 Omega-3, 6 and 9 fatty acids. This will answer questions ranging from do we need to consume fish, is high omega-6 bad, is there inflammation and oxidation in the body associated with imbalances, ultimately why these omegas are good for us as well as bad for us. Omega-3 fatty acids are polyunsaturated fats, a type of fat that our body cannot produce. The three major types of omega-3 fatty acids are alpha-linolenic acid, EPA, ecosopentanoic acid and DHA, docosahexanoic acid. The main function of EPA is to produce ecosanoids that have anti-inflammatory properties in the body. Prostaglandins are a subset of ecosanoids that are not too well understood. They are inflammatory regulators in the body. So wherever inflammation is occurring, we know there will be ecosanoids on site. The thing to understand here about ecosanoids is that when you consume too much omega-6 or too much omega-3 fatty acids, imbalance of prostaglandins is associated with negative things. Too high omega-6, arthritis, too high omega-3, thrombosis, a.k.a. stroke. DHA, docosahexanoic acid, makes up about 8% of our brain weight and is incredibly important for brain development as well as function. The brain actually requires 4.6 milligrams of DHA per day. This explains very well why DHA deficiencies can result in impaired cognitive function. One shocking metric is the variance in DHA levels in human breast milk. From 0.06% to 1.4%, that is over a 20-fold variance in DHA. If that doesn't convince you that omega-3 fatty acids are important in all stages of life, I don't really know what will. These two fatty acids, EPA and DHA, are our bread and butter, essentially what we need to focus on getting in our diet. EPA for regulation of cellular inflammation and DHA for brain health as well as nerve cell structure and function. DHA is most commonly obtained from eggs. It is found especially in fish as well, including shellfish. It's also found in the brain tissues of ruminant animals. DHA in brain tissue as well as DHA in fish eggs, a.k.a. fish row, caviar, occurs in a different form. This is called the phospholipid form, which can be absorbed into the brain easier. Some of you guys may have heard Dr. Ronda Patrick talk about this in the past. There's plenty of research you can read on that. I'm pretty sure it's not conclusive, but definitely an interesting theory. In regards to EPA, the nice thing is that foods that contain DHA inherently contain EPA. So we don't have to focus on getting EPA on its own. We just have to focus on getting DHA. Now there are tons of benefits to consuming omega-3 fatty acids demonstrated in both fish as well as supplemental form, although there are definitely benefits to a higher extent from consuming fish demonstrated in studies as well as from a logical standpoint. The fatty acids in fish are less oxidized. There's more nutrients in fish. People that are going to go out of their way to consume fish likely follow a healthier lifestyle in general. Many confounding factors tying into that. The inverse correlation of fish consumption and mortality from cardiovascular disease is demonstrated here. One interesting thing about the blood of Eskimos because they have a high omega-3 consumption is that it clots drastically slower. This relates to platelet adherence as well as concentration of fibrinogen in the blood. This essentially makes them immune to platelet aggregation or stroke as well as heart disease. So this is a pretty crazy mechanism of omega-3 fatty acids. What they're essentially doing is thinning the blood and making the blood cells more elastic, reducing the fibrinogen in the blood, making your blood flow so smoothly that you're immune to heart disease and stroke. This is an incredible mechanism and this is the reason that I would rather focus on mechanisms as opposed to show you guys hundreds to thousands of studies on omega-3s associated with this. You can always look those up as there are thousands and thousands of them out there. One thing people are concerned about is oxidation of fish oil supplements and this is certainly a concern as when you take the fish oil out of the context of the fish, you're removing the antioxidant properties of things like vitamin E, vitamin C, even iodine. That's why you usually see vitamin E, sometimes in the form of rosemary oil, added to various supplements. This is not a cut and dry answer. It depends on the amount of antioxidants in your body, what you're consuming, as well as the level of oxidation you currently have in your diet. This also varies from person to person depending on genes. The safe bet is to consume canned fish, non-oxidized oils, things that haven't been taken outside of the context of the fish. I guess it would also be important not to fry fish at super high temperatures. If you can obtain the omega-3 fatty acids, all of the fat-soluble vitamins through foods, you don't have to worry about consuming oxidized oils to reach these goals. Alphalinolemic acid, ALA, is mostly associated with being in plant foods but it's contained in animal foods as well. It's mainly used in the body for energy. The body can store it in adipose tissue, use it for acetyl coenzyme A for energy production as well as convert other fatty acids into longer-chain fatty acids using alphalinolemic acid. A lot of people believe that alphalinolemic acid can be converted into EPA and DHA but it can only invert into EPA at very low rates of approximately 4% and ALA has never been shown to raise blood levels of DHA. The reason for this is that ALA competes with omega-6 fatty acids like linoleic acid for an enzyme that is needed to metabolize it, 6 desaturates. High levels of ALA have also been shown to impair EPA and DHA absorption. There is no indication that we need to obtain this alphalinolemic acid from plant foods. It's very clear that animal foods are adequate in this context. This is more of a concern in vegans that think they're able to convert EPA and DHA from it which is not true at all. There would likely be more benefits to limiting your alphalinolemic acid consumption on a high omega-6 diet than there would be to consume more of it to try to get some more EPA and DHA. You can take an algae supplement but there are cyanotoxins in algae supplements. One thing I haven't heard people talk about is the context of animal foods containing alphalinolemic acid without high levels of omega-6. So it's very likely that we can obtain enough omega-3s, EPA and DHA on a carnivore diet without the consumption of brains or fish under two conditions. The beef we are consuming is incredibly high quality. The pasture was excellent summer pasture, completely grass fed and the majority of our calories come from fat approximately 70-80%. Unfortunately, most people don't have access to such high quality beef. The reason for this is the levels of alphalinolemic acid in grass fed beef are substantially higher as much as 10 times higher than grain fed beef. Omega-6 fatty acids are also polyunsaturated fats. The most common types being linoleic acid found in seed oils, conjugated linoleic acid found in animal tissue as well as arachidonic acid found in animal tissue. Linoleic acid being exclusive to seed oils, sunflower, safflower, soybean, corn, canola. As you can imagine, it's something relatively new to humans and has had drastic negative effects. Almost anyone who has done their research on health knows how dangerous these oils are but a main focus of today is going to be to understand why these seed oils are so bad for you. We spoke earlier about how high levels of linoleic acid impede conversion of alphalinolemic acid into EPA and DHA because of the competition for that 6D saturase enzyme. But that is just the tip of the iceberg. What happens when you consume large amounts of linoleic acid is that the fatty acid composition of your triglycerides, all of your cholesterol, as well as adipose tissue change into linoleic acid. You are what you eat. The body cannot distinguish linoleic acid from bacteria as it is unnatural. What this ultimately results in is incredible amounts of oxidative stress in the arteries and the organs, essentially all tissues of the body because all tissues in your body are made of cholesterol and fat. This is the main cause of heart disease, fatty liver, so many negative things associated with this. Linoleic acid is involved in early state atherosclerosis through endothelial dysfunction. This study here actually used soybean oil to induce oxidation of LDL cholesterol. It also shows that oxidized LDL enhanced uptake in macrophages, aka white blood cells, and resulted in foam cell formation, essentially atherosclerosis or heart disease. So this LDL cholesterol enters the arterial wall. Since it's composed of linoleic acid, the body essentially attacks it. These white blood cells attack the linoleic acid, they take it up, they turn into macrophages, then they get embedded in the arterial wall because of the oxidation. The cells themselves oxidize, turn into foam cells, eventually causing heart disease. The oxidation byproduct, HPODE, is what this linoleic acid turns into. That's why sometimes we see high blood levels of polyunsaturated fats and low levels of heart disease. The reason for this is that it just hasn't oxidized into HPODE yet. The following civilizations were free from heart disease. The Melanesian Katavins, the New Guinean Tukey Sineta, and the Ugandan and Nigerians. The one common factor between all of these groups is that they did not consume seed oils. It's definitely safe to say that these seed oils are something that we should not be consuming and from a mechanistic standpoint it's very evident these are one of the most dangerous things to have in your diet. And as much as we could have excluded these based solely on their origin and that hey, they used to use this as machine lubricants, it's important to understand why. The fatty acid ratio in animals changes just like humans does. So unfortunately animals are fed vegetable seed oils like soybean oil and corn oil which is why pork and chicken can have high levels of omega-6 and cause oxidative stress in the body even though we are not directly consuming these processed seed oils. Conjugated linoleic acid is essentially the opposite of the plant-based linoleic acid. It's found in meat and dairy and it's known to have various health benefits. There are 28 known types of CLA that have various proven biological functions. Guys there are hundreds of fatty acids in the body, it would be amazing to have an encyclopedia on them and have bullet points of pros and cons but unfortunately Frankie Boy is the best you got right now. This conjugated linoleic acid is much higher in grass-fed animals. It's been shown to alleviate non-alcoholic fatty liver disease in rats whereas linoleic acid is actually required for development of fatty liver in alcoholics. Simply complete opposites, animal form heals you, plant form kills you. It improves overall metabolism, it's anti-cancer, anti-obesity, anti-diabetic, anti-hypertensive meaning it prevents lifestyle diseases. As we can imagine with the metabolic benefits it is shown to produce modest weight loss as well. Conjugated linoleic acid has also been linked to gene expression, the turning on and off of various genes in our body to regulate cell functions. This is a very important aspect to human health, we see with all fat soluble vitamins such as A and D3 it literally regulates how every single cell in our body is made through cell differentiation. The importance of this is an understatement. If you could rank the biological functions of consuming something in regards to their health benefits, gene expression and cell differentiation are at the top and these functions are greatly associated with animal forms of vitamins showing the importance of animal foods in our diet. Arachidonic acid isn't usually talked about, it's a polyunsaturated omega-6 fatty acid found exclusively in animal foods. It cannot be converted by increasing blood levels of linoleic acid. This is related to the enzyme we spoke about earlier, 6 desaturates and guys if anything has convinced you in this video to consume more omega-3s and less omega-6 it's the 6 desaturates enzyme and how literally everything seems to compete with it for conversion. Just like the brain requires 4.6 milligrams of DHA per day, it requires 17.8 milligrams of arachidonic acid. This can be inherently achieved by consuming animal products. As long as you are eating animal foods, there is no reason to seek out arachidonic acid on its own. Omega-9 fatty acids, I'm sorry to disappoint you guys, they're not necessary, the body can convert them from all of the other fatty acids we are consuming. If you guys do want to look up the health benefits of omega-9 fatty acids, I didn't really find anything too compelling so I didn't want to make this video any longer that it has to be. If you guys do want to find outcome data and associations with these things, you can literally Google thousands and thousands of studies. The purpose of this is to understand some mechanisms of these omega-f fatty acids, essentially how we can consume them and at the end of the day guys, the solution really is follow an indigenous or native diet composed of a minimum of 55-65% of your calories from high quality animal foods and all of this will inherently be achieved. Because you are consuming high quality foods, your omega-3 to omega-6 ratio will not be off and because these animals are fed properly, they will contain the omega-3 fatty acids and the nutrients your body needs. One thing we didn't really go too much into is oxidative stress in the body and how various vitamins, substances in the body that are determined by genes, how well your body converts them, is important in reducing oxidative stress. This is why we see people that can eat chicken, fried in soybean oil for 50 years and be fine whereas some people drop dead when they're 45 years old. So always guys, I like to be safe and err on the side of caution and not consume these foods. So thank you guys for watching. If you guys would like to support the channel, please like, subscribe and share the video. Frankie Boy is not getting too much sleep making these videos for you guys every day so I hope you guys appreciate it. If you do want to support me, Patreon is a great way to do that as well as a way for me to answer personalized questions. Down below is also my Amazon shop where you can find things like cod liver oil, canned cod liver, vitamin D3, things I use in my day to day life. Guys, I'm on Twitter, I'm on Instagram, I'll probably post some of these studies later on Twitter and you guys can see the Greek physique that is established by this information on my Instagram. If you guys do want to reach out to me for one-on-one consultations in regards to improving your overall health through nutrient density, you can shoot me an email frankatufano at gmail.com or contact me through the form on my website below frank-tufano.com. You guys enjoy the rest of your week.