Omega-6 fatty acid

I'm in the osteoarthritis age group, fortunately, because I've lived this long.

But such things as glucosamine, chondroitin, Omega-3 oils, Omega-6 oils.

Other people would take an Ayurvedic, for example, curcumin or Boswella.

I've already, I just named about eight different things.

So that's why it's called omega-3.

Omega-6 would be as if we went one, two, three, four, five, six.

So if there was no double bond here and only this one was there, that would be an omega-6 fatty acid.

Okay, one thing I just want you to compare visually right now is if we look at the saturated fat compared to the polyunsaturated fat, what is the difference here? I mean, obviously we have the double bonds, but what's the implications of that? We can look and see here that every time we have a double bond, it's creating a change in the structure of that chain.

It is more expensive, but it's worth it for some of you.

Now, farmed salmon is fed on a artificial manufactured diet, so it tends to be fattier, tends to be higher in omega-6 fats as well, which, you know, they're not great, to be honest.

Omega-6 fats work against the omega-3s rather than with them, and they're also lower in vitamin D, whereas wild fish that eat their own natural diet, they have a much better balance of these things and they carry other things that give it that deep red color, which is really protective as well.

Now, farmed salmon or anything in a tin is still a good food, and I would rather that you ate that than nothing at all.

But if wild salmon or wild fish is on offer and you can afford it, then I would go for that if you can.

I'll tell you what happened.

I, I read a study that said Omega-6 is an essential nutrient, and it means you can't make it, you gotta have it, you gotta get it from outside.

If you don't get enough long enough, you die, and you get... you know, and your health deteriorates over time and gets worse with time.

And if you bring enough back before you die, then all the problems that come from not getting enough are reversed.

That's what essential means when we talk about nutrients.

Ess- so Omega-6 is an essential nutrient, and the very next study I read says Omega-6 gives you cancer and kills you.

And I'm going, "What?"

[laughs]

I wanna explain a little bit about how inflammation happens.

On the left side, you see Omega-6 oils, very common in cooking, french fries, potato chips, uh, all over the place.

And they can be made by our bodies into arachidonic acid.

Typically, they're made into the amount of arachidonic acid that we actually need to respond to inflammations.

So you also can get another form of Omega-6, the, from turkey, chicken, and eggs, also beef and pork, and this is arachidonic acid.

Now, it's kind of a big word.

It may be new to you, but arachidonic acid might be a good one to remember, because what the pain drugs do is they block arachidonic acid which otherwise, through these two enzymes, cyclooxygenase and lipoxygenase, create pain and inflammation, indicated by the red in the joint below.

So you can see that those really corrected the lack of this basic plant-based Omega-3.

... once a week, you know, that's, or I eat chias for breakfast.

And I think, you know, w- what's really important when you think about o- Omega-3s is, is your, your balance of Omega-6 to Omega-3s, and we should be consuming them at a ratio of, of one to one or maximum four to one.

And, and unfortunately the North American diet has us at about 20 to 25 to one.

And these Omega-6, they pro- produce these inflammatory eicosanoids, which you need, uh, you know, 'cause if you get hurt or you get sick, you want an inflammatory response, but too much of it puts you in a state of chronic inflammation, which again, like you said earlier, is the breeding ground for most chronic illnesses and disease that we're faced with today.

And when you can balance your Omega-3s, your Oma- your Omega-s- your Omega-6 to your Omega-3 ratio and get it as close to that one to one or four to one as you possibly can, everything starts to work better.

And I think it's, I think people forget about that foundational health, right? It's amazing when people start to take it and they tell us like, "Wow, like I got less joint pain.

Wow, like I got be- better mental clarity." Um, I don't know if you read the PubMed study we did, we did with, um, with CCNM, um, but it, that was the first study of its kind.