 Hey everybody, Dr. O here, in this video we're going to talk about the essential fatty acids. So there's all sorts of fats as you can see on here, but only two are essential. The word essential means that you must consume them because your body can't make them or can't make enough of them. So our bodies cannot make these extra long fatty acids. So the two essential fatty acids that we must consume in our diet are alpha linolenic acid, which is an omega-3 fat, and linolaic acid, which is an omega-6 fat. Those are going to be the only two that we have to eat. Your body can make the saturated fats, it can make oleic acid like olive oil, these types of things, but it cannot make the omega-3 fat, alpha linolenic acid, and the omega-6 fat linolaic acid. But they're really important. Some would actually argue that those shouldn't be the essential fats. They're important because of the fat that they actually make. So I'll show you the downstream conversion in a little bit. So your omega-3 fat is going to make your EPA and DHO, we call your fish oils. The omega-6 fat is going to make arachidonic acid. So some would argue that, but don't make infuse you. The essential fatty acids are alpha linolenic acid and linolaic acid. So why are they called omega-3 and omega-6 fats? Let's go ahead and look. So here we see the omega-3 fatty acid, alpha linolenic acid. It is called that because notice on the omega-end, the first or some would say last double bond on this fatty acid tail is three carbons in from the omega-end. That's why it's called an omega-3 fatty acid. Here we see the omega-6 fatty acid, mostly what is called this linolaic acid. Same thing. The first or last double bond is six carbons in from the omega-end. So that's where the terms omega-3 and omega-6 come from. So why do they matter so much? It's because of these products they produce. So let's start by talking about what EPA and DH are. So EPA, it's actually Ecosa pentanoic acid. It's going to have 20 carbons, Ecosa means 20, and it's going to have five cis-double bonds. So pentamines five. So Ecosa pentanoic acid actually tells you what it is, 20 carbons long with five double bonds. So that's going to be EPA, Ecosa pentanoic acid. DHA is docosa hexanoic acid, docosa means 22, hexamines six. So DHA is going to be 22 carbons long, and it's going to have six of those cis-double bonds. And then I'll call them EPA and DHA, but just so you know, like where did they come up with these names? They're actually quite descriptive. So EPA and DHA, what you see there, they're going to be down the chain, so your body, the essential fatty acid is alpha linolenic acid, then your body is supposed to be able to produce what we call the fish oils, EPA and DHA. Now I would argue that it's a bad idea to consume ALA. I'm not saying it's bad to consume it. You can consume flaxseeds and chia seeds, these kind of things. That's perfectly fine. But the conversion is pretty minimal. Your studies show that only 2% to 5% of alpha linolenic acid or ALA is actually converted to EPA, and only 0.5% to 2% is converted to DHA. So I tell people to consume EPA and DHA directly. Consume fatty fish, take your fish oil pills. If you're a vegan, you can get DHA from algae sources, these types of things. So yes, alpha linolenic acid is the essential fat, but EPA and DHA is what we're after. And that's a pretty terrible conversion rate. So try to get your fish oils in any way you can. Now the reason they're so important is because these omega-3 fats, like you see there on the bottom, are very anti-inflammatory. On the omega-6 side, so the essential fatty acid is linolenic acid, our body converts it into what's called arachidonic acid, which is inflammatory. So I know, so generally speaking, inflammation is a serious problem, but we need some inflammation to fight infections and when we have wounds. So I'm definitely not saying we shouldn't consume arachidonic acid. We live in a world where we usually have a whole lot of inflammation, so I generally try to counsel people on how to consume less omega-6 fats and more omega-3 fats. So we talked about the structure of it here, but that's the real big picture to remember. Omega-3 fats are anti-inflammatory, omega-6 fats are pro-inflammatory, which is not always bad. But another thing to note here is they're both polyunsaturated fats, which means that they're pretty unstable. So even though fish oils are really good for you, a lot of studies have shown that there is an upper limit where if you consume too much of the omega-3 fats, they actually will start to cause problems. And if you do consume fish oil pills, I recommend keeping them in the refrigerator. If you haven't used them all in three months, I would toss them because they're not stable. They're very, very good for you, but they're not stable because of these double bonds. So here we see the pathways and you'll notice, let's start with the omega-3 end. So omega-3, you get to your EPA and DHA, you see all of these chemical messengers that are anti-inflammatory like prostaglandin-3, thromboxane-A3, leukotriene-B4. These kind of things. So very anti-inflammatory. EPA and DHA have been shown to, I mean, there's all sorts of health benefits of the consumption of fish, consumption of fish oils, and consumption of EPA and DHA. We do not get enough of these in our diet unless you're consuming a lot of fatty fish. Unless you're consuming a big serving of salmon a couple times a week, you're probably not getting enough, which is why I do recommend a lot of people supplement, not medical advice, but I think it's a good to try to find some EPA and DHA in your diet. On the other side, the omega-6 facts come from a lot of our process and package foods have them, industrial nut and seed oils. So chances are you're getting plenty of the omega-6 fats and they produce a lot of this arachidonic acid, which produces then pro-inflammatory chemical messengers like leukotriene-B4, etc. So the key to me to health when it comes to this is to balance your ratio of the two. So the average American probably is consuming 10 to 25 times more omega-6 fats than omega-3. That ratio is pretty skewed, so I'd recommend that most people do try to find a way to get some more EPA and DHA, a couple servings of salmon or sardines a week, maybe take a fish oil pill here and there. But the big thing is to try to cut out some of these industrial nut and seed oils that are high on omega-6 fats. But we're not talking about all the nutritional stuff here. Just want to make sure you know what an essential fatty acid is and which ones become the omega-3s. That'd be your alpha-linic acid and which one becomes those omega-6s that we care about, a linoleic acid. All right, that's omega-3 and omega-6 fats. I hope this helps. Have a wonderful day. Be blessed.