Why Omega-6 Fats Matter to Your Health
Evelyn Tribole has a useful link to a video from a Military Conference.
BottomLine: Why Do Omega-6 Fats Matter for Health and Disease Prevention? Find out from pioneer scientist, Bill Lands, PhD.
Background:
Learn how most chronic diseases could be prevented by lowering omega-6 fats in the diet and why supplementing with fish oil and omega-3 fats is not enough.

Scientist, Bill Lands, PhD, cuts to the chase, and provides compelling reasons Americans need to re-think what constitutes a healthy diet. His engaging presentation was delivered at the National Institute's of Health two-day conference on omega-3 fats on October 14, 2009. What follows is a 37-minute video of his talk, slides, handouts and resource materials. Special thanks to Dr. Lands for graciously provided the slides used in his talk.

Bill Lands Video

Bill Lands Slides for those who just want to skim through the info

Really nice find ! thanks ....

Thank you, I was looking for something like this!

ETA -- this is a must watch.....he is very engaging.

Thanks again Hutch. I also agree that this is a must watch video.

Bo

It's probably almost as important as the vitamin D story.

Fish oil supplementation inhibits NNK-induced lung carcinogenesis in the A/J mouse.
High intake of fish oil with a low omega-6 (n-6)/omega-3 (n-3) polyunsaturated fatty acid (PUFA) ratio has been suggested to protect against many chronic diseases.

However, the effect of different ratios of dietary n-6 and n-3 PUFA on lung tumorigenesis has not been investigated.

In this study, we examined the effect of a 4 mo dietary supplementation with corn oil (with a high n-6/n-3 ratio) and fish oil (with a low n-6/n-3 ratio) as compared with soybean oil (isocaloric control with the same n-6/n-3 ratio as the base diet) on tumor incidence and tumor prevalence in the A/J mouse model of 4-(methylnitrosamino)-1-(3-pyridyl)-1-butanone (NNK)-induced lung carcinogenesis.

We found that dietary supplementation had no effect on overall lung tumor incidence, but fish oil supplementation was able to decrease lung tumor prevalence by 78% and 80% compared to groups receiving soybean oil and corn oil supplementation, respectively.

The inhibitory effect of fish oil on lung tumor prevalence was associated with increased expressions of cell cycle inhibitor p21Cip1 and lipoxygenase isoform 15-LOX in the lungs.

These data suggest that fish oil with a low ratio of n-6/n-3 PUFA could be beneficial in the prevention of lung carcinogenesis

Full text paper at link bear in mind lowering omega 6 to below 4% of calories will save on the need for higher strength omega 3's.

So where's the grass fed beef?

I did make the point earlier that lowering omega 6's reduced the need for fish oil supplementing.
In the same way that mice fed fish oil (high omega 3) have 80% less cancer, we see mice fed grass fed beef don't get liver disease and were considerably healthier than the others fed on feedlot beef because of the higher levels of omega 3 fatty acids and lower omega 6.

Thanks for the links. I found watching the video on one window and thaving the notes on another window allowed easier understanding of the content.

I was wondering about Dr. Bill Lands - what had he done to put him in the position to give this lecture.

From Wikipedia:

William E.M. Lands (born July 22, 1930) is an American nutritional biochemist who is the world's foremost authority on essential fatty acids. Lands graduated from University of Michigan in 1951 and served on the faculty there from 1955 to 1980. He then moved to University of Illinois (1980-1990) and subsequently the National Institutes of Health (1990-2002), where he served as the Senior Scientific Advisor to the Director of the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. Lands is credited for discovering the beneficial effects of balancing the effects of excess omega-6 fatty acids with dietary omega-3 fatty acids. The effect of essential fatty acids on formation of hormones is documented in his book, "Fish, Omega-3 and Human Health." University of Michigan's Department of Biological Chemistry endowed a Lectureship in honor of William E.M. Lands.

So, he is the key man behind the Omega6/Omega3 ratio.

Thanks, I'll probably do a bit more reading and research and then revisit the lecture. I'm sure I missed significant findings.

So what's a good strategy for lowering your consumption of omega 6

Very informative. That resolves that. What of total PUFAs in the diet (which includes omega 3)? Is there such a thing as too much overall omega3 with omega 6 intake?

Still, come to think of it, I know a lot of people who scoop down PUFA in their diet alone with chips and meet the upper limit per day just on that. Then they go and have french fries and sugary sodas.

Limit back consumption of grain fed fat from animals (or intake beef, which isn't excessively high in PUFA). Replace them with better alternatives, such as coconut oil or grass fed fat.
-Replacing some fat with fish oil, like cod liver oil.
-Eat more saturated fats. Learn to love them.

Or just up your carbs to replace fat.

(that last one was just a little humor, as terrible an act it may seem, heh)

Dr. Bill Lands described in his talk an Omega3/6 tracker linked to a database of foods. It is a 32 MByte download at:

http://efaeducation.nih.gov/sig/kim2_pc.zip

I've downloaded it, but not installed it. Hope it lives up to the images in the presentation. The things illustrated in the lecture were that soy and canola oils are loaded with Omega 6 compared to Omega 3. Also, chicken breast was astonishingly high in Omega 6/omega 3 ratio. But, chickens are "corn" animals, and corn oil is high in Omega 6/Omega 3.

There is at least one book on high Omega3 diets.

The download comes from NIH.

Indeed and one of the troubles with dietary research is that the researchers tend not to distinguish between the nature of the fats they provide in a "HIGH FAT" diet.
I expect this has been covered here elsewhere but I've just found it.
High fat diet increases inflammation in the mouse colon
But when you read the full text you find the "Western Diet" was a 20% corn oil.
In the discussion they say The WD is rich in linoleic acid, which is converted to arachidonic acid and can be metabolized by cyclooxygenases and lipoxygenases to eiconsanoids such as the proinflammatory and procarcinogenic prostaglandin E2.

They go on to say
"Effects of dietary fat intake could not be distinguished from that of energy intake by the WD. However, equal caloric WD feeding still increased tumor formation "
So was it the "High Omega 6 Fat" content or the inflammatory nature of corn oil when eaten together with a high carbohydrate diet.

Maybe we should try sardines served on spinach leaves for breakfast!

I downloaded the Kim2 software and didn't like using it. I might have to spend more time. Peanuts are one of my favorite foods. Grrrrr. What's a good substitute for peanuts.

It is worst than not enough. Omega 3 supplements are nearly worthless when it comes to correcting this ratio. I am not even bothering to take Omega3 fish oil anymore. I just replaced all vegetable oils (except coconut) with animal ones. Problem fixed for real.

Patrick