omega 2, 6, 9 ?

[sarah]

R.B. are you there? what is omega 9? I see a lot of supplements now come with all 3 together. Having read your other posts, if I'm correct, one doesn't really need to add 6 because we get enough but not enough 3 but what about 9?
just curious
thanks
sarah

[chrisy]

Only R.B. knows for sure...but I think Omega 9 is oleic acid. This is in olive oil and I think flaxseed oil and has been identified as a down-regulator of Her2. So it is, I would think, a good thing.

The Omega oils and balance is pretty complex. My understanding is 3 and 9, good. 6, maybe not inherently bad but should be a much lower component so for most Americans, we have too much. We should replace 6's with 3's or 9's.

[R.B.]

Thank you for the compliment, but there is a great deal I do not know as I have only been reading about this for a year or so. Fats and the body is such a huge subject many lives would not be enough.

I have to go and refresh my memory and more so because I have been diverted for a while.

Omega nine is the name of a family of fats. As are omega three and six.

It means the first double bond in the carbon chain is a position nine along the string, omega three three along etc. So if you have a long carbon chain you can have more double bonds after postion nine, and provided the first is at postion nine it will be an omega nine. Oleic acid for example has eighteen carbons in a chain. The body has some flexibility and will substitute one for another in certain circumstances but works best at its design paramaters which is likely a more or less balance of omega three and six.

Oleic is the most basic in the family, and often referred to as omega nine, but is only one of the family.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oleic_acid


3-6-9

As usual it is complex but as a general rule most people are getting too much omega six.

Omega nine can be made by the body assuming the fats pathways are working properly. The function of the pathways that make fats are very complex. There can be competition for resources or conflicts in instruction sets, and taking omega nine could I suppose cause rebalancing of the pathways. Omega nines are found in olive oil (virgin is best as lower in six). Taking in limited quantities saves the body making it and has other benifits due to other "chemical" content of olive oil.

The one that is likely for most people to be lacking is omega three both the mother fat linolenic acid 18:3 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alpha-linolenic_acid, and the longer chain fats of the same family EPA and DHA. The body can make these from the mother fats, but lots of things stop this happening, mineral deficiency, high sugar intake etc. So the best "insurance" is to eat foods that contain long chain omega threes - the best source is oily fish or fish oil and there are some vegetarian equivalents. A trial suggested take up by the body tapers off at about 2 grams DHA a day 5tps of a good quality fish oil.

GLA can help for some but comes usually with high six.

Many nuts are also high in six.

The essence is to eat only the best quality oil sources you can, try and balance the omega threes and sixes as a key target. This will involve assiduos label reading, and asking eg "olives in oil" (olive oil ? no sunflower mostly). This site give you an idea as to fat content, and make up of foods.

http://www.nutritiondata.com/facts-C00001-01c20AC.html

So there are no absolute answers, but as a very general rule six is the most difficult one to control, and if a choice fish oil would be top of my list, plus .

On the nines the body can make, but taking in moderation would save the body making it - but you will see fish oil contains a wide range of oils including 18:1 which may include some omega nine 18:1. http://www.nutritiondata.com/facts-C00001-01c20AC.html
But for cooking it is more stable than polyunsaturates. In general as wide a variety as possible is also good but watch those sixes very carfully they lurk everywhere in processed foods.

Please do talk to your doctor about dietary change - side effects of fish oil are limited but are an issue for some - blood thinning etc, some issue fro some diabetics etc. fats are much more powerful influences than realised.

I am afraid there are no absolute answers. My own experience is that your body sort of tells you what it wants if you give it access. When I started on this road and cut down on omega sixes but did not take fish oil I had a nut craving. When I started taking fish oil that calmed and I had to get my fish oil. Now after about nine months my need to head to the fish oil bottle has moderated,and my fat intake and "craving" has declined. I pass a packet of crisps which used to be a favourite ("hand cooked") and do not even think about them writing this has remined me of that.


I hope that helps.

RB




ABSTRACT wikipedia



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omega-9_fatty_acid


Omega-9 fatty acid
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search
Types of Fats in Food

* Unsaturated fat
o Monounsaturated fat
o Polyunsaturated fat
o Trans fat
o Omega: 3, 6, 9
* Saturated fat

See Also

* Fatty acid
* Essential fatty acid

Omega-9 fatty acids are a class of unsaturated fatty acids which have a C=C double bond in the ω-9 position. (See Nomenclature for terms and discussion of ω (omega) nomenclature.) Some ω-9's are common components of animal fat and vegetable oil.

Two commercially important ω-9 fatty acids are:

* Oleic acid (18:1 ω-9) which is a main component of olive oil and other monounsaturated fats.
* Erucic acid (22:1 ω-9) which is found in rapeseed, wallflower seed, and mustard seed. Rapeseed with high erucic acid content is grown for commercial use in paintings and coatings as a drying oil.

Unlike ω-3 and ω-6 fatty acids, ω-9 fatty acids are not classed as essential fatty acids (EFA). This is both because they can be created by the human body from unsaturated fat and are therefore not essential in the diet, and because the lack of an ω-6 double bond keeps them from participating in the reactions that form the eicosanoids.

Under severe conditions of EFA deprivation, mammals will elongate and desaturate oleic acid to make mead acid, (20:3 ω-9). (Lipomics) This also occurs to a lesser extent in vegetarians and semi-vegetarians. (Phinney, 1990)

[heblaj01]

To the extensive info supplied by RB on various fats I would like to add this point on the different mode of absorption of of Omega-3 & Omega-6&-9 fats.

Omega-6 &-9 being part of the family of fats called Medium Chain Fatty Acids (MCFA) are absorbed quickly & directly from gut to liver.

Omega-3's are part of Long Chain Fatty Acids (LCFA) whose absorption is more complex & involves enzymes such as lipase as well as bile. While these fats may not be so easily absorbed they are not going initially to the liver but circulate through the the lymphatic system.
As a result they tend to have a wider body distribution & to stay longer in the body before being metabolized or degraded in the liver.
This may explain in part the effectiveness of Omega-3's as anti-inflammation supplements & in mice as actve agents in regressing metastatic lymph nodes.

As RB noted none of the usual sources of Omega-3 or 6 or 9 are pure.
They are mixtures with a preponderance of one (GLA sources are an exception with less than 50% content).
There are now available two pure sources of the Omega-3's : pure EPA & pure DHA. However I am not aware of research studies combining these two pure supplements as in the numerous studies dealing with Omega-3 fish oil (which may contain up to 60% of combined EPA/DHA).
So their combined efficacy still needs to be demonstrated.

[sarah]

Thank you all for your helpful replies. I think I'll just stick to adding omega 3. I'm a triple positive.
Isn't this a great site! We can all live so far away from one another but it feels like a close, friendly community.
sarah

[R.B.]

Please also keep in mind the arguments for need to balance the omega threes and sixes, which also means keeping an eye on omega six intake.

RB

[sarah]

Thank you. I have a little trouble figuring that out - how much omega 6 I eat but I'm trying!
thanks
sarah

[R.B.]

This site may help.

You can look things up here.

Regretably most processed food contain vegetable oils and usually high six oils, sunflower safflower etc. Olives in oil etc you just have to ask.

Also little things like grass fed animal sources, omega three (or a free range as possible) eggs etc. will help (mutton lamb etc). Animals raised on grain feed have the same problems we do in terms of fat profile. I do not get too hung up on it as I cannot afford all organic but try within that limitiation to be mindful of what I am eating was fed.

I takes a while and a bit of effort but you soon get the general idea.

Fish oil in a bottle is cheaper and easier to take. Check for the amout of EPA and DHA on the label - it is worth paying a little more to get a quality product. Seven seas extra strength is good and not too expensive, and there are others which have less taste.

RB

[sarah]

thanks again for the advice. It's appreciated.
sarah

[R.B.]

http://www.nutritiondata.com/fatty-acids.html

Sorry I meant to include this link in the above and have just noticed it was missing.

The comment might make more sense with it!


http://www.nutritiondata.com/fatty-acids.html

RB

[sarah]

wow! have to study this. This is an article from the IHT (International Herald Tribune) about fish oil for the heart:

Fish oil: A heart drug in Europe but not U.S.

By Elisabeth Rosenthal International Herald Tribune

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 5, 2006



ROME Every patient in the cardiac care unit at the San Filippo Neri Hospital who survives a heart attack goes home with a prescription for purified fish oil, said Dr. Marco Tubaro, the unit's director, surrounded by a sea of the latest pumps and monitors.

Cardiologists across Italy and in a few other parts of Europe would consider it malpractice to omit the drug, whose active ingredients are two Omega-3 fatty acids. "It is clearly recommended in international guidelines," said Dr. Massimo Santini, chief of cardiology at San Filippo Neri. In a large number of studies, prescription fish oil has been shown to improve survival after heart attacks and to reduce fatal heart rhythms. The American College of Cardiology recently strengthened its position concerning the medical benefit of fish oil, although some critics say that studies have not defined the magnitude of the effect.

But in the United States - and, to a lesser degree, in Britain - heart attack victims do not generally get Omega-3 fatty acids from their doctors, even as they are routinely offered more expensive and invasive treatments, such as pills to lower cholesterol or implantable defibrillators. Prescription fish oil, sold under the brand name Omacor, is not even approved by the United States Food and Drug Administration for use in heart patients.

"Most cardiologists here are not giving Omega-3's even though the data supports it - there's a real disconnect," said Dr. Terry Jacobson, a preventive cardiologist at Emory University in Atlanta. "They have been very slow to incorporate the therapy."

The fact that heart patients receive such different treatments in sophisticated hospitals around the world illustrates that medicine, like everything else, has its fashions. It also highlights the central role that drug companies play in disseminating medical information, experts said.

Since prescription fish oil is not licensed in the United States to prevent heart disease, drug companies may not legally promote it for that purpose at conferences, in doctors' offices, to patients, or even on the Internet.

"If people paid more attention to guidelines more people would be on the drug," Dr. Jacobson said. "But pharmaceutical companies can't drive this change. The fact that its not licensed for this has definitely kept doctors away."

The first question on the Omacor Web site, www.solvay-omacor.com, is "Are you a U.S. citizen?" If the answer is "yes," the user is redirected to a page where heart attacks are not mentioned. (In the United States, Omacor is only licensed to treat the small number of people with extremely high blood-triglyceride levels.)

The fact that fish oil is also sold as a nutritional supplement has made it harder for some doctors to regard it as a powerful drug, experts said.

"Using this medicine is very popular here in Italy, I think partly because so many cardiologists in this country participated in the studies and were aware of the results," said Dr. Maria Franzosi, a researcher at the Mario Negri Institute in Milan. "In other countries, uptake may be harder because doctors think of it as just a dietary intervention."

In the largest, seminal study of fish oil - conducted more than a decade ago - Italian researchers from the GISSI group - Gruppo Italiano per lo Studio della Sopravvivenza nell'Infarto - gave 11,000 patients each 1 gram of prescription fish oil a day after heart attacks. After 3 years, the number of deaths among those receiving the fish oil was reduced by 20 percent, compared with a control group.

Subsequent studies have continued to yield positive results, although some scientists say there are still gaps in knowledge, for example: can eating more fish - or taking over-the-counter supplements - provide the same benefits as the more expensive prescription medicine? There is less regulation of the non-prescription variant, so it is harder to insure the proper dose and to make sure that there is no mercury contamination, doctors said.

This summer, a critical review of existing research in the British Medical Journal "cast doubt over the size of the effect of these medications" for the general population, "but still suggested that they might benefit some people as a treatment," said Dr. Roger Harrison, a co-author of the paper.

Dr. Harrison, who is currently conducting a trial on using Omega-3 acids to control abnormal heart rhythms, believes that people generally should increase their intake. But, he says, that is best done by eating more fish. The question, he said, is "Should we be going down the route of taking pills or down the route of encouraging people to change what the eat?"

Still, he acknowledges that it is difficult to eat 1 gram of Omega-3 acids a day, as is recommended in current guidelines. "If you ask me do I take Omega-3 supplements every day, then embarrassingly the answer is yes," said Dr. Harrison, a professor at Bolton Primary Care Trust of the University of Manchester in England. "I, too, am caught up in this hectic world where I have little time to shop and prepare the healthy foods I know I should be eating."

It is natural that Italy would be at the forefront of the fish-oil trend, and home to the largest clinical trials. Scientists have long noted that Mediterranean diets were healthy for the heart and theorized that the high content of broiled and baked fish might be partially responsible. But the landmark GISSI-Prevenzione trial of fish oil, conducted in Italy, was not a placebo-controlled blinded trial, meaning that patients treated with prescription fish oil pills were compared to untreated patients, rather than patients given a "dummy" pill. So, despite the impressive results, the trial did not meet U.S. Food and Drug Administrations standards for approval.

British regulators approved the pill, Omacor, at the end of 2003, for heart attack victims and most other countries in the European Union added it to their national formularies in 2004. But prescription of the drug is still highly spotty. Dr. Harrison said treatment with Omega-3 fatty acids was "not widely used" after heart attacks in Britain.

Further trials of Omacor would be needed for it to be licensed in the United States for heart attack patients, said Marylou Rowe, a spokeswoman for Reliant Pharmaceuticals, which has owned the U.S. license for the drug since late 2004.

In Europe, as in the United States, over-the-counter preparations of fish oil are sold in health food stores, but these have much less rigorous quality control and are often blends of the two fish oils know to be beneficial in heart disease, with other less useful fatty acids.

For that reason, Dr. Jacobson of Emory University gives the prescription drug, "off label" to cardiac patients even though it is not approved for that use. "Then I know exactly what they're getting, and there is no mercury," he said.

He says patients may take the over-the-counter pills, although there is uncertainty about the dose and they probably need three to four pills a day, he said.

In Europe, the GISSI group is now conducting huge trials using fish oil to control abnormal heart rhythms, as well as in patients with heart failure.

In a pilot study here in Rome at San Filipo Neri Hospital, patients undergoing bypass surgery who were pretreated with Omega-3 fatty acids had a lower incidence of arrhythmia and needed one less day in intensive care, "which is traumatic for the patient and expensive," Dr. Santini said.

[R.B.]

Thanks for posting that.

It is reading all the sort of stuff they refer to in this article and similar across a wide range of conditions that drives me to keep wittering on.

RB

[heblaj01]

Sarah's interesting post (above: titled fish oil omega 3 for the heart) has a link to the Solvay Co web site dealing with their product called Omacor in which site I learned a few more facts on Omega-3 fish oils.

In particular, I noticed that their product was directly absorbed from gut to liver. This contradicted what I knew (& posted further above in this thread) that Omega-3 fish oils (chiefly EPA & DHA long chain fatty acids) are absorbed through the lymphatic system which may have advantages in terms of increased bioavailability & half life.

As it happens Omacor is not like most common fish oil pills in the form of triacylglycerols but is a semi-synthetic ethyl ester of fish oil which is indeed absorbed through the liver.

Which one is better? I am not sure & experimental data comparing triacylglycerols & ethyl esters are few.

These points (besides bioavailability) can help in deciding:
- Omega-3 triacylglycerols are usually lower in EPA/DHA content per pill.
This means that 40% or more of pills is made of medium chain Omega 6 & 9 & perhaps small quantities undesirable pollutants in the least refined
products.

- Omega-3 ethyl esters are usually 90 to 95% EPA/DHA which leaves only 5
to 10% for other medium chain fatty acids.
Since they are first absorbed by the liver high doses may be less tolerable
especially for those having impaired liver function.

[sarah]

Great info, thanks. You and R.B.are very helpful. Once again this site is such a great source of useful and informative information.
thanks
sarah