Discover the Importance of Omega-3 Fats for Optimal Health!
Welcome back to the Empowered Nutrition Podcast, where we explore the latest breakthroughs in health and wellness. In today’s episode, we dive into the importance of Omega-3 fats and their impact on overall health and well-being. Our special guest, Dr. Bill Harris, sheds light on the significance of Omega-3 in lowering triglyceride levels, improving cardiovascular health, and more.
Bill Harris has a PhD in Nutritional Biochemistry and has been studying omega-3 fatty acids for the last 40 years. During that time, he has published over 340 papers on omega-3 and been the recipient of 5 NIH grants on omega-3 fatty acids. In 2004, he co-developed a new blood test called the “Omega-3 Index,” and in 2009, he formed OmegaQuant Analytics, LLC, to offer the test to researchers, clinicians and consumers. In 2020 he started the Fatty Acid Research Institute to accelerate the discovery of fatty acid and health relationships. His scientific productivity was recently ranked among the top 2% in a survey of scientists worldwide.
Episode Highlights:
- The Link between Omega-3, Triglyceride Levels, and Mortality:
- Low levels of Omega-3 increase the risk of mortality, especially in individuals who smoke.
- Non-smokers with high Omega-3 levels have the lowest risk of death.
- Discover why maintaining a healthy Omega-3 index is crucial for longevity.
- Debunking Myths about Vegan Diets and Omega-3:
- Vegan diets may not provide sufficient Omega-3 fatty acids.
- B12 and fatty acids like EPA and DHA play a vital role in disproving the idea that a vegan diet is enough for human nutrition.
- Learn about the importance of supplementation for individuals following plant-based diets.
- The Best Sources of Omega-3:
- Fish such as salmon, mackerel, and sardines are excellent sources of Omega-3 fats.
- Explore the benefits of incorporating these fish into your diet and the recommended serving sizes.
- Addressing Concerns about Mercury in Fish:
- Debunking the misconceptions surrounding mercury levels in fish consumption, particularly tuna.
- Dr. Harris highlights the positive effects of Omega-3 on child development, emphasizing that concerns about mercury are often exaggerated.
- The Accessibility of Omega-3 Testing:
- Dr. Harris discusses the lack of understanding surrounding Omega-3s and emphasizes the importance of testing for optimal levels.
- Discover how Omega quant testing is now readily accessible, providing valuable insights into individual Omega-3 levels.
- As a special offer for our podcast listeners, Omega quant testing is available with a discount. Don’t miss out on this opportunity!
Omega-3 fats are a powerful tool for improving overall health and well-being. The episode has highlighted the significance of Omega-3 in lowering triglyceride levels, improving cardiovascular health, and even aiding child development. Remember to consider supplementation if you follow a vegan diet or struggle to consume enough Omega-3-rich foods.
Thank you for joining us on this enlightening episode of the Empowered Nutrition Podcast. Stay tuned for more episodes where we continue to explore the latest advancements in health and nutrition. Don’t forget to subscribe and share this episode with others who may benefit from understanding the power of Omega-3 fats. Until next time, stay healthy and take care!
To learn more about Omega 3 testing, visit https://omegaquant.com/ref/532/ and use promo code GWLE2MQQBX for 5% off of all tests!
You can also book an omega-3 test from our website at https://www.empowerednutrition.health/store/Nutritional-Assessment-c144350558
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SUBTITLES:
Speaker: 1
Hi there. Welcome to the Empowered Nutrition Podcast. Thank you. This is maybe, yeah. So thank you Dr. Harris for being on the show.
Speaker: 2
Oh, my pleasure. Thanks for inviting me.
Speaker: 1
I’m so honored to have you. I think Omega three fats are the, if not one of the tops, if, if not the top, maybeone of the top three most important nutrients to learn about. I dunno if you call it nutrients, it’s, it’s a fattyacid. But in the world of nutrition, I think the, from my, in my mind the Venn diagram is like, what’ssomething that profoundly impacts health and people don’t understand that their need for it wellenough. There’s a lack of it that people aren’t aware of. And for very few things that, that you havecrossover of that. It’s like, well, maybe people are low on it, but it’s not that big of a deal how low they are. Or maybe they’re just, it’s important, but they’re not low. But I would say they’ll make it three fats or maybethe top in terms of like, people are low, and they don’t realize it, and it’s extremely impactful on their diseaserisk. Yeah. So, I’m thankful for this
Speaker: 2
And it’s easy to change, so.
Speaker: 1
Yes. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. So maybe, I mean, I, we’re gonna skip over kind of the more basic things and whatwe’re gonna do is we’re gonna link in the show notes to a couple interviews you’ve done with really greathosts where you kind of went over the basic things of like, what’s an omega-3 fat, what’s the molecularstructure of it? And kind of get more into the sort of like where the rubber meets the road if that’s okay. Yeah. Okay. So, we’ll maybe let’s just start with, tell me more about what the research shows in terms ofwhat health concerns are Omega-3 fats going to help either improve that health challenge or like avoid a, a future health problem?
Speaker: 2
Yeah, that’s a good question because the omega three s have benefits really across about every, allsystems. Yeah. I mean that’s where some of our research recently where we published that people thathave higher omega-3 levels in their blood, meaning they eat more omega-3, simply are less likely to die ina given time. Yeah. It’s prolonged life. And so that’s not just heart, it’s not just liver, it’s not just muscle. It’snot just brain. Yeah. It’s, everything does better. Yeah. But we always like to look at specific things and ofcourse the, the, one of the markers of bad health that the omega3s can help fix is a high triglyceride levelblood levels of, of, there’s two different kinds of fats in the blood and one’s triglycerides. One cholesterolthat are measured at a typical lipid panel with your doc. And the omega threes, although they don’tchange cholesterol levels, they do lower triglyceride levels.
Speaker: 2
And that’s, that’s a good thing. Having a lower triglyceride is a marker of better metabolic health. And sothat’s, and they do that. I dunno if you wanna, we get briefly, the way they do that is they, it’s kind of adouble whammy. They have an effect on the amount of triglyceride that you actually synthesize yourself. You make yourself, cuz we can make triglycerides, which are just another word for fast oils. We, and we, wemake them in our liver and we make them from carbohydrates. And so the omega3s slow down thatprocess of making the triglycerides molecule cuz for the, they affect certain genes that get turned on andturned off, but they lower the synthesis rate. So the, the rate at which triglycerides are dumped into theblood is slowed down. And secondly, they have the other, on the other side, they activate the system bywhich the triglycerides are removed from the blood. So they, and there’s an enzyme called lipoproteinlipase that’s inside your blood vessels that gets turned on and it, it helps suck the triglycerides outta yourblood and stick ’em into other tissues. And so that double step the is lower triglycerides by bothmechanisms.
Speaker: 2
Other factors, omega-3, certainly higher levels of omega-3 associated with lower blood pressure. That’s, that’s been seen. And also with what we’ll call thinner blood blood, that’s less likely to clot. And you know, ofcourse we obviously we want our blood to clot when we cut. Yeah. But, but there’s a, you can be too proneto blood clot and it can blood con clot at inappropriate times, which is part of the mechanism of actualheart attacks or maybe even strokes is where the blood clots in the artery. Yeah. The heart or the brain. That’s bad. Too much clotting. Too little clotting, of course you bleed too much. So you gotta get a sweetspot in there and the omega3s kinda shift that. But in, in America we tend to be more, because of ouroverall diet not being very good, we tend to be more likely to clot. Our blood is a little thicker. You would, it’snot really thicker literally, but it, people think of it in terms of thickness more likely to clot and we need tokind of move back toward the middle where you’re just Right. You know, not no risk for bleeding, but no riskfor in, in inappropriate clotting. And omega-3 S do that too.
Speaker: 2
So tho those are some of the things that I guess the, probably the fourth thing might be the omega-3 Sactually will slow your heart rate. Hmm. Not a lot. Don’t need to, again, you don’t want to change it toomuch, but it’s been noticed many times that people who have higher omega-3 levels just have lower heartrates. They’re, which implies a little bit better fitness, cardio, respiratory fitness. So those are four things thatthe omega threes do in Yeah. In metabolic health, I’d say.
Speaker: 1
Okay. I was, that’s so helpful. And I was just working on a manuscript related to gestational diabetes and Iwas seeing a fair amount of papers on omega threes. And so I’m wondering if you feel like there’s a, what’sthe consensus on like blood glucose control insulin sensitivity? Do you think the omega-3 fats play a rolethere?
Speaker: 2
I do. It’s, it’s a little harder to see the studies that have tried to, you know, prevent, I’d have to look at studiesthat have looked at trying to prevent gestational diabetes, not gestational diabetes. I haven’t looked. Sure.
Speaker: 1
Yeah.
Speaker: 2
I do know that in the 1990s or when the early omega-3 studies were being done, people were given highdoses of omega-3 and sometimes blood glucose went up. Mm. In those studies it was kinda confusingwhat, what was going on here could be dose was too, too high. Although we don’t really know what a highdose is at the moment. More recently though, we’ve looked at a very large swath of people around theworld in kind of a pooled analysis of lots of observational research studies where we knew their omega-3blood levels and then we knew who over time developed diabetes and who didn’t. That’s really the most
Speaker: 2
Yeah. Concern. And we found that the people who had the highest omega-3 levels are the ones that wereleast likely to develop diabetes. Mm. By the way, highest the people who had the highest omega six levelsin their blood also was the least likely to develop diabetes. Huh. It was one of those things where theomega sixes and the omega three s both have the same kind of relationship with health. Higher levels arebetter. Mm. So yeah, the, the, the omega three s do affect the way the, the, the, the blood cells or not theblood cells, but the muscle cells and the liver detect insulin and how they interact with insulin and glucose. But it’s a pretty complicated story. I don’t think it’s really well sorted out.
Speaker: 1
Okay. Yeah. That’s so interesting. And I’m curious if you have like anything you can share in terms of if, if I’mlistening to this episode right now and I’m wondering and I’m thinking, okay. Yeah. You don’t need to tell meomega-3 fats are important. I already know that. Everybody knows that, but I’m sure I’m fine. I ate sometuna last week. Once in a while I’ll go out to sushi. I think I’m good. What, what’s the, what’s the prevalenceof low omega-3 status, like say in the American population, if that can even be known, how likely is this tobe a problem and for like do we know anything about like in what populations are like more at risk?
Speaker: 2
Sure. Yeah. If, just to back up a step, a lot of people think omega-3 is not a problem because I eat chiaseeds or I Yeah. Flax seeds, you know, and those are not going to really improve your, the, the importantomega three s which are EPA and D hha. Yeah. The ones that are really direct from fish. Yeah. So when welook at, when we ask the question who, how many people in America are deficient or, or suboptimal inomega, we have to talk about this metric we call the omega-3 index, which is a blood test. And that’srunning that blood test is how you can tell if you’re, where you are on the spectrum of omega-3 status. Andwe expressed the omega-3 index is in terms of a percent. And so we’d like to say a optimal omega-3 indexis an omega-3 index of over 8%. And what that means is 8% of the fatty acids that are in your red bloodcells, the cells will circulate in the blood that carry hemoglobin and oxygen. We can isolate those cells andwe can measure in the membrane how much EPA and D H A are there and then express it as a percent ofall the fatty acids there. Cause there’s a lot of fatty acids. The membrane, yeah. 26, 28, whatever. And so8% we think is a really good target. How many Americans are at 8%? Something around 5% maybe.
Speaker: 1
Wow.
Speaker: 2
So like 90, we’ve done surveys. 95, 90 to 95% of Americans are below that optimal level. The average inAmerica is roughly the five, five and a half percent area, which is not great under 4% is when we really thinkwe are. It’s, you’re really at higher risk for a variety of bad outcomes. Yeah. And the populations that wehave seen that are on, on average actually below 4% include two. Well one is vegans.
Speaker: 1
Yeah.
Speaker: 2
Who do, do not eat any EPA or D H a. Yeah. Because they’re just EPA and d h are only from fish, which is ananimal product of course. So they’re around three and a half percent is sort of what we’ve seen. Yeah. Theother group is sadly US military and deployed in Iraq. It is study soldiers. Yeah. And they’re, and it’s notbecause they’re not eating because they’re vegans. No. Because military food is so deficient in omega-3, which is really a shame cuz this people need to be very sharp.
Speaker: 1
Yeah.
Speaker: 2
Good executive. So anyway, there are, there are efforts to try to improve the nutrition of the Americanfighting force, but by getting more omega-3 in, that’s an ongoing process. Yeah. So, you know, the generalpicture is most people are going in America are gonna be, i, I don’t wanna use the word deficient becausein in nutrition as you know, being a nutritionist that term means something specific. Yeah. And we, likewhen you’re deficient in vitamin C, you’ve got scurvy and your teeth are falling out.
Speaker: 1
Okay. You’re at the low level that means you have a diagnosable disease related to that low amount, butExactly. Yeah. Maybe that hasn’t been defined for omega-3 as clearly, but maybe we would just think of itmore as like an odds ratio. Like, I don’t know, I heard somebody say something and I, I want you to help medebunk this if it’s not true. I’ve heard that if you have a omega-3 index of 4% compared to the goal of 8%,that’s an equivalent cardiovascular change in your risk of cardiovascular disease to is it equivalent tosmoking a pack a day of cigarettes for 20 years? Do you think that’s true?
Speaker: 2
That’s that’s
Speaker: 1
No, no. I’m like, that sounds pretty extreme, but it is a, it is a significant odds ratio difference in terms ofcardiovascular
Speaker: 2
Disease. I’ll tell you where that, that may have come from, it may have come from a study we publishedactually. Oh.
Speaker: 2
But we, we looked in study called the Framingham study, which is a, a large cohort group of people from aBoston suburb named Framingham that had been followed for many years and we majored their omega-3 index from 10 years ago or so, 15 years ago now. And then we asked the question what’s the, what wasthe risk that people would die between back at baseline when we got their omega-3 levels drawn? Andnow when we’ve several years of follow up and we found that people with the lowest omega-3 S weremore likely to die than people in the high omega-3. And so we asked the same question about, well whatabout people who reported smoking when, when at Yeah. At the same time and were they more likely tobe alive or dead now than you, than the omega-3 thing? And we found that actually people who had alow omega-3 and smoked had the, were like 50%, you know, 50% of ’em were dead between over the last15 years. Wow. You know, so Yeah. But if you were a smoker and you had a high omega-3, then your riskwas maybe 25% for dying.
Speaker: 1
Okay.
Speaker: 2
And on the flip side, if you had a low omega-3 and you didn’t smoke, so
Speaker: 1
Yeah,
Speaker: 2
It was about the same, you you about 25% chance of Okay. Dying. But if you had Yeah. Were not a smokerand you had a high omega-3, you had like a 10% chance of dying.
Speaker: 1
I see. So it’s almost like the smoking or the logo omega-3 status increased the risk of dying by about thesame amount.
Speaker: 2
Yeah. Right. But I, I would never put it in the, the context of Yeah, you, you can smoke all you want as longas you take your omega. No, no, that’s not what we’re trying
Speaker: 1
To say. Yeah. Don’t smoke, get your omega-3 index up. Yeah. You have what maybe a two to 5% chancethat you’re already fine. So either assume you’re fine or test probably should test.
Speaker: 2
Yeah. Yeah. We, we did one of our surveys, we looked at, you know, who, what, what characterized peoplewho had an omega-3 index of 8%, which is 8% or above. And it turned out to be people who reportedeating oily fish, which we’ll talk about I’m sure sometime fish that have high omega-3 content. Yeah. Likesalmon, mackerel, herring too and a sardines, those things. Yeah.
Speaker: 1
Yeah.
Speaker: 2
We talked about ’em eating those kinds of fish three times a week and taking an omega-3 supplement
Speaker: 1
And the omega-3 supplement
Speaker: 2
So that the, and the average of people who reported those two things, I take a supplement and I eat fishabout three, at least three times a week on average they were about 8%. Wow.
Speaker: 1
Okay.
Speaker: 2
Everybody else is lower. So it’s not, I mean it’s doable.
Speaker: 1
Yeah.
Speaker: 2
But it’s not like real easy.
Speaker: 1
You don’t just accidentally have very unlikely chance that you just accidentally have a healthy omega-3level in our modern society. No, no,
Speaker: 2
No. It’s, it’s very rare that if you don’t go outta your way to eat, well if you don’t eat eat omega threes, you’renot gonna have much newborn. Yeah.
Speaker: 1
Well I’m so glad you brought up alpha lippo acid ala, which is comes from flax and chia seeds because it’snot that those are unhealthy foods, but I wish I had a dollar for every person that felt like they were doingwell with omega threes because instead of seafood, they eat these seed oils and seeds. And so maybeyou can just gimme a little bit more around why that doesn’t work. We know the ala, which is the, is anomega-3 that is contained in the oils of say, flax or chia. And so why, why can’t we count that towards, towards the benefic benefits that you get from having an adequate omega-3 index?
Speaker: 2
Because ala the, the fatty acid you’re referring to here, it’s actually chemically it’s 18 carbons long than theomega threes that we care about are 20 or 22 carbons long. So they’re bigger molecules and you in thebody, we have the ability to make a l a into at least E P a, but it’s a very limited poss very limitedconversion. So when people take high amounts of ala from flax seeded oil or chia seed or whatever, wedon’t see the omega-3 index, which is EPA and dha, we don’t see that go up. It doesn’t, it just isn’t effectivein that regard. So that’s why, I mean, as you said, those are not bad foods. There’s nothing wrong with CSCsor flax seed, but, but they’re not, they’re not a substitute for fish, for fish oils,
Speaker: 1
Not a substitute for fish. Exactly. So I love that. And I, I think one important thing to kind of highlight aboutwhat you said is that when we look at the omega-3 index, we’re looking at the actual membrane aroundthe cell. So like the wall of the cell and it has a lot of stuff in it, but it ha one of the things in the membrane isthese different fats, right? And so it’s a little bit of like you are what you eat in terms of like the types of fatsin these membranes reflect your dietary intake of those fats. And so is it correct that like with the omega-3index, we’re looking at what percentage of that cell membrane, and I believe the red blood cell is EPA andD H A omega-3, is that right?
Speaker: 2
That’s correct. Right. That’s what we call the omega-3 index. Okay. And it’s based on the red blood cell. Right.
Speaker: 1
And so what do we know about the, the mechanism where bio omega three s actually impart these healthbenefits? Does it have to do with the way that they change the cell or is that kind of like the fact thatthey’re in the cell membrane is just kind of an aside and they have some mechanism that is independentof that?
Speaker: 2
We think it, that’s part, that’s an important part of the mechanism because like you said, there’s a lot ofthings in the cell membrane. Cell membrane is not just a the wall around a cell and it’s kinda very simple.It’s very complex. Yeah. And there are, in, in order for the cell to know how to be healthy, it has to know whatthings to bring in from the outside and it has to know what trash to get rid of from the inside. And so it, themembrane has all these different transporters and receptors that are proteins, not, not lipids, but theproteins. And they, they sit right in the middle of the membrane. And the, the fatty acids are what we callphospholipids, which contain the fatty acids make up the C in which these things float. These proteins floatand if the the membrane is more fluid, then these proteins actually proteins work by changing their shape.
Speaker: 2
Enzymes work by changing their shape, physically changing the shape. Yeah. And so they gotta be able to,if they’re in a membrane, if the membrane’s real stiff, they can’t, they can’t move quite as well. They can’treach out and grab a good thing and bring it in or they can’t take a bad thing inside and take it out.They’re just not, I mean this is simplified but general idea. And so if the membrane is optimally fluid, thenthese membranes proteins that do all the work can do their work better. And so that has implicationsacross everything. Yeah. And part of it is inflammation, which we really haven’t talked about, but that’sprobably one of the most important reasons why having a high omega-3 for a long time, not just a year ortwo for maybe your whole life Yeah. Is associated with lower risk for lots of different diseases becauseinflammation, chronic low level inflammation that most people don’t even know they’ve got, okay. Isblunted down by having a high omega-3 level. And that all plays into how the cells are responding tothese little noxious bad guys knocking on the cell door saying, I don’t want to come in. The cells said, no,sure
Speaker: 1
Can’t. Yeah. We create a lot of inflammation inside the cell just through like energy production and themitochondria. And so maybe it sounds like what you might be saying is your body gets exposed to all this,whether it be endogenous or exogenous inflammation, it, the cell has to handle that and it requires that inorder to do that, requires that these proteins embedded in the cell wall be able to change shape. But if thecell wall is very rigid because it has red fats in it, those, those proteins in the cell wall can’t do that functionof addressing the inflammation as well. Yeah. And so therefore you sit at like a higher baseline almost, whereas like an omega-3 fat is more flexible and so it’s gonna allow the cell membrane to be more flexibleand allow those proteins to change shape. Is that, did I get it right?
Speaker: 2
=That’s, that’s, that’s a good summary of it. Yeah.
Speaker: 1
Okay. Are there any direct anti-inflammatory things about omega-3 that we know of that are independentof that cell membrane story? Or is it, do we think it might just be the cell membrane piece that is like what’sdriving the, the inflammation lowering?
Speaker: 2
Right. Because there are, there are some other molecules that are not part of the membrane and we’ll,we’ll call them th these are sometimes called oxylipins, but these are metabolites of fatty acids. Thingsthat the body converts uses fatty acid as the, the ingredient, the substrate as we say, to create a vastarray of molecules that have pro or anti-inflammatory effects. Some of these originally calledprostaglandins. That’s a big, big category. Then there’s leukotrienes and then there’s a bunch of thingscalled resos protectins. These are molecules that have been discovered over the last 20 years that aremade from e EPA and D hha. So if you don’t have EPA and D H on board, you can’t make these molecules.And these molecules are actively involved in when the, when these molecules are made, they act, theyactivate a system to shut down inflammation.
Speaker: 1
Yes. Okay. Amazing. And this is a question that I actually get a fair amount that might be kind of niche, butI’m wondering if you have opinion on this. Speaking of resolving, there’s supplements now called SPMS thatbasically summarize themselves as like, okay, we have, this is a concentrated supplement that has theinflammation lowering elements of fish or fish oil and so, so it’s meant to be taken to lower inflammation.And so what the question I’ll get a lot with that is, does that therefore take care of my omega-3 status? Orlike, why would I take, I’ve even seen providers like put people on an SPM product to bring up their omega-3 index, which concerns me cuz I’m, I don’t understand how an SPM product is, is gonna do well increasingOMEGA3 index, but maybe it does. What do you think?
Speaker: 2
Yeah, the SPM products that I’m aware of contain a lot of EPA and DHA already.
Speaker: 1
Yeah.
Speaker: 2
And then they have a, a little bit of these spms just my, one of my favorite little soap boxes to get on.
Speaker: 1
Oh good. Tell me.
Speaker: 2
Well, no, no, I mean it’s, it’s not all that important, but to call SPM stands for specialized pro resolvingmediators. Well, every cell, every molecule of life is specialized. There’s no reason to call one moleculespecialized. Give me a break. I mean, water is incredibly specialized, you know, I mean very unique. It’s
Speaker: 1
Cheaper than a SPM though
Speaker: 2
I don’t like spm, I mean I I inflammation resolving ims That’s fine if you wanna do that. Yeah. But back toyour question, get off the soapbox. I think it makes a lot more sense to take EPA and D H A and Okay. Givethem to your cells and your, and there are hundreds of molecules we’re talking about being made hereand in these SPM products, there may be one and there’s no evidence that I know of that taking one ofthose products instead of taking official oil has any additional benefit.
Speaker: 1
Yeah.
Speaker: 2
Pay more for them. Of
Speaker: 1
Course. Yeah. I was gonna say, you can get quite a bit of good fish oil for the price of the s spm.
Speaker: 2
Right. And I, I, I would let give the body what it needs, give your cells what they need, EPA and the DHA inraw form and let it let the body make the balance of omega three s and omega six s and the DHAproducts and EPA products that it wants.
Speaker: 1
Yeah.
Speaker: 2
I don’t, I I think that’s much, it’s too premature to jump on the SPM bandwagon.
Speaker: 1
Or I That’s a great point. Especially if we know that most people have low omega-3 index. Right. Why notbring up the omega-3 index first before you start thinking about that?
Speaker: 2
And every study that’s been done asked that asks the question, if you measure all these specializedmolecules that get made from omega3s and measure ’em in the blood and then you measure the bloodomega-3 level, it’s a direct relationship. The more EPA and DHA that are available in the blood, the morethese things get made. So just, yeah. Let your body do the work.
Speaker: 1
Yeah. Yeah. I mean I think that’s a really important point and since I like how your kind of alluded to thisconcept of getting closer to what humans are naturally sort of wired to have in their diets. And so I wouldsay that there’s only a couple nutrients where it’s like, okay, this, in my opinion, this gonna be controversial, but in my opinion there’s a few nutrients and in this case fatty acids where it’s like this alone disproves theidea that a vegan diet is correct for humans. Like B12 is the other example for that. Like, you need B12 to live, you cannot get it from plants. And I’m not anti plant, we, I have people eat tons of vegetables and plants.But the idea that you don’t need animal proteins I think is disapproved by that and by the E P A D H A storyin terms of like, you already talked a little bit about ala and then just the way that when you get to more oflike the root of what you need, you’re gonna have this, it is so eloquent the way that omega threes fats eEPA and dha.
Speaker: 1
I think what you’re saying is it goes down so many different systems that it’s like you can’t, you can’treplicate this, you can’t, you can’t sim simplify this, you can’t hack this. The body needs these, these fats,these omega-3 EPA and DHAs. And if you’re not getting that, there’s no substitute. Kinda like there’s no,there’s no like alternative to vitamin b12. Like does that kind of sound like what you’re saying? Does thatresonate with what you would Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: 2
I mean I think the, the vegan question is really interesting because, you know, we have around the world,we have entire populations India, where there are lots of vegans and they live okay. I mean they, you know,they’re able to reproduce.
Speaker: 1
They generally eat some dairy though.
Speaker: 2
Yeah. I mean it the question, you know, what’s the optimal diet? Yeah, it’s, is a good question is that, thatthe optimal diet will probably not, cause it probably does need, I mean we’re designed to be able to eatmeat and vegetables that’s look at our teeth, I mean, yeah.
Speaker: 1
Yeah.
Speaker: 2
So if, if we’re talking about what we designed to do, I think we’re designed to eat a variety of foods, animaland plant. But you know, to say that the vegan diet is a, a reasonable diet, I think there are people ought to, probably the best diet is probably up the pesky vegetarian diet. Mm. Or for the only meat you eat would bemaybe fish. And I don’t know how much B12 you get from fish, do you know, is that
Speaker: 1
You get enough, if you get a fair amount of fish, you get enough for sure
Speaker: 2
It should be, it’s, it’s animal. Yeah. So that’s, if you’re gonna pick a best diet, that’s kind of what I would gowith is emphasis on fish and, and otherwise vegetarian.
Speaker: 1
Yeah. I mean I guess if you’re talking about cell membrane fluidity, the other side of that coin is like, maybewhat you’re referring to is like from from non fish fats, you’re gonna get a fair amount of saturated fat, which is the solid fat that’s gonna decrease the perme, the flexibility of the cell membrane.
Speaker: 2
Yeah. In your body, we, we, you know, we make saturated fats. Our liver can make fatty acids that aresaturated and, and we need, we need a certain mix. There’s a, it is just like making a baking a cake andthere’s a recipe and you just have have to have the right amount of saturated fats, monounsaturated, polyunsaturated. And we can, we can move the polyunsaturated fat levels, which is the omega three sand omega six s. We can move those around diet. Yeah. But the rest of them are pretty by and large, prettywell fixed by metabolism.
Speaker: 1
Yeah. One thing I think that is important to touch on is that, like, since you mentioned omega six, I knowwe’re not gonna spend a lot of time on this, but that, that’s obviously a point that a lot of it’s a, it’s a hottopic and the, I would say in the, in the western world, I think it’s, it’s clear that we have, so omega six fatsare essential fats. We do need some of them. But we’ve, we’ve had this really rapid increase in terms of ourdietary intake of these fats since we’ve had more processed seed oils and the American diets used in fastfood. It’s used in rush restaurants that used in our salad dressing, our coffee creamers, our breads have it, our protein bars have it. It’s just kind of ubiquitous in the food supply. And so even though myunderstanding is that you think, you don’t think omega-3 fats are generally problematic, I’m curious if youthink that there’s any part of the, the rapid increase in omega six intake from say several decades ago thatis concerning Or do you think it’s not something to worry about?
Speaker: 2
I think it’s not, it’s not something to worry about. Yeah. I mean just because we’re eating more of, of omegasix fats over the last 120 years than we did before, doesn’t in and of itself mean they’re bad. I mean we’vealso seen a big drop in heart disease. Okay. Did, did the omega six s play a role in the increase in omegasix play a role in that decrease since the 1950s in heart disease? Yeah, maybe. So did smoking anddropping smoking. So did cholesterol control drugs, they played a role too. It’s very complicated, yes. But just, just to look at a graph of an increase in use of soybean oil for example, and say uhoh, that’s bad.Well, you know, show me the data that it’s bad. Just because we’re eating more of it does not mean it’sbad. Almost every place we look nowadays in terms of the effects of omega six linoleic acid is the primaryone we’re talking about. Yeah. The one that’s in
Speaker: 1
Yeah.
Speaker: 2
That, that seems to be playing a good role in reducing risk for diabetes, reducing risk for heart disease. People with higher levels of omega six fatty acids in their blood are lower, lower risk for, as I said earlier, fordeveloping diabetes. And there they’re lower risk for having heart attacks, heart disease. And those are thetwo of the biggest problems. Now what’s the role in depression or anxiety or dementia for omega six fattyacids? We don’t really know. We sure we researching that we’d like to know, but just because, you know, people like to have a good guy and a bad guy.
Speaker: 1
Yeah.
Speaker: 2
Black hat and a white hat, right? Sure. Yeah. Right. And you know, somehow, it’s not possible at the loveomega three s if you don’t hate omega sixes. It’s crazy. I mean,
Speaker: 1
Hating saturated fat when outta styles.
Speaker: 2
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It’s, it’s, you know, it’s, it’s a simplified, it’s like this omega six, omega-3 ratio, which Ithink is a very unhelpful thing to think about. May, whether it’s foods or blood levels of, of of fatty acids. Itdoesn’t help. It’s simply a distraction from the real need, which is to increase omega-3 levels. That’s,
Speaker: 1
Yeah, I like that you make that point. I think that, cuz I have seen where if the conversation doesn’t happen,talking about both ends of that co that both sides of that coin, the omega3 and the Omega six. And so in,in practice what’ll happen is if the discussion is only about omega six, then the foods will change. Butmaybe it’s like instead of a store bought salad dressing, it’s, it’s olive oil and vinegar or maybe instead of a,a coffee creamer it’s half and half. And that’s a different debate of whether or not those things are a goodidea. But in either case, you haven’t significantly changed the amount of omega-3 in the diet by doingthat. And, and if that’s the most important critical thing here, that’s the issue, it’s almost been a distractioncuz then it lowers the need and almost it creates this feeling of like, oh, okay, I’m good. Like I can kind ofmove on from this topic. So it’s almost like a, like a false sense of security.
Speaker: 2
Yeah, I agree. It just, it’s it’s off target.
Speaker: 1
Yeah. Off
Speaker: 2
Target.
Speaker: 1
If someone kind of is like, okay, I’m on board, I know I’m probably low on my omega3 index cuz I don’t eatthe fatty fish three times a weekend, take a, a fish oil supplement. So I’m, I’m on board with increasing it. Iagree that that ala is not gonna cut it. I need to get this from EPA and dha. Here’s the thing that I see a lotand I’m curious what you think about this is, it’s kind of like, you know, I went to my nearest big box storewhere I have like a discount coupon and I dug through the salesman and I found this fish oil and I’ve beentaking it. Do you have concerns about that or do you think that it’s any fish oil goes or do you think that likethere are quality concerns on the market with fish oil that need to be kind of like acknowledged?
Speaker: 2
Yeah, I mean I, I think job number one is to get more EPA and D h a in and if you, I mean fish oils can bequite expensive or pretty reasonable. And the cheaper they are, the lower the content of EPA and DHA islikely to be per capsule. Cause that’s the expensive part Sure. Of a fish oil pill. And, and I’m I’m sure you runinto people who, who see a bottle of a thousand milligrams of fish oil and think they’re getting a thousandmilligrams of omega-3. Of course
Speaker: 1
I’m not.
Speaker: 2
Right. Typically getting, I mean the, the most generic types you’ll probably get 300 milligrams of epa, D h afrom a one-gram capsule. I’m not worried about the contaminants per se in those oils. I’m just concernedthat if you, if you need to take a thousand or 1500 milligrams of EPA and d h a per day to get your omega-3index up, which is about what it takes somewhere in that range. One one to one and a half grams of EPA da not fish oil, but epa and if you’re taking a, a capsule that’s got only 300 milligrams, then you’re talkingabout 3, 4, 5 pills a day. And that’s just compliance issues. People aren’t gonna do it. Sure. So that’s myproblem with the low concentrates that you just need more stuff. But I’m not, I’m not overly worried at allabout Okay. About contaminants because it’s just the very process of making a fish oil even halfwaypalatable. There’s a lot of cleaning up that goes into that. Yeah. Many different levels of, of purification. ButI, I don’t get real excited about, you know Oh
Speaker: 1
Yeah,
Speaker: 2
Don’t take that fish oil.
Speaker: 1
Yeah. Cuz it can, I know what you mean. It’s like if you’re not in clinical practice, it’s easy to get. Like I’ll see, you know, people that make YouTube videos and stuff, they, you have the convenience of beingperfectionist if you’re not working with real people.
Speaker: 2
Right.
Speaker: 1
But in real life, if you get, if you insist on perfect
Speaker: 2
Right.
Speaker: 1
Elite fish oil, sure. You’re gonna have a lot of people that just say they can’t afford it.
Speaker: 2
Right. Where where the best becomes the enemy of the good.
Speaker: 1
Exactly. Yeah. Just to kind of circle in on this, so you’re saying, so when we look at, I’m trying to pull out myfish oil here, but like when we look at the amount of EPA and d a together on our omega3 supplement, sonot the total weight of that pill, but the EPA and D H A in it, we want that in combination with our diet tototal at least 1500 milligrams a day. Is that right? Yeah.
Speaker: 2
I, in a study we did oh year, a few years ago, we looked at how much omega-3 E P A D H A does it take toget you, excuse me, get your omega-3 index up to 8%. And it turned out that if you’re starting at 4%, whichis a little low, actually starting at 5%, which maybe typical American
Speaker: 1
Typical
Speaker: 2
Starting at 5% and you want to get to 8%, it takes about 1000 milligrams a day. Okay. Epa, D h a to onaverage, now everybody’s going, there’s a lot of Yeah. Variability in response, but this is why you do thetesting. So you can, you can know how you respond, but a for about a thousand milligrams BPA and d h aA day. Okay. And that will on average gets you up toward 8%. Okay. If you’re, if you stick with it and do itand actually take it and take it with food. Yeah. So it’s best absorbed and
Speaker: 1
Yeah. Okay. And I mean from five to 8% it’s gonna vary, but what would you say would be kind of like atypical middle of the road amount of time like that it takes to get there? We’re talking three months, 12months.
Speaker: 2
Yeah. Three months. I mean that experiment we, I just talked about the average duration ofsupplementation was about 13 weeks. So that’s a little over little over four months.
Speaker: 1
That’s not too bad. And then you probably stopped to keep supple months to stay up there. Yeah. Three
Speaker: 2
To four months.
Speaker: 1
Okay. And then to stay there, you probably need to, maybe you could back off a little bit, but you’re, youcan’t just completely drop off.
Speaker: 2
No, no. I If if you drop back it’ll go back down. Yeah. You, you’re not, it’s not like you’re cold, you’re not gettingcured from something here. You have to keep that level of, of supplementation going.
Speaker: 1
Okay. And you had mentioned food sources, so I always tell people like smash tea, I’m sure you’ve heardsmash or smash tea. So it’s like salmon and usually most people just stop there cuz the rest of ’em grossthem out. But it’s mackerel, anchovy, sardines, herring. And then thet is trout and that’s trout. Well slash teais the low mercury, but I know how you feel about the mercury, but that’s like the low mercury high omega-3. But then you’re getting right into it. A lot of times people will say, well why can’t, can I just eat tuna? Itsounds like you’re not too concerned about the mercury threat there.
Speaker: 2
I I’m, I’m, yeah, I’m not too concerned about the mercury. I think it’s a little, it it’s overblown.
Speaker: 1
I agree. I I
Speaker: 2
Mean it’s not, not, you can find examples of people that have had, you know, eat, eat canned albacoretuna, you know, seven times a week. Yeah. And you know, okay fine. That, that’s not what we’re talkingabout. But Albacore is, is the white tuna is certainly about twice as much on omega three as chunk lighttuna.
Speaker: 1
Yeah. Yeah. I used to work in a, a clinic where the impanelment was mostly Adventist like Seventh DayAdventist. And so they ate a lot of fish and we would do, we did a fair amount of a panel that includedsome heavy metals and including mercury on the panel. I never saw high mercury in anybody from that. Yeah. So,
Speaker: 2
And the whole definition of what high means and what high, who, who decided that that number is highSure is is another issue there. Cuz Yeah. Typically, they, they add, you know, like tenfold safety buffers thisthing. So if you’re, you know, here here’s the real danger level. Well let’s say then it really ought to be waydown here and the people Yeah. You know, and, and it’s, anyway, we, we published a, a large reviewlooking at the relationship between fish intake and child development.
Speaker: 1
Oh it’s so good.
Speaker: 2
Which is where the issue really is. Yeah. Mental development. And we found that the, the more fish thatthat women reported eating while they were pregnant Yep. The higher the the IQ
Speaker: 1
Totally. With
Speaker: 2
The kids. And
Speaker: 1
We started three months out from conception too, cuz I, I don’t know about what you think, but I’ve seenstudies where if you’re, if you’re, you wanna come into the pregnancy with some of that benefit ishappening early in the pregnancy where it’s like if you don’t start until you know you’re pregnant, say sixweeks pregnant, you’ve kind of missed considering again what you said about maybe a four month catchup time. You’ve kind of missed a window there.
Speaker: 2
Yeah. And I’m not sure actually almost all of the real brain growth is the last trimester. Sure. That’s when thed h A and your diet is gonna help build the brain. Right, baby. So I mean I if, if a woman is, you know, 18, 20weeks into a pregnancy and hasn’t
Speaker: 1
Still start
Speaker: 2
Wakened up to the idea that they need more omega-3, it’s not too late to start.
Speaker: 1
Yeah, totally. And and beyond the third trimester breastfeeding Yes. You continue to absolutely impartyour omega-3 status to your baby through breastfeeding and then
Speaker: 2
Exactly. Of
Speaker: 1
Course infant feeding and child feeding is a big part of it too. They’re still growing and developing so Yeah.Yeah.
Speaker: 2
We like to see high omega-3 from minus nine months till the end. Right.
Speaker: 1
Yeah. Yeah exactly. I love that. Okay, so don’t freak out about tuna. If you go by that sort of three times aweek you could certainly rotate, you could do tuna once a week and if you’re a little nervous about it, dosalmon Sure. Or trout or or sardines the other servings and go, go with that.
Speaker: 2
Yeah. I think oysters are actually pretty high on omega3 two surprisingly. And SMASH probably needs anextra vowel so if we can get the O in there, that would probably,
Speaker: 1
There you go.
Speaker: 2
We need to
Speaker: 1
Smash o
Speaker: 2
Smash show or we could get a different, we get these people that do, you know, word scrambles. Well we’llhave to figure.
Speaker: 1
Yeah. And new acronym
Speaker: 2
Yeah. O in it.
Speaker: 1
You got me think about zinc, we got move wrong cause I’ll get into it. Okay. So that was super helpful. Andthen tell me a little bit about, so what we love to do is we love to, so with OmegaQuant what we love to dois we love to test people’s omega-3 index. We’ve talked quite a lot about that. And that’s basically like ahome test where you get the kit you or someone you love does stabs you in the finger, drop the blood ontothe paper, send it in. I, it’s, it’s affordable. It’s usually less than $50 to get the basic like just the OMEGA3index tell for people that are listening. It sounds like in general, I think of this almost like nutrigene testing. It’s like everybody should get this like at least once and then go from there. But are there any populationsthat you think where like it’s even more critical or like would be like your top people that you wouldrecommend that they get their omega-3 index checked?
Speaker: 2
Well I, it’s hard to say who, who would not
Speaker: 1
Yeah.
Speaker: 2
Benefit from having a, an optimal omega-3 and a difference between nutrigene testing or genetic testingper se. You, you can’t from a genetic test figure out what your omega-3 blood levels are.
Speaker: 1
Totally.
Speaker: 2
It ain’t gonna work. Yeah. But you’re right, genetic testing you just have to do once because your genesdon’t change.
Speaker: 1
Yeah. Just so it’s just, there’s a, it’s, it’s like, I just mean they’re similar in the sense of I can’t think of a personwhere it’s not a good idea.
Speaker: 2
No, I can’t either. I can’t
Speaker: 1
Either. Yeah.
Speaker: 2
So yeah, the Omega-3 index test, we, we consider it very much like analogous to a cholesterol test. It’s a, you’re measuring a, what we call a risk factor for a adverse health condition for cholesterol. It’s heart, heartattacks. Of course we think the omega-3 index is more predictive of heart attacks than it’s cholesterol. Soit’s better than cholesterol in that sense. And it’s, it’s something that you, again, you can change fairlysimply, safely, fairly quickly and you can get it in the right zone and you know what’s not to like, it’ssomething you monitor it every six months once you’re at a STA stable level and yeah. Just keep yourself inthe right in in the zone.
Speaker: 1
Yeah. Yeah. I mean I think sometimes people kind of think why would you not if you know that everybody islow, this is more just being in clinical practice. I think it’s like if you know, everybody is probably low basedoff of, especially if you know their diet history, you’re gonna, I would, for most people I’d be able to make likea $50 bet comfortably of whether they’re low or not. So why even test? Right. But what I find is that it helpswith planning the dosing of the omega-3 supplement planning, the duration of it, planning, how soon tocheck back in, and honestly helping people feel more confident that they should be taking this giganticfish oil pill every day that they maybe don’t love taking. It’s like you have to pay for it, you have to swallow it. I find that like in real life it helps to kind of know if this is needed or not.
Speaker: 2
Right. Exactly. And and especially if you’re working with a healthcare provider like yourself. Yeah. Whensomebody else is watching your numbers, then you’re a little more compliant.
Speaker: 1
Sure.
Speaker: 2
As, as a patient.
Speaker: 1
I’m you,
Speaker: 2
I’m you white coat thing.
Speaker: 1
No, I’m gonna check you again. Yeah,
Speaker: 2
Yeah. I’m gonna check you again. I’ve told you to do this. If it doesn’t go up then you’re not following myinstructions. So
Speaker: 1
Not even gonna ask you if you took that fish oil. I’m just gonna remeasure your omega-3 so there’s nohiding.
Speaker: 2
That’s good.
Speaker: 1
Well, what last question is I’d love, I’d love to hear this. I’m in a doctorate program and we’re doing like aCochran review right now. And so I’m very fascinated by like, you know, what’s emerging in, in the world ofnutrition research. So maybe considering you started the Fatty Acid Research Institute a couple of yearsago, I mean million-dollar question, like what’s next for omega threes? Like where do you see the researchgoing? What are the important questions right now?
Speaker: 2
Yeah. You know, we keep hammering on the door to try to show from good evidence, good objectivestudies at higher omega-3 levels are really linked to a lot of better health outcomes. And because we’retrying to get the medical community to wake up to this. Yeah. And they are, most clinicians are numberone untrained in nutrition. Number two, they like randomized controlled trials. Yeah. That’s the drug model.And if your omega-3 drug or your omega-3 treatment doesn’t fix some disease in two or three years, youknow, starting when you’re in your mid sixties and you’ve already gotten it doesn’t fix something and thethe the author says, well the Omega-3 S didn’t work, you know, didn’t, didn’t reduce risk of heart attackduring this my my four year study where people are already on statins and, and everything else is already,you know, optimally controlled and you’re the doctor. You think, well I guess omega3s don’t work. And it’s, they’re asking exactly the wrong question. Yeah. It’s not a, don’t look at omega threes as a drug, look atthem as a lifelong nutrient. So it’s been an obstacle to get the medical community to wake up to this. Somehow, they woke up to vitamin D much faster than they woke up to Baker three.
Speaker: 1
Yeah. It’s weird.
Speaker: 2
Weird is right. Maybe it’s because vitamin D testing was easier.
Speaker: 1
Maybe cuz lipids confuse people.
Speaker: 2
Yeah. And vitamin D pills are small and they don’t taste bad. So that’s another thing I guess. But in anyevent, the Omega-3 Research Institute, not it’s stat’s, what I used the Fatty Acid Research Institute, we, weare interested in all fatty acids and their relationships to health not just omega-3 S but most of what we dois omega-3. And we are, we have a study coming out would be published or reported at the nutritionmeetings this summer where we looked at omega-3 levels in, in a large population in Great Britain calledthe UK Biobank. And we found that, you know, we’ve known Omega threes play a role in eye health andbrain health. So it just occurred to me that omega three s might play a role in hearing, in hearing loss cuzit’s another sensory organ that’s inside your skull. Yeah. And we found it that that was exactly the case.
Speaker: 2
People had the highest omega three s were the least likely to report having problems hearing andespecially in crowded rooms and right around tables at restaurants. So there’s a maybe a role for omega-3 in improving your ability to hear, which is it’s the most common sensory deficit, you know, aging we haveis hearing. Yeah. And so that’s, that’s interesting. And we’re also interested in omega six Es too as well. Andagain we published that omega-3 levels are linked to higher or lower risk of mortality, greater longevity. We don’t know if that’s true for omega six Es. It may or may not be, but we want to explore that question toobecause people have a question about that. Yeah. And you know, and then we’re also interested inomega-3 and levels in risk for suicide. Mm. Other things like that where depression plays a role.
Speaker: 1
Yeah.
Speaker: 2
And so our, our, our job is not so much to do these big randomized trials cuz we’re not, we’re not a a drugcompany. We haven’t got that kind of money. We’re not the nih, we haven’t got that kind of money, but wehave money to, to study publish or data that’s already in big data banks look, you know, sort through theYeah. The, the,
Speaker: 1
The, the preexisting data sets and find the
Speaker: 2
Yeah. Right. See if we can find, so that’s what we’re doing.
Speaker: 1
It’s such important work. I mean this is one of, I think, the most important nutritional topics that exists. Yeah.Considering people’s lack of understanding and how oppressing of a health challenge it is for most peoplethat they don’t even realize they have. So thank you for the research that you’ve done that advances theawareness and the understanding of omega-3 fats. And thank you for making omega-3 testing readilyaccessible to our patients and to patients all over who are in need. And so just really appreciate you. And, and if you don’t mind, maybe you could just share with people where they can learn more about omegathree s and omega-3 testing and how to get their levels checked.
Speaker: 2
Yeah, probably the easiest place to go to is the laboratory website. It’s called Omega quant like quantity, QU A N t omega quant.com. And there you’ll see a lot of, a lot of information about me and the others whowork there. You could look up Fatty Acid Research Institute too. Go to that website and you’ll see mybiosketch and my publications, things like that.
Speaker: 1
Wonderful. Thank you, Dr. Harris. And definitely if people, we do offer Omega quant testing if people want, we’re gonna do a discount for podcast listeners. So feel free to reach out to us if you’d like to get your Omega-3 index checked and we’ll hook you up with a little discount and we’ll definitely of course put thelink to Omega quant and the research institute in the show notes so that you can find that as well.
Speaker: 2
Great. Great. Thank you, Erin It’s fun, fun talking to you.
Speaker: 1
You as well, Dr. Harris, thank you for your time and have a great rest of your day.
Speaker: 2
Okay. Bye-bye. Take
Speaker: 1
Care.
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