Fish oil sounds gross!

Nutrition for me became a series of small, smart additions to my diet. I knew that if I wanted the prolonged benefits of a healthy diet, I could not start with any of the fads just promising fast weight loss. I needed to make changes that I could keep for the rest of my life, which hopefully will be a long time! My first good choice was to start taking Omega 3 fish oils daily. It was easy and not expensive.

Inflammation
Omega 3's promote the anti-inflammatory cascade and inhibit dietary inflammation. When inflammation is detected, the body sends its defenses to heal. Ultimately, if healing doesn't take place and the inflammation is chronic, the body needs to wall off the troubled area with - you guessed it - calcium! This is a major reason that blood vessels build plaque. The calcium hardens the vessel wall and begins to encroach the space, making blood flow in these areas more difficult. When there are many areas of chronic inflammation, the heart will have to work harder, hence a spike in blood pressure. Will taking a drug to thin the blood help? Probably, but this will NEVER address the cause.

Why such a rise in heart disease?
The opposite of omega 3 is omega 6, and these fats are pro-inflammatory. In 1900 the typical diet had an omega 3 to omega 6 ratio of about 4:1. The ideal is somewhere around 5:1. In the 1970's this ration was close to 1:1. The estimate now is 1:24, or 1 good to 24 bad. Processed and fast food are largely to blame for this rise. I bet you've heard that diet is largely to blame for a rise in heart disease, but have you heard why? Omega 3 oils will help to off-set this disparity, but we must also cut back on the pro-inlammatory, omega 6 containing foods.

Good Fat? Really?
What does fat do for our bodies? Most importantly, every cell in our body has what is called a lipid bi-layer membrane. This is where most of our fat goes - in making cell membranes for the new cells that we are creating every day. If we don't have the right building blocks for these membranes, the body will substitute with something inferior. We also use fat for most of our hormones. We NEED good fat, but it is scarce with the diets that we have today. Taking a few capsules of omega 3 oils per day is a great way to arm your body with correct ingredients to promote health.