Eicosapentaenoic acid

And it's such a simple blood test.

It measures the percentage of EPA and DHA, your two key omega-3 fatty acids that are within your red blood cell membranes.

It's not measuring what you ate yesterday.

It's measuring what's actually incorporated into your cells over the past three months.

This is a true tissue-level reading.

And why does this matter for cancer survivors? Now, omega-3 fatty acids, specifically EPA and DHA, are potent modulators of inflammation.

They're producing anti-inflammatory signaling molecules called resolvins and protectins, and they also directly influence the expression of genes involved in cell growth and cell death, or apoptosis.

Now, a low omega-3 index has been correlated with higher inflammatory tone, poorer cardiovascular outcomes, cognitive decline, and here's the key here, a less favorable immune surveillance environment.

Another one I would put in this category would be omega-3 or fish oil.

So omega-3 fatty acids, particularly EPA and DHA, which you will get from fatty fish and fish oil, they have very good evidence for certain health outcomes, particularly cardiovascular health.

So there's also interesting research looking at omega-3s and muscle health, as well as inflammation and recovery.

But I wanna be careful here, too.

The research does not show that adding fish oil to, you know, an otherwise solid lifting and nutrition program just suddenly produces, you know, dramatic muscle or fat loss or anything like that.

I would put this more in that potentially useful for overall health depending on your diet category.

If you regularly eat fatty fish like salmon, you may already be getting a really good amount of EPA and DHA just through your food.

I personally do take fish oil simply because I don't eat fish very often, if at all.

The Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics recommends about two 120 gram servings of seafood per week.

Again, it also recommends focusing on choices that are rich in omega-3 fatty acids, EPA and DHA.

It also then makes specific recommendations for keeping mercury levels low or eating fish that are not high in mercury.

So those would be fish, for example, like bluefin tuna or swordfish.

And therefore, the consumption is not that if you don't consume that, you must in order to be healthy.

In the same vein that if someone does consume those types of recommended servings that are in those typical guidelines, It does not necessarily follow that there would be a health improvement from removing them.

And so I think this kind of gets to those questions where two things can be held at the same time, which, again, we don't want to open the whole conversation around EPA and DHA, which we've covered in a separate episode.

It might be one for another day.

Researchers aren't fully sure why, but one idea is that these fats compete for space getting incorporated into your cell membranes.

This doesn't mean soybean oil is dangerous, but it does mean if you're eating a lot of plant-based polyunsaturated fat, You want to make sure you're also getting enough EPA and DHA from fatty fish or a decent fish oil or algae supplement.

That's just good practice regardless of which oils in your pantry.

Now let me be straight with you about the limits of this study because I always want to give you the full picture, not just the flattering parts.