kind of essential fats fish oils provide) as someone who’s living off of processed foods.

Are you taking fish oils for simple health maintenance, or do you have a symptomatic condition you’re hoping to ease with Omega-3 fatty acids?  Your fish oil dosage will need to go up considerably if your health has already deteriorated enough that you are having symptoms.

General Rule For Fish Oil Dosage

• If you’ve got a pretty good diet, you want to keep your costs down, and you merely want to take fish oils for general health maintenace, a total EPA + DHA dosage of about a gram to a gram and a half a day is generally sufficient.
• If you need to take it up a notch because you have a mild to moderate condition you’re hoping to help with Omega-3s, or you have a lousy diet, or you don’t mind a little extra cost to have even more benefit from your fish oils, your fish oil dosage should be more like 3 grams a day (again, EPA and DHA combined).
• Highly symptomatic individuals may need 6 grams or more a day to get their problems under control.  For example, my patients with arthritic symptoms work their way up to six grams a day until their symptoms start to subside, and then they slowly reduce their dosage (so long as they still have reduced symptoms) until they reach a maintenance level of more like 1 to 3 grams/day of EPA and DHA.

I strongly advise that anyone just starting out on fish oils makes it a point to SLOWLY add them in to their diet.  Trying to gobble down large amounts of fish oil capsules right away will usually result in something called “fishy repeat”, which is a fancy way of saying you burp up fish oil taste.  It’s as gross as it sounds. 

Avoid that by gradually increasing your fish oil dosage over time. Start with one capsule a day for a week, add a second for a week, and so on until you reach your desired dosage level.

Remember, your fish oil dosage is determined by your diet and your goals, and is calculated by adding the amounts of EPA and DHA on the label (NOT the number the company claims is “fish oils”).

Stay healthy!

Since I’ll take any excuse to post more about the fantastic health benefits of fish oils, here’s some news on a study showing that women who take fish oils supplements are at a lower risk for breast cancer.

The study followed 35,000 women over the course of six years.  At the end of this time, the researchers found that those women taking fish oil supplements were 32% less likely to have breast cancer.

One of the interesting findings of this study is that the protective effects of fish oil seemed to be limited to a type of breast cancer called invasive ductal carcinoma.  IDC is the most common form of breast cancer and is maglinant in type.  About 55% of breast cancer is invasive ductal carcinoma.

The prognosis for this type of breast cancer is highly variable and depends on exactly how big the tumor is, how much the cancerous cells have travelled into the lymph nodes and bloodstream, and some other hormonal factors.  Of course, the bottom line is, like any other form of cancer, if you can avoid it, you don’t want it.

That ought to be the American Cancer Society’s T-shirt slogan:  Cancer.  You Don’t Want It.  Seriously.

Unfortunately, this study isn’t very specific and is based on self-report, which as I’ve mentioned in previous posts, is notoriously unreliable.  Plus, there wasn’t really any way to tell what sort of dosage these women were taking- any fish oil use was considered the same.

So, what this sort of study really tells us is that something’s going on, but we’re not sure what, and we need to take a closer look.  Fortunately, some Harvard researchers are going to do just that and study the effect of fish oils on cancer. 

In any case, fish oils are a supremely healthy addition to your wellness habits for many other reasons than cancer- just take a look in the categories section under “supplements” and you’ll see I have a whole section devoted to fish oils.  Remember, the basic wellness dose is between one and two grams a day total of EPA and DHA (the active ingredients in fish oils).

Stay healthy!

Source article: http://health.yahoo.net/news/s/hsn/fishoilsupplementslinkedtolowerriskofbreastcancerstudy

Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder is a condition affecting huge numbers of kids in the US, characterized by the inability to focus on a given task or situation.  Classically, it’s treated with Ritalin, a stimulant, but there’s some evidence that Omega-3 fatty acids could be a better solution.

So why are researchers leaning in that direction?  I mean, it’s not exactly intuitive: ADHD kids are responding to a stimulant, and Omega-3s are certainly NOT a stimulant, so what gives?

The first clue started cropping up a couple of decades ago, as ADHD started becoming a more and more popular diagnosis.  After a while, some big-brained folks started realizing that some symptoms exhibited by kids with ADHD were also shared by kids who had severe Omega-3 deficiency… stuff like increased thirst and urination, dry hair, and dry skin.

Plus, animal studies showed things like rats low in Omega-3s had a hard time learning in new environments.  Specifically, they were easily distractable- sound like ADHD to you?  This evidence was followed up with blood tests showing ADHD kids had lower levels of both the Omega-3 and Omega-6 Essential Fatty Acids (EFAs).

Why would this happen?  Well, it’s possible that the reason why ADHD kids have trouble focusing is an inability to block out inappropriate responses to anything and everything in the environment.  You see, learning isn’t just about what TO do, it’s also about learning what NOT to do.  This is true on a behavioral level as well as a physical level.

Think about it.  When you do something as simple as take a step, you need to coordinate the efforts of a number of different muscles, in just the right amounts, at just the right time.  But you also have to know which muscles to NOT contract…otherwise, you’d throw your own balance off if, while in mid-step, you suddenly kicked like you were going for a soccer goal.  Inhibiting inappropriate action is just as important to function as enabling proper action.

In fact, loads of neuroscience is suggesting that this inhibition of inappropriate response is far more important than anything else when it comes to learning!  That’s a pretty strong statement, so let’s just leave it at this: inhibition is important.  That inhibition is governed by neurotransmitters, which are chemical messengers in the brain.

Stimulants like Ritalin seem to work by affecting neurotransmitters in the brain called dopamine and serotonin.  So it’s not that these kids need stimulants, it’s that these kids need neurotransmitters, and the stimulants help with the neurotransmitters.

Guess what?  Omega-3 deficiency is linked with deficiency issues in dopamine and serotonin, those very same neurotransmitters involved in ADHD.  So it stands to reason, you might be able to help out kids with ADHD through using Omega-3 supplements like fish oil.

Okay, theories are nice, but what’s the evidence?  Well, one study out of Australia shows that kids given an EFA supplement (one that had both Omega-3 and Omega-6 in it) showed significant improvement after 15 weeks.  One group that then was switched to placebo stayed stagnant, while the other group which took the supplements for another 15 weeks showed even more improvement. 

How much improvement?  The 30 weeks group actually improved more than on Ritalin!

That’s a pretty powerful finding, and I think it speaks for itself.

Do you think kids should take an Omega-3 supplement like fish oils?  Let me know below in the comment section!  And if you know some crazy, out of control kids, send this article to their parents and save yourself (and them) some aggravation!

Stay healthy!

All week, I’ve been posting on various physical health benefits of Omega-3 fatty acids, an important EFA (Essential Fatty Acid).  Now let’s talk about some mental benefits… after all, the brain is just another organ in your body and needs nutrients just like every other part of you.

One of my favorite tidbits about Omega-3s is:  of the two major Omega-3s, EPA and DHA, your brain is 22% DHA by weight. 

Wow.  So, obviously DHA is important to keeping your noggin healthy.  In fact, most research on Omega-3s and brain health is centered around DHA. 

What kind of research?  Well, there’s a couple of studies showing that people with low-fat diets tend to have decreased reaction times.  More interestingly, another study shows ability to focus is improved with the addition of a 400mg supplement of DHA.

Other studies show that diets high in Omega-6 (the opposite of Omega-3) tend to be associated with cognitive decline over time.  Unfortunately, the Western diet is stuffed full of Omega-6 and desperately low in Omega-3.  The accepted healthy ratio of a 1:1 balance of Omega-3 to Omega-6 is skewed way out of proportion to more like 30:1 in favor of Omega-6. 

In case you’re wondering, that’s considered a diet high in Omega-6.  What we’re not sure of is, exactly why this cognitive decline occurs.  It could be that a lack of DHA leads to a slow loss of integrity in the cell membranes of neurons (DHA is a big part of that). 

Maybe it has more to do with the imbalanced ratio leading to too much arachidonic acid (AA), which is bad for the brain.  That arachidonic acid stuff is made from Omega-6s, and if you eating all Omega-6, all the time, guess what you’re going to end up with a lot of?  That brain-busting AA.  On the other hand, if your diet is lower in Omega-6 and balanced with Omega-3, you’ll end up with less AA and less damage.

There’s another way Omega-3s like fish oil can help.  Scientists have shown that DHA can protect against the damage caused by strokes. Now, we’re talking about the kind of stroke involved when there’s a loss of blood flow to the brain- there’s another kind of stroke where blood hemorrhages into the brain and causes damage.  I mean the other kind, where blood flow is choked off for some reason.

There’s a lot of talk that degenerative diseases of the brain like Alzheimer’s may be due to a succession of tiny mini-strokes, which are what they sound like:  little tiny strokes that don’t cause any noticeable symptoms, but add up over time to chip away at the brain little by little.  Think of somebody stealing a dollar from your bank account from time to time.  You might not notice it, but given enough time, there will be enough missing that you’re going to wonder how you’re going to pay the rent.

In any case, this study (done with rats) showed that if you supplement ahead of time with DHA, the damage caused by a sudden loss of blood to a part of the brain is reduced.  That’s pretty cool.   In fact, it’s one of the reasons why I advise anyone with elderly parents to get them on fish oils ASAP.

You see, you can’t just give someone fish oils right after they have a stroke… that’s too late.   You need to be taking them for a while ahead of time beforethe stroke. But since fish oils or similar Omega-3 supplements are super-healthy and fantastic for you in all kinds of other ways, there’s no reason you (or your parents) shouldn’t be taking them already… and then hopefully they could (in theory, of course) act as a preventative therapy in the unfortunate event of a stroke, or mini-stroke.

Again, we’re speculating a bit here, since the study was done on rats and not people, but it is an encouraging finding.  Given how devastating diseases of cognitive decline are, I’m definitely making sure my parents take their fish oils.

Based on what you’ve just read, would you tell your parents to take fish oils?  Comment below!

Oh yeah, and in this week’s newsletter… one more article on Omega-3s and ADHD, some info about a supplement called MSM and its use for skin problems, and a tasty fajita recipe that’s also good for you!  If you haven’t signed up for the newsletter, go to the top right sidebar and fill in your name and email address to get it… it’s free!

Arthritis is a silent, ugly, painful scourge on our society. Something like 46 MILLION people suffer from some form of arthritis, with a million of them being hospitalized due to their condition.  It doesn’t get a lot of press, but it’s nasty and causes a ton of people a ton of pain.

There’s a lot of different kinds of arthritis- the term “arthritis” just means “inflammation of the joint”.  The two main types are osteoarthritis (OA), also called Degenerative Joint Disease or DJD, and rheumatoid arthritis (RA).  OA is wear and tear arthritis; it affects one joint at a time and is essentially caused by overuse.  Think of a marathon runner with no cartilage left in their knees.  That’s OA.

We’re going to talk about RA or rheumatoid arthritis in this post.  RA is a systemic disease, meaning it affects the entire body all at once, not just one joint. Actually, it doesn’t just affect the joints, but that’s where most people notice the symptoms.  The joints of the hands and wrists are commonly one of the most affected areas and can lead to severe deformity, leading to the fingers being twisted out of alignment.

The cause is autoimmune, which means that for some weird reason, the body’s immune system is attacking itself.  There’s a lot of autoimmune disorders out there, and all of them suck.  Seriously.  They’re extremely tough to deal with, mostly because Science and Medicine has pretty much no idea why this is going on in the first place.  Conventional medical treatments for RA are less than desirable; cortisone seems to work in the short-term, but has nasty long-term side effects.

Well, now that I’ve depressed you all, here’s some good news. A study done all the way back in the ’80s shows a dramatic improvement in symptoms when patients included 4.5 grams a day of fish oils along with their medications.  It took 14 weeks for this effect to kick in, but still, for anything to work on this nasty disease is fantastic.

There’s more. In the mid-90s, that same idea was tried again, except this time, they actually stopped the medications and switched to all fish oils.  Here’s how it worked.  They started people off with taking their meds and also taking a bunch of either fish oil capsules, or corn oil capsules (to use as a control group).  After about five months, the researchers then stopped giving people their meds, and gave them a fake sugar pill instead, those tricksters.

In the fish oil group, people felt a lot better… even after coming off of their medication!  The corn oil group… not so much.  The fish oil group’s improvements remained even after coming off of their medication for eight weeks, which is pretty incredible.

It wasn’t just symptoms.  RA has some chemical markers which you can objectively measure; the fish oil group had significantly decreased levels of these markers as well as reduced symptoms.  So it wasn’t just all in their heads.

Quick side note:  these people were taking MAJOR doses of fish oils, like nine or ten grams a day.  That’s a bunch.

Okay, so how the heck can this be?  How can fish oils make such a major dent in such an ugly disease?  Well, pull up a chair, kids, because Healthy Andy is going to lay it all out for you.

First, let’s go quickly over inflammation, since arthritis of all kinds is all about inflammation.  Remember from previous posts that inflammation is the very beginning process of healing, and so, it’s very necessary for your health.  It kick-starts not only the tissue repair part of healing, but also the immune response. 

After all, historically speaking, infections were the A Number One big killer of the human race.  Before antibiotics came along, if you got a cut, you were in serious trouble of dying from an infection.  So, your body is hard-wired to over-react when it comes to potential infectious threats.  Any sign of injury, and your immune response is on the scene, pronto, to make sure your body isn’t going to be over-run by any invading organisms.

Your Omega-3 to Omega-6 balance is a big part of how strong your inflammatory response is.  Remember, these are the two major kinds of Essential Fatty Acids (EFAs), fats that your body needs to do its business.  EFAs form some of the chemical messengers involved in the whole process of inflammation; Omega-6s create a strong inflammatory response, Omega-3s, a weak inflammatory response.

When the two kinds of EFAs are in balance, all is well in the world and the degree of inflammatory response stays appropriate to the threat.  Weak threat?  Weak response.  Strong threat?  Strong response.

The problem arises when you have an imbalance, like pretty much everybody in Western society does.  We should have a 1:1 ratio of Omega-3 to Omega-6.  Of course, we don’t.  Not even close.  It’s more like 30:1 in favor of Omega-6.

Now, we have a situation where all we can do is over-react to every potential threat, because all we have is a strong response.  It’s kind of like having a tool chest but only owning a sledgehammer.  If you have to hang a picture on the wall, and you only own a sledgehammer, your interior decorating isn’t going to win any awards.

So, knowing this, it’s not to hard to see how taking Omega-3 supplements like fish oils can help with inflammatory conditions.  Now that we restore the balance between a strong Omega-6 response and weak Omega-3 response (or at least, get closer to balance), we put a whole assortment of tool in our body’s tool chest, from a tack hammer on up.  The inflammatory response now becomes more appropriate, either weak or strong or anywhere in between, and we don’t end up pounding holes in the drywall from trying to hang a picture with a sledgehammer.

Since an autoimmune condition like RA is basically inflammation on overdrive, all of the time, it’s going to respond to a return to balance like I just described.  Now, your immune system isn’t going to attack anything and everything in sight with crazed machine-gun fire, including you.  Instead, it’s more likely to respond appropriately, and leave your body tissues alone and stick to killing actual foreign invaders with a surgical sniper rifle shot.

By the way, that guy that did those two studies I was talking about earlier recommends dosing at three to six grams of EPA and DHA total (that’s the active ingredients of fish oil) a day for at least twelve weeks to see if this kind of supplementation will help rheumatoid arthritis.  I’d stick on the high side of that to be certain.  You’re going to need to work up to taking that much gradually, so start with a capsule or two and work your way up from there. 

Of course, if you’re considering any of this, be sure to do it under the supervision of your doctor.  More and more MDs are becoming open to the idea of natural therapies supplementing convential therapies, particularly if the condition is stubborn and nasty like rheumatoid arthritis is.

Hit me up with some comments or questions, and share this info with your friends… you never know who could benefit from it!

Stay healthy!

Constantly… and I mean CONSTANTLY… I get asked what kinds of supplements people should take in order to lose weight.  Sometimes I’m a smart-ass and say “an apple”, but in all seriousness, I get it.  You all want to be able to take something to make yourself a little lighter in the middle.

First off, I make that smart-alecky answer, “an apple”, for a reason.  There is no nutritional supplement that can possibly make the same level of difference in your waistline as having healthy diet and exercise habits.  I hammer on this point again and again, because it’s the simple truth.  I don’t want you swallowing a pill and expecting miracles.  There are no magic beans, or secret elixirs, that will let you eat fifteen birthday cakes a day while lying on the couch, and still stay thin.  Doesn’t exist.  Never will.

You gain or lose weight due to physics and biochemistry. So first, fix the diet and exercise habits.  Then, if you think you need a little extra, you follow the same rules for weight loss supplements as you do for any other supplements… what’s something that will increase my health (something missing that my body normally needs), that I can safely take for a lifetime?

Oh, sure, there’s crap out there you can take like Ephedra or medications that will make your heart go pitter-pat super fast.  But you might as well just smoke a bunch of crystal meth to lose weight.  That stuff is horrible, HORRIBLE for you, and frankly, no, you can’t take those kinds of supplements for a lifetime.  If you try, your lifetime will end up being a lot shorter than you’d like.

Listen.  You’re not overweight because your body is low on Ephedra or other stimulants.  You’re not replacing something your body actually uses normally.  And I don’t want to see any of you keeling over dead of a heart attack in your thirties because you wanted a quick fix. 

Okay, okay, okay, Healthy Andy, you’re all saying.  We get it.  No thinly-disguised crystal meth.  We replace something our body normally needs, that we aren’t getting enough of, that promotes a healthy weight.  What is it, already?

Fish oils.  Or, Omega-3 fatty acids, really.  I know, it sounds weird, that the best possible weight loss product is fish oils, but stick with me, and I’ll show you why.

Omega-3 fats belong to a class of fats called Essential Fatty Acids(EFAs), which are called that because your body can’t make them.  You have to get them in your diet.  And, most people are deficient in them.  So, they fit our classification of a healthy supplement that you can take for a lifetime… your body needs it for everyday use, and you probably are low in them.

Right, but what do they do when it comes to weight loss?  Well, the two main ways that fish oils will help you fit into your skinny jeans are first, helping reduce inflammation, and second, improving sugar metabolism.

Let’s start with the first one.  Inflammation.  I’ve posted before about how chronic inflammation throughout the body is a component of all kinds of dread diseases that plague our society.  Obesity is only one of them. 

Here’s how it works.  The inflammatory process encourages the release of a substance called cortisol, a stress hormone. In short doses, cortisol is fine… in fact, it actually does helpful stuff for you.  But there’s something about long-term, chronic cortisol release that causes the body to retain fat.  I mean, retain it no matter what, regardless of whether you’re starving yourself on a low-calorie diet or not.  Rather than burn off fat, your body will consume muscle tissue or even just plain slow your metabolism to a crawl.

So, less inflammation means less cortisol, which removes a potential barrier to losing fat.  It won’t burn off calories all by itself; what it does is allows your diet and exercise program to actually work like it should.  If you’re one of those people frustrated because your diet and exercise habits are where they need to be, but you still can’t seem to shake off the muffin tops or love handles, it may be because of cortisol.

The other part of the fish oil-weight loss equation is an improvement in sugar metabolism.  Here’s what that means.  When you eat food, afterwards, there’s sugar floating around in your bloodstream.  Your body will use a chemical called insulin to pull that sugar out of the blood and put it into the cell, where it can be burned immediately for energy or stored for later use (that’s called glycogen and it’s in the muscle tissue, we’re not talking about fat here).

Omega-3s like fish oil are an important part of this equation.  The simplest way to explain it is, Omega-3s help to “anchor” the gate that insulin and sugar travel through in order to get into the cell.

You see, your cell has a wall around it to keep all the right stuff in and all the wrong stuff out.  There’s doorways or gates scattered all across the surface, so that the cell can (basically) get deliveries and take out the trash.  Each gate is locked so that no thieves can break in, which is nice, and these gates get unlocked by a doorman who escorts the delivery into the cell.  Each specific gate has a different doorman for a different kind of delivery.

When sugar is delivered to the cell, the doorman in question is insulin.  Insulin knocks on the door, says “open up”, and lets sugar in.  That gate is held in place (kind of) by Omega-3 fats.  So, if you’re deficient in Omega-3s, the gate isn’t going to open up as it should, and sugar won’t be able to get in, but will keep circulating around and causing all kinds of problems. 

This process ends up leading to insulin levels going haywire in the bloodstream- spiking up, dropping down, and generally not working right.  Those wild insulin swings end up having a similar effect to cortisol in promoting the storage and retention of body fat.  You can think of it as the doorman getting frustrated and telling the sugar to just shut up and go live in a fat cell.

So, enough Omega-3s means the gate works right, opens right up when the doorman knocks, and therefore, sugar is cleared from the bloodstream right on schedule.  Everybody’s happy, and insulin levels stay in a normal range so that your body doesn’t prioritize the storage of fat, and you get to lose weight just like you should.  Practically a story-book ending.

There’s another possible mechanism for Omega-3s and fat loss that I’ll mention breifly.  Some animal studies are showing that Omega-3s directly stimulate the genes that control fat metabolism, like a fat burning on/off switch.  This hasn’t been verified in humans, but it’s definitely worth being aware of. 

There’s all kinds of other health benefits that go along with Omega-3s, of course, which is why fish oils are my favorite weight loss supplement.  You need them to make your body work right.  When your body works right, you lose weight.  You can (and should) take them for a lifetime, and not only are there no ill side effects, there’s tons of beneficial side effects.

So skip the quick-fix Ephedra/crystal meth crap, and reach for something that will help keep you fit and healthy for a lifetime- Omega-3s.

If you liked this article, tell your friends about HealthyAndy.com!  It will help you lose weight!  Okay, that’s a lie.  But it will make me happy.  As always, any questions or comments, please feel free to post them below.

Stay healthy!

Omega-3 Week continues with a nifty little arena that I’ll bet most of you have never even considered when it comes to the health benefits of Omega-3 fatty acids… post-partum depression.

Actually, there’s a number of pregnancy issues that respond to Omega-3s, but I’m going to limit the discussion for today to post-partum depression in the interests of not creating a 47-page long post.

Okay, so how in the heck do Omega-3 supplements help with post-partum depression?  Well, first we have to talk a little bit about the importance of Essential Fatty Acids(EFAs) in the development of the fetus.

Remember, EFAs are called “essential” because we have to get them in our diet-we can’t make them ourselves.  The major EFAs are called Omega-6 and Omega-3.  Omega-6s aren’t usually a problem, because we eat tons of Omega-6 filled foods already.  Omega-3s…. not so much.

EFAs are used to build neural tissue and signalling hormones important to normal nerve interaction… in other words, it builds the brain and nervous system and makes it go vrrroom.  Want a great, slap-in-the-face sort of factoid about how important EFAs are to your nervous system?  How about this:  the two major Omega-3s are called EPA and DHA.  Your brain is about 22% DHA by weight.

So, pretty important.  And if you’re building a little tiny person, also known as a fetus, from the ground up, you’re going to need tons and tons of these EFAs to build their brain, spinal cord, and all the nerves travelling to each and every bit of their tiny little body.  Plus, you’ll need EFAs to make sure all of that neurology works right once it’s built.

Like every other nutrient the developing fetus needs, it draws these EFAs from the blood supply of the mother.  So, Mom is eating EFAs for two: her needs and the needs of her growing baby.

You know what?  The body prioritizes the developing fetus so much, that if there isn’t enough EFAs to go around, it will let the mother’s EFA levels drop in order to give that little baby what it needs.  So Moms who aren’t getting a lot of Omega-3 fatty acids to begin with (and there’s a bunch of you out there) are now REALLY deficient once Junior takes his share.

This actually continues after the baby is born.  Breast milk is very high in EFAs and therefore Omega-3s.  Hey, that little baby is still growing like crazy and needs to be able to build up its rapidly growing and responding brain and nervous system (amongst other things).  In fact, you can measure the difference in a mom’s DHA levels within about eight weeks after birth due to lactation (breast feeding).

Again, if the mother’s diet can’t supply enough EFAs for the child, some will be siphoned off from her own stores of EFA that are in her body’s tissues to make up the difference.  All of this adds up to, a lot of mothers get seriously depleted in EFAs… particularly, Omega-3 fatty acids. 

Heck, most of us are deficient in Omega-3s to begin with, and now add in the rigors of pregnancy drawing off huge supplies of this vital nutrient… I think  you can see how this can lead to a massive, sudden drop on Omega-3s for mothers.

Right, so now we know pregnancy can lead to massive Omega-3 deficiency.  So what does that have to do with post-partum depression?

Remember when I said that EFAs had a lot to do with building brain and nerve tissue, and also for the signalling hormones used in that system?  Well, this has to do with that last part.  Omega-3s are used to help regulate and mediate mood and emotion, amongst other things.

How exactly that works isn’t 100% clear.  It may have to do with Omega-3′s role in the actual transmission of the nerve signals themselves.  It may have to do with how EPA makes hormones called eicosanoids (you can forget that name), which help to regulate mood. 

It may also have to do with how EPA essentially “competes” with its opposite Omega-6 counterpart to reduce cytokines (forget that name too), which can add with inflammation to negatively affect mood and emotion.  It’s sort of like something needs to fill the hole, either Omega-3 or Omega-6, so whichever you’ve got more of, gets the spot.  So EPA acts as a blocker to depressing chemicals.

Here’s what we do know.  Countries where people eat more fish (which have a lot of Omega-3s in them) have the lowest levels of post-partum depression.  This, to me, is the most obvious indicator that there’s something to the theory that Omega-3s and post-partum depression are linked. 

Those of you who have read my guide on nutritional supplements know that I think you’re nuts if you’re not taking Omega-3 supplements already.  If you’re pregnant, that goes double… for you, and your baby.

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