Omega Supplements and Body Weight

There are two types of polyunsaturated fats that are essential to your health and must come from your diet: omega-6 and omega-3.

Both types are required by our bodies and both are found in large amounts in our brains. Omega-3 polyunsaturated fats are unquestionably beneficial, because they reduce both weight and inflammation and are very critical to healthy brain function.

However, while our bodies do require some omega-6, the excessive amount in the average American's diet has been shown to increase appetite and weight, and also promote inflammation in your body tissues. Extraordinarily heavy dose of omega-6 is not good for us, inflammation plays a critical role in coronary disease.

What is it about the modern diet that's leading you to eat too much omega-6? Like omega-3, omega-6 fats occur naturally in small amounts in plants and in the meat of animals that eat plants, while nuts and seeds tend to have more omega-3. The problem for us today is that there is more than 20 times as much omega-6 as omega-3 in the our diet.

The culprit? Industrially processed vegetable oils, like corn and soybean oils, which according to Lassek, are added to most prepared foods. A problem arises when the balance of omega-6 to omega-3 fatty acids is off. Omega-6 is easily found in the standard diet, while omega-3 is not. Our body needs a ratio of 1:1 omega-6 to omega-3, but the typical of us consumes at least 15 times as much omega-6 as omega-3.