March 24th 2006 The statement on the news this morning: It is unclear if Omega 3 fish oils protect the heart.

( April 2006 – click this link for an update from the website of Patrick Holford )

The key words from the new’s item are unclear and protect.

If it is unclear then the future could finally prove either way – that the oils do protect or they don’t.

Omega Oils protect the heart – this is ambiguous.

Later news items are saying that omega oils are not thought to help the heart or cancer.

This site may help understand the role of fish oils and cancer, Cancer and Fish oils

This article deals mainly with fish oil, fat, the heart, the blood and obesity.

What do Omega Oils do for health?

Omega Oils along with seed oils for example from Olive Oil thin the blood.

The blood can be sticky and thicker if it is carrying much bad cholesterol (harder fats). Then for a reason I will explain later the platelets from the harder fats can adhere themselves to the sides of blood vessels especially in the heart. This causes a restriction to the flow of blood through the blood vessels or the collection of platelets can be so bad as to block the blood flow.

If you have high levels of low density lipoproteins (LDL) then supplementing your diet with omega 3 oils may help reduce these levels. This was then thought to protect the heart.

However if you have hardening of the blood vessels then taking Omega 3 Oils or eating oily fish will not necessarily get rid of or reduce the hardened platelets collecting there. It may help the blood flow because the blood is thinned and so can pass more easily.

To actually get rid of the collection of blood platelets causing the hardened vessels you need Vit C and an amino acid lysine. Linus Pauling won a nobel prize for his work and it was he who discovered that Vit C and lysine is used by the body to keep the balance of good and bad cholesterol.

Another fat called lecithin acts as a washing-up liquid to cholesterol. This fat is vulnerable to heat and is found in eggs, butter and seeds and milk, meat, fish, legumes. So you will get the lecithin if you eat runny eggs, cold milk, cold butter and cold legumes or seeds. If you heat it the lecithin is killed.

So the very foods thought to cause bad cholesterol also carry the substance – lecithin – that gets rid of (washes out) or balances bad cholesterol.

So why do Doctors and specialists tell you to cut out animal fat if you have a high level of LDL?

The short answer to that is: I don’t know!

Bad fat, LDL, is made in the body from sugar and fine graded flours – starch and from sweet vegetables and fruit. The sugars are converted to glycogen which is stored by the liver and is important to provide energy. It is when we eat more of these foods than the energy we are expending that we get a cholesterol bad LDL problem. The liver can’t store all the glycogen it has made when it is not used as energy and so it dumps it around the body as fat. Mainly on the thighs, hips and stomach.
This LDL is found in the vessels when the body has become inefficient with the balance of fats in the blood due to the action of Vit C and the amino acid lysine. Amino acids are from protein and protein is found in milk, eggs, meat, legumes (pulses – dried beans). Vitamin C is found in fruit and vegetables and in the animals we eat.

It is interesting isn’t it that the all the answers to help LDL levels are there in our good natural food.

So what has gone wrong? What is the cause of LDL if we are eating ‘properly’?

SUGAR. Sugar is the biggest cause of illness from obesity to diabetes to LDL cholesterol.

The sweeter type of vegetables and fruit are not really a problem. The fine graded flours that convert easily to sugars in the body are not really the problem on their own.
It is SUGAR that is the killer. Everyone should be cutting sugar out of their diet unless they have the type of diabetes that needs sugar.

If you have high LDL cut out sugar and all products containing sugar. Do not substitute natural sugar with the artificial types as they have other health implications.

So where does this leave the Omega 3 fish oils?
Omega 3 fish oils do not only thin the blood. They also have EPA which helps the brain. There is also some research currently being conducted to show that the omega 3 is involved in the energy cycle in the body.

Haven’t you just proved the news statement?
No. The news statement simply says that it is not clear that the omega oils protect the heart. If you do have blocked or restricted blood vessels in the heart then taking omega oils will help to thin the blood which may help blood flow through the restricted vessels.

More news about Omega Oils from Patrick Holford