Omega-3 and omega-6 are fatty acids that your body cannot produce on its own. This means it is essential that you get them from dietary intake, whether from food or supplementation.
Sourcing Your Essentials
The most common food associated with omega-3 is fish, especially wild salmon, mackerel and sardines. These high-fat fish swim in cold water. The trouble is you cannot be sure if they are free of mercury or other contaminants, which would pretty much counteract the benefits of any omega-3.
Dark green leafy vegetables, such as kale and spinach, are a safe omega-3 choices, particularly if you buy from local farmers or an organic supplier, moderating the ingestion of herbicides or pesticides.
Also of the plant world, avocados, olives, walnuts and sunflower, pumpkin and flax seeds are healthy sources of omega-6. Additionally, flaxseed oil just happens to contain high levels of alpha-linolenic acid: omega-3.
An organic source of flaxseed oil is the key omega-3 ingredient in AIMega: a plant-based omega-3 and -6 supplement. The omega-6 in AIMega is linoleic acid, from the organic oils of sunflower and sesame seeds and olives. So AIMega delivers both essential fatty acids, providing an ideal “supplemental” choice.
It’s also ideal for another essential reason: balance. AIMega gives you a 2 to 1 ratio of omega-3 to omega-6. The reason for this goes a long way back in time and all the way back to the present.
Things change over time but not always in a good way. This is the case with the history of human beings and their intake of omega-3 and omega-6.
In studies of early human beings, it has been determined that they had a ratio of roughly 1:1 of both essential fatty acids, a fine balance that keeps omega-3 and -6 working well together. Our early ancestors got these essentials from meat, wild plants, eggs, fish, nuts and berries.
Jump ahead to the modern Western Diet, and suddenly people are getting way too much omega-6 and not even close to enough omega-3. The use of cereal grains instead of grass to feed livestock has changed the fatty acid profile that humans ingest when they eat meat. This along with the intake of refined vegetable oils and processed foods has greatly altered the quantity, quality and ratio of essential fatty acids.
In fact, the ratio of omega-6 to -3 jumps as high as 25:1 in some estimates although the average is likely somewhere in the middle. And that means increased inflammation in the body.
In short, omega-3 decreases inflammation. That’s a good thing because inflammation is said to be the underlying cause of disease.
Omega-6 increases inflammation. This is also a good thing when it comes to the body’s ability to respond inflammatorily to injured tissues from burns, physical trauma, bacteria, toxins or other causes.
You cannot see it happening internally, but a simple paper cut is a great visual and physical sense of the positive side of inflammation. The redness you see and the rawness you experience is your body using inflammation to heal.
This inflammatory response is the way that the body protects you. But it’s a balancing act: no inflammation unless required to improve your health. Having an omega-6 dominant diet upsets that balance right down to the cellular level.
The primary components of every cell in your body are omega-3 and -6 essential fatty acids. If your intake is a healthy ratio, then omega-3 helps you stay on top of inflammation. But if you’re getting too much omega-6, inflammation dominates.
A high omega-6 to -3 ratio promotes the onset and progression of health issues, such as type 2 diabetes, cancer, cardiovascular disease and autoimmune and inflammatory diseases. Increased levels of omega-3 have preventative effects, helping to maintain good health.
So balancing your intake of omega-3 and -6 contributes greatly to maintaining healthy cells and keeping inflammation useful not harmful. Supplementing with AIMega can help to maintain that balance.
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