Having gone through the anti-inflammatory articles we discussed on turmeric, it seems that many are looking to curcumin in hopes of providing a strong defense against chronic-inflammation diseases. Then after doing some thinking, I remembered that curcumin isn't the only anti-inflammatory that many people are pushing to consume because they believe it to be the magic cure all. Omega-3 fatty acids are just as equally pushed for their ability to reduce inflammation as well as assist in heart disease and stroke recovery, but what do we really know about Omega-3 fatty acids? Well, I was curious so I went and did some research on them and found some interesting information.
As it turns out, Omega-3 fatty acids are comprised of three different Essential Fatty Acids (EFA), that our bodies need to properly function. The three EFAs that make up Omega-3 fatty acids are decosahexaenoic acid (DHA), eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) and alpha-linolenic acid (ALA). According to my sources these Omega-3 fatty acids are found predominately in fish-oil and certain plant and nut oils; DHA and EPA are found predominately in fish oil, whereas ALA is found predominately in nut and vegetable oils. Moreover each plays a unique role in what our bodies use them for; DHA for example is needed to maintain proper brain function as an adult, and is needed for the development of the nervous system and visual abilities during the first six months of life. EPA has been found to help lower risk of heart disease, and has been shown to have positive protective affects on coronary heart disease, high triglycerides, high blood pressure and inflammation. Finally, ALA is the interesting one, as its main contribution seems to be that, it can be converted into both EPA and DHA in our bodies.
Now, while reading about this is good I'm the kind of person who likes more detail, its cool to know that they can do these things but I also like knowing how they do these things. So I searched the boundless Internet in hopes of finding any research that had looked into this, and I did find scientific research articles looking at the mechanisms of each fatty acid. Unfortunately, I could only obtain the abstracts as the articles are owned by PubMed and they wouldn't let me obtain the full reports. However, just reading the abstracts gave me a better understanding of the research that was being undertaken in order to better understand the role each Omega-3 fatty acid plays in helping us to remain healthy.
The links below will take you to the places where I have obtained my information, links 2-4 are the same website, and it's defiantly more of an overview of information website than it is a detailed information website, but nonetheless contains useful information regarding the Omega-3 fatty acids. Links 5-7 are the research article abstracts I've found on each Omega-3 fatty acid, and while they are not the full articles they do provide an excellent summary of the contents of each paper. Also if someone who is familiar with PubMed could tell me how to access the full articles, I would be more than happy to edit this to take you to the full articles because the abstracts make me want to see the full thing. Finally, link 1 provides a nice overview of what the Omega-3 fatty acids are in general. Enjoy and leave any comments below.
http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/fish-oil/NS_patient-fishoil
http://www.umm.edu/altmed/articles/docosahexaenoic-acid-000300.htm
http://www.umm.edu/altmed/articles/eicosapentaenoic-acid-000301.htm
http://www.umm.edu/altmed/articles/alpha-linolenic-000284.htm
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11724467
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15881480
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19641487
I recently heard a special on this topic on NPR, the link is attached, http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=15823852
ReplyDeleteInterestingly fish are rich in DHA because they consume plant life namely algae and other fish that have consumed this source. Unfortunately for me and other fish lovers, consuming large quantities of fish does increase the risk of mercury exposure. The NPR article mentions a study in which toddler’s cognitive abilities were increased when given formula high in omega 3’s. It also claimed that those who consumed large amounts of omega 3’s scored an average of two points higher on cognitive tests. Conversely, those with the highest mercury levels scored four points lower than average on those same tests. So I guess moderation and careful selection of your sources are key. Personally I’m not sure if I buy all the hype around fish oils but I do think there is some evidence of beneficial effects. That being said however, I do eat fish regularly and supplement with fish oils. I think it is tough to say whether I feel a difference or not. I guess further research and time will tell how effective these oils really are.
P.S. one way to find full-length articles instead of only the pesky abstracts is the following. Go to airzona.edu, search for the library’s site, or you can just go to www.library.arizona.edu, they will have you login at some point using your net id and password. Search for pubmed, once linked there you can enter your search requirements, i.e. for one of your articles I entered
Lipids. 2001 Sep;36(9):945-59. Mechanisms of action of docosahexaenoic acid in the nervous system. Salem N Jr, Litman B, Kim HY, Gawrisch K.
Sometimes the full article will be in the database and sometimes not. In this case it was not but below the abstract there is a plus sign saying +LinkOut – more resources. Click that and if a full text source is available it will be shown here. For this article I linked out with EBSCO, the first one listed. Hope this helps.