Omega-3 vs Omega-6: The TRUTH About Inflammation and Cancer Risk with Dr. Calvin Ye

The Exam Room by the Physicians Committee

Physicians Committee

Health & Fitness, Nutrition, Medicine

4.9 • 3.3K Ratings

🗓️ 9 December 2025

⏱️ 32 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Discover the truth about omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids in this eye-opening interview with Dr. Kaixiong (Calvin) Ye, one of the world's leading genetic epidemiologists studying nutrition and chronic disease.

Dr. Ye joins Chuck Carroll to explain new findings on:

- Whether omega-6 is really inflammatory

- How omega-3 and omega-6 impact cancer and mortality

- Why the omega-6:omega-3 ratio is misleading

- The controversy around omega-3 and prostate cancer

- How genetics influence omega-3 metabolism

- What precision nutrition will look like in the future

You'll learn what the latest science says about who benefits most from omega-3, what blood biomarkers really mean, and why two people eating the same food may get very different health outcomes.

📚 Omega 3 and Omega 6 Cancer Study
https://bit.ly/OmegaCancerStudy

🎟️ ICNM 2026 Tickets
https://bit.ly/ICNM2026

About Us
The Physicians Committee is dedicated to saving lives through plant-based diets and ethical and effective scientific research. We combine the clout and expertise of more than 17,000 physicians with the dedicated actions of more than 175,000 members across the United States and around the world.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Today, on the exam room.
0:04.0	There's actually quite some debate about is omega-6 good or bad?
0:09.0	Based on the research we have done, I do not see evidence to say that omega-6 is bad.
0:14.0	Omega-6 is actually good.
0:16.0	Based on our research, both components are good, but the effect size is different. Omega-3 has a larger effect
0:22.9	size compared to Omega-6. So it may show as if Omega-6 is bad. But if we analyze Omega-6 and
0:30.6	Omega-3 separately, we saw that Omega-6 and Omega-3 by themselves are inversely associated
0:37.2	with, for example, all-course mortality.
0:42.3	Welcome to the exam room podcast, brought to you by the Physicians Committee. Hi, I'm Chuck
0:47.4	Carroll, raising health IQs coast to coast and around the world. Hi, to the exam room. He's listening
0:52.8	in Bend, Oregon, Tampa, Florida, and
0:55.9	Cape Town, South Africa. Wherever you are, we appreciate you helping to make the world a healthier
1:01.2	place. This is episode 96 of season 8, number 695 overall. And today, we are returning to the
1:09.7	International Conference on Nutrition in Medicine to do a deep dive into one of the most misunderstood topics in all of nutrition.
1:18.7	We're talking about omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids. Are they good, are they bad, or are they secretly fighting each other in our bloodstream,
1:28.6	kind of like a Marvel movie? Well, maybe not exactly. But today we are going to sort out
1:34.9	what, in fact, is myth, what's true, and then what's just bad math? We're going to be talking
1:41.3	about why Omega-6 has been, in the eyes of my guest today, wrongly
1:46.3	accused of being the inflammation villain. And also what he has to say about the Omega 6 to
1:52.6	omega 3 ratio and why that may be one of the most misleading numbers in nutrition. Plus, what the
1:59.5	latest research says about cancer risk and longevity
2:02.4	and how your genes may determine just how well your body uses omega-3 in the first place.
	...

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