It started to disappear from our diet about 75 years ago and now is almost gone. Only about 20 percent of the amount needed for human health and well-being remains. The nutrient is a fatty acid so important and so little understood that I call it the nutritional missing link.
— Donald O. Rudin, M.D., The Omega-3 Phenomenon
She had tried the best therapies that mainstream medicine has to offer. Still, Edna Hampton's arthritis continued to worsen, leaving her with unbearable swelling and pain. But when her internist suggested going on prescription steroids, Edna balked.
She had heard about alternative medicine and figured that she'd give it a shot. She had nothing to lose. If alternative therapies didn't help, she reasoned, the steroids would still be there for her. A friend of Edna's referred her to me.
"Dr. Smith, I worked hard until I was 65," Edna told me. "Now I want to travel and enjoy my retirement. But my joints ache so much that I can't even get out of bed most days, much less go to a foreign country. My internist says I need steroids. But my mother had osteoporosis, and I know that prednisone (a corticosteroid used to treat arthritis) can cause osteoporosis. A friend of mine is on prednisone, and her bones got so weak that she fractured her hip in a minor fall. Can you help me?"
After a thorough workup, I prescribed the following
nutritional regimen: a low-fat, vegetarian diet that eliminated dairy
products, sugar, and wheat; a multivitamin/mineral supplement; antioxidant
supplements; anti-arthritis herbs; and
Within just a month of starting this regimen, Edna reported that her arthritis pain had almost completely subsided and that she had cut back her use of anti-inflammatory drugs. Within two months, her arthritis was in complete remission, and she no longer needed her medication.
That was three years ago. Edna still has an occasional flare-up, but arthritis no longer slows her down. In fact, she's more active than ever. She has even begun to realize her dream of traveling the world, with trips to London, the Netherlands, Singapore, and Africa (where she went on safari). And she's loving every pain-free minute of it.
The secret behind Edna's remarkable recovery? She tapped into Fat Power.
The "fat" in Fat Power refers to the
Fat Power can prevent and help cure cancer, heart disease, immune deficiencies, infections, and--as in Edna's case--even arthritis. It can relieve depression and fatigue. It can improve your complexion. And most important for us Renewal seekers, it can slow and even reverse the aging process.
Fat Power doesn't come from the greasy, dastardly fats found in abundance in the standard American diet. In fact, you can't get optimum amounts of the EFAs from foods alone, which is why I recommend supplementation. Otherwise, you put yourself at risk for an EFA deficiency, a condition that predisposes you to an amazing array of life-shortening health problems.
EFAs are essential nutrients, just like vitamins and minerals. They were first identified back in the 1950s, when they were dubbed vitamin F. Researchers at the time didn't understand the exact chemical nature of the EFAs, but they did realize that the nutrients are necessary to sustain human life.
It took researchers years to substantiate the significance of the EFAs in human health. But by the 1970s and 1980s, they had amassed compelling evidence to support the theory that we humans cannot survive without these "fat vitamins." They also discovered that EFA deficiencies abound in the general population, but that the symptoms often go undiagnosed.
Why do so many of us--80 percent of us, by one
estimate--come up short? The problem is that EFAs are impossible to obtain
in optimum amounts from common food sources. Because they are such an
important piece of the nutritional puzzle, a deficiency of
But EFA research is relatively new, and the chemistry behind it is relatively complex. For this reason, most people, including most health care providers, have no knowledge of the EFAs or of their crucial roles in health and longevity.
| When Good Fats Fall Short
A deficiency of the good fats--the
|
Your body uses the EFAs to manufacture cell membranes and prostaglandins. Both components perform very important, though very different, functions in the grand scheme of human health. Without optimum cell membrane repair and prostaglandin synthesis, Renewal would become an exercise in futility.
Cell membranes act as protective coverings for the whole cell as well as for the individual structures (or organelles) within it. These membranes are constantly surveying the goings-on both inside and outside the cell, granting access to select substances, turning away the shady characters, and booting out the rowdies.
In the line of duty, cell membranes endure continuous free radical attack and suffer injuries on a regular basis. Damaged membranes have trouble letting in nutrients and expelling waste. They develop leaks. Their receptor sites malfunction, so enzymes can't "dock" on the cell and perform essential tasks. Cumulative damage to cell membranes erodes cell health and accelerates aging.
Cells can repair or replace their own damaged membranes. But to do it, they need adequate supplies of the right raw materials--that is, the EFAs.
With this in mind, you can just imagine the devastating effects of an EFA deficiency on cellular health. Weaker, less selective cell membranes have trouble regulating the comings and goings of "good" substances and "bad" substances. The result is unhealthy cells and, eventually, an unhealthy body.
When EFAs are in short supply, your immune system suffers most. That's because the immune cells can no longer do their jobs. Many common health problems, including allergies, autoimmune diseases, infections, and even cancer, are actually manifestations of the immune damage that results from chronic EFA depletion.
On the other hand, optimum EFA intake ensures that immune cells not only survive but thrive. With strong membranes, the cells can fearlessly wage war against free radicals, allergens, microbes, and toxins. They fight inflammation better, so they're more effective against conditions such as allergic bronchitis, allergic sinusitis, arthritis, and asthma.
The bottom line: To keep all cells functioning as they should, you need to make sure that your EFA intake is up to par. Damaged cell membranes weaken cells and open the door to serious health problems.
Your body also uses EFAs to manufacture powerful, hormonelike chemicals called prostaglandins (sometimes called eicosanoids). Structurally, prostaglandins look just like EFAs, except that each prostaglandin has a small knot in the chain of carbon atoms that form its "backbone."
Even though they are present in extremely minute amounts, prostaglandins exert tremendous control over a broad spectrum of fundamental physical processes, including heart rate, blood pressure, blood clotting, fertility, and conception. And they work in pairs: One prostaglandin facilitates a particular function, while another inhibits it.
In terms of fighting disease and promoting Renewal, prostaglandins are important because they regulate inflammation. Inflammation is a principal characteristic of virtually all immune disorders, whether infectious, allergic, or autoimmune. Pro-inflammatory prostaglandins encourage "healthy" inflammation, the kind that the body uses to heal an infection or to stop an allergic reaction. Their partners, the anti-inflammatory prostaglandins, prevent the inflammatory response from getting out of control.
To make the pro-inflammatory prostaglandins, your body uses arachidonic acid, an EFA that is readily available in even the most dismal of diets. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said of alpha-linolenic acid and gamma-linolenic acid, the EFAs needed to make the all-important anti-inflammatory prostaglandins. They're relatively hard to come by in foods.
The upshot is that without enough of the necessary EFAs, your body tends to make more of the pro-inflammatory prostaglandins. As a result, inflammation is more severe, which translates into more severe allergies and asthma, more painful arthritis, more rapid atherosclerosis--and, of course, more rapid aging.
| The Can-Do Chemicals
Prostaglandins carry out a variety of essential tasks within your body, influencing virtually every aspect of your health. To give you an idea of how important these hormonelike chemicals are, consider their to-do list.
|
By keeping cell membranes healthy and prostaglandins in abundant (and balanced) supply, EFAs facilitate the Renewal process. But as mentioned earlier, as many as 80 percent of Americans don't get enough EFAs through their diets. In fact, a high percentage of these folks are experiencing symptoms as a result of EFA deficiencies.
Why are so many people running so low on EFAs? Blame the poor nutritional state of our food supply. For starters, many crops are grown in nutrient-depleted soil and treated with artificial fertilizers, pesticides, and assorted other chemicals--factors that dramatically alter a food's nutritional profile. Then while some foods go directly to market, others are shipped to processing plants. There, thanks to technological "advances," they're stripped clean of the few nutrients they have left--not only EFAs but also vitamins, minerals, fiber, and phytochemicals.
Many of the foods we buy look more or less the same as they always have. But nutrition-wise, they're shadows of their former selves--like wax fruit compared with the real thing. In the case of EFAs, this situation is particularly troubling. A century ago, the standard American diet had borderline EFA content. These days, our diet is way below that line. There is no question that EFA depletion is a factor in our modern epidemics of heart disease, cancer, stroke, diabetes, and other debilitating conditions.
Because an EFA deficiency undermines immune system function and inflammation regulation, symptoms can appear just about anywhere. If it manifests itself in your intestinal tract, for example, you may experience bloating, constipation, indigestion, inflammatory bowel disease, or food allergies. If it affects your nervous system, you may feel apathetic, depressed, or forgetful. You may even notice external, cosmetic symptoms such as dry skin, lifeless hair, and cracked nails.
Of course, these same symptoms can be caused by any number of underlying health problems, which is one reason why an EFA deficiency is very difficult to diagnose. What's more, the symptoms are usually very subtle and low-grade and vary from one person to the next.
Physicians, who in general have very little training in nutrition, seldom suspect an EFA deficiency, much less test for it. Until more doctors become aware of the problem, millions of patients whose illnesses are either caused or aggravated by EFA deficiency will continue to slip through the cracks and be deprived of effective, inexpensive, and safe therapy.
My patients have taught me a great deal about the many ways in which EFA deficiencies can undermine health. They've also allowed me to witness firsthand the dramatic healing powers of EFA supplements.
Take Angela O'Day. A hairstylist, Angela was cutting a client's hair when she suddenly developed a blinding migraine. She tried lying down, hoping the pain would subside. But it lingered--for several days.
After seeing several neurologists and undergoing an MRI, Angela was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. Multiple sclerosis is an autoimmune disease in which the immune system goes berserk, attacking nerve cells in the brain or spinal cord.
When Angela came to see me, I recommended a low-fat,
vegetarian diet and a broad-based supplement regimen that included
flaxseed oil and
Angela's multiple sclerosis is now in complete remission. We expect it to stay that way, as long as she adheres to her diet and supplement program.
Another patient, Judy DiMaio, complained of premenstrual symptoms so severe that she could not function for two weeks of every month. "I think I'm losing it," she told me. "When my period is coming on, my personality completely changes. I'm not myself. I get severely depressed and anxious. Just about anything sets me off. My husband threatens to leave me, and my teenage daughter won't talk to me. I'm at my wit's end."
After conducting a thorough workup and systematically ruling
out other possible causes of her symptoms, I diagnosed Judy with an EFA
deficiency. At first, she had a hard time believing that taking EFA
supplements--again, capsules of
When Judy came back to my office the next month, she reported some improvement in her symptoms: "Well, at least I made it through my period without tearing my hair out. That's progress." Six months later, she bounced into my office and proclaimed, "I'm a new person!"
In my mind, I was doing my own little victory dance. I knew that Judy was feeling better because the EFAs had restored her pro-inflammatory and anti-inflammatory prostaglandins to proper balance.
Then there's my daughter Hana. At age three, Hana contracted
a bronchial infection that simply would not go away. Every day, my wife
and I gave her a children's multivitamin and chewable
To soup up her immune system and get rid of her bronchitis for good, Hana would have to take EFAs. Since she was too young to swallow capsules, we came up with what we thought was an ingenious solution: We stirred flaxseed oil into one of her favorite puddings. She ate it, but not without giving us an occasional "I know you put something in here and I don't like it" look. Within a week, Hana's cough--and the infection--were completely gone.
| The Breast Cancer Connection
Numerous studies have shown that women who consume high
levels of German biochemist Johanna Budwig, a seven-time Nobel Prize nominee and a recognized authority on EFA nutrition, suggested that EFA deficiencies may be at least partly responsible for the development of cancer. Budwig has earned an international reputation for successfully treating an array of degenerative diseases, including cancer, with flaxseed oil supplements. |
As you can see, correcting an EFA deficiency makes a world of difference in your health. Every cell, every tissue, every organ in your body stands to benefit.
What if you don't have an EFA deficiency? Well, count yourself among the lucky few--and consider EFA supplementation anyway. Scientific studies have shown that supplementation can increase your energy and stamina, lower your blood pressure and cholesterol, and enhance your resistance to allergies, infections, and other illnesses.
The two most important EFAs are alpha-linolenic acid and gamma-linolenic acid. If you follow the standard American diet, you're getting these nutrients in only minute, survival-level amounts. To achieve and maintain the optimum daily amounts, you'll need both a vegetarian diet and supplements.
An EFA-supporting diet has two key features. First, it emphasizes plant-derived foods, which are the best sources of EFAs. Second, it eliminates animal-derived foods, which supply no EFAs but do contain unhealthy amounts of EFA-depleting saturated fat and trans-fats.
The single best food source of alpha-linolenic acid and gamma-linolenic acid is flaxseed. But you'd have to consume pounds of the seeds to meet your daily requirements for these EFAs. This is why I recommend flaxseed oil supplements, which I'll discuss in more detail a bit later on.
Other good sources of alpha-linolenic acid and gamma-linolenic acid include pumpkin seeds, sesame seeds, and walnuts. And don't forget to check out soy foods--tofu, soyburgers, soy milk, and the like.
Produce contains small amounts of very high quality, EFA-rich fats. Fruits and vegetables in general are very low in fat, but the fat they do have is of the highest quality. For instance, dark green, leafy vegetables supply roughly half of their fat as alpha-linolenic acid and most of the remainder as gamma-linolenic acid. Plus, produce is loaded with vitamins, minerals, phytochemicals--all the nutrients your body needs.
Even if you filled yourself to the gills with EFA-rich foods, you'd still fall short of the optimum intake. This is why you need supplements. Not megadoses, but enough to guarantee that you're never even temporarily deficient. It's insurance against disease and premature aging.
To boost your intake of alpha-linolenic acid and
gamma-linolenic acid, your best choices among supplements are flaxseed oil
and
For alpha-linolenic acid, take one to five 1,000-milligram
capsules of flaxseed oil twice a day. (If you have any of the conditions
listed in "When Good Fats Fall Short" on page 89, aim for the high end of
the range.) If that dosage is a bit much for you to swallow, then try one
tablespoon of liquid flaxseed oil once a day. For gamma-linolenic acid, I
suggest taking one 250-milligram capsule of
Many health food stores carry flaxseed oil and
Both flaxseed oil and
Expect to see results gradually. After all, the EFAs are literally rebuilding your cells from the ground up. So give the supplements at least a few months to work.
*
Increasing your intake of EFAs--the good fats--is important. So is reducing your intake of the bad fats and ugly fats. The next chapter can show you how to do just that.