Get Your Omega-6 to Omega-3 Ratios Balanced

Dr. Berg’s Healthy Keto and Intermittent Fasting Podcast

Dr. Eric Berg

Health & Fitness

4.6 • 1.6K Ratings

🗓️ 29 February 2024

⏱️ 9 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In this podcast, we’re going to talk about essential fatty acids, omega-6 and omega-3. The omega-6 to omega-3 ratio is way off in the average diet. The average American is at a 20:1 and sometimes a 70:1 or more omega-6 to omega-3 ratio!

We need both omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids, but we need significantly more omega-3 fatty acids to avoid inflammation. The source is important! You don’t want to get your omega-6 fatty acids from seed oils.

Omega-6 consumption from seed oils directly correlates with chronic illnesses like heart disease. Very recently in human history, seed oils replaced saturated fat in the diet and are in every ultra-processed food.

Foods high in omega-3 fatty acids include fatty fish, cod liver oil, cod liver, sardines, and shellfish.

Grain-fed animals are much higher in omega-6 fatty acids. This is one of the reasons people are turning to grass-fed, grass-finished beef.

Omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids go through the same biochemical pathways and compete with each other in the body. If there’s any problem in these biochemical pathways, you can end up with dysfunctional fats that your body will be unable to benefit from.

Co-factors for these biochemical pathways include magnesium, vitamins B2, B3, B6, vitamin C, and insulin. Many people are insulin resistant, which means they’re deficient in insulin. Seed oil consumption paired with insulin resistance causes a lot more compound damage.

Intermittent fasting and a low-carb diet can correct insulin resistance so you’re better able to utilize fatty acids within the body and don’t end up with dysfunctional fats.

Omega-3 fatty acids fall into two categories: DHA and EPA. EPA helps reduce inflammation, and DHA helps support cognitive function. ALA is a precursor to EPA.

There’s a simple blood test that can measure your omega-3 to omega-6 ratio.

Transcript

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0:00.0	So when we talk about essential fatty acids, primarily we're talking about two different kinds.
0:05.9	We have omega six and omega three. I want to focus on both of them today because we have a big problem. The ratios at which people are
0:15.8	consuming the omega 6 to omega 3 are way way way off. On an average American they're at 20 to
0:22.3	one to sometimes 70 to one or more.
0:25.8	And this introduction of the seed oils are a relatively new thing for humans.
0:31.7	And I know people call them vegetable oils, but there's no vegetables in these oils. They're seed oils. So this whole seed oil thing started in 1866 with cotton seed oil. I mean, before this, we use cotton seed oil. I mean before this we use cotton seed oil in lamps as a fuel.
0:47.8	We used it as a lubricant in machinery and then someone had a great idea to put it in the food supply and turn it into edible
0:55.1	oil. In fact, all the information I'm sharing with you is out of this book right here,
0:58.9	the ancestral diet revolution by Dr. Chris CanobiumD. An incredible textbook on everything you'd ever
1:07.0	want to know about the seed oils and the effects that I can create for our health.
1:14.2	But I want to read you a quote on page 30.
1:17.9	On the topic of cottonseed oil use,
1:19.8	an issue of popular science
1:22.3	from the turn of the 20th century era summed up cotton seed
1:26.9	in cotton seed oil with a single phrase. What was garbage in 1860 was fertilizer in 1870, cattle feed in 1880, and table food in 1890. There's so many things we have in our environments that are considered waste that we somehow turn it into food.
1:47.0	I mean, even toxic sewage sludge is recycled into biosolids and used as fertilizer. You have a restaurant
1:56.3	grease is recycled and put in the food supply. But let me not divert from this
2:01.2	topic. Let's get back to this omega-6,
2:04.2	omega-3 fatty acid ratio.
2:06.7	We need both of these essential fatty acids,
2:09.3	but we definitely don't need it in the imbalanced amounts.
2:12.0	Not to mention the source of the seed oils, right?
	...

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