The phrase "essential fatty acid" is puzzling to many consumers because what omega 3 fatty acid your body wants is dependent on your diet and where you live.
Technically, an essential fatty acid means that the body cannot make it. This is also true of other nutrients such as vitamin C, certain amino acids, water or oxygen. They have to be outsourced.
If you are not eating the right kind of foods, you have an omega 3 deficiency. If you live in the West, welcome to the club. Nutritionists believe that 85-90% of us have a problem in this area. The reason is that the Western diet is loaded in everything except foods containing omega 3s. Those foods would include wild ocean fish, walnuts, green vegetables and animals raised on green vegetation.
What if I eat a lot of seafood?
Here is the problem. Any omega 3 essential fatty acid has to be outsourced by the fish too. This begins in the ocean with micro algae or plankton. As we move up the food chain, larger predators accumulate heavy metals and fat-soluble pollutants like PCBs and dioxin. The more predatory fish like salmon or mackerel are also the ones with the most essential fats.
This leads us to another problem. The omega 3s found in fish oil are part of every cell membrane in the human body. It takes a while for the normal turnover of cell membrane fats to get enough omega 3s in there to do any good - about 3-to-6 months on average. You would have to eat a lot of seafood just to catch up and keep on eating it in order to keep up.
These cellular fats are not going to provide rapid symptom relief. It is a longer term solution for curing chronic conditions or preventing them from occurring in the first place. Patience is required.
In order to do this, the FDA and AHA think that around 2-3 grams of omega 3s per day is a good amount for a healthy adult. This is why most of us are using supplements. It is either unhealthy, unpractical or both to eat that much seafood.
Your next step should be continuing your research. However, be just as diligent when selecting a supplement. The quality ones are purified of the pollutants that I mentioned earlier. Check out their websites. See if they can prove their claims with independent lab reports.
After deciding on a supplement, start small and gradually increase your levels to what you feel comfortable with. Also, stay consistent. Look at this way. The phrase essential fatty acid really means necessary.
Author Resource:
Get my free five-part mini course on the benefits of omega 3, including critical information on why you should take omega3 fish oil .
To sign up for the course and get more tips on the importance of omega 3, visit my website: http://www.omega-3-guide.com/
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