Island Life Magazine Ltd October/November 2016 | Page 84
Fashion, health & beauty
Omega 3 oil &
your health
James Spence from James Spence & Colleagues Dental
Surgery, Ryde, discusses Omega 3 oil and your health
In this article I had
intended to look at sugar,
and the damage it can do,
but at the end of August
many readers will have
read in the national press
about the Mediterranean
diet and how in a major
Italian study it was shown
to offer a 37 per cent
reduction in heart disease
fatalities.
Omega 3, which was only
discovered in 1930, is a main
constituent of several oils. In the
chart adjacent it is represented in
green, and as it is essential for our
health it is called an Essential Fatty
Acid (EFA).
Rapeseed oil is high in Omega
3 which you may know of as fish
oil. When made available to our
bodies Omega 3 components are
used to build and support elastic
and flexible cell membranes.
It seems that the rape crop in
the UK became popular partly
due to political agricultural policy
and while, in the case of intensive
rapeseed growing, this has caused
some environmental problems
with pesticides and the likelihood
of bee health being damaged by
them, it has offered us a health
gain in the quality of vegetable
oil produced and sold in the
shops. (The bee health matter is
being dealt with by a ban on the
pesticide of concern.)
Omega ratios are considered
important
There is a substantial and growing
body of evidence that a ratio of four
parts Omega 6 to one Omega 3 is
the maximum that humans should
consume, and that in populations
with a higher ratio eg; USA which
has a typical diet with an Omega
6:3 ratio of 20:1, there is more heart
disease leading to both surgery and
to earlier death, whereas in France
which has a more ideal Omega
6:3 ratio their experience of heart
disease is much lower despite a still
high animal fat intake.
61% unsaturated
75% unsaturated
16% unsaturated
As you see from the figures in
16% unsaturated
Constituents in various oils by percentage
The balance is unsaturated or saturated
84
www.visitilife.com
Oct/Nov 2016_MASTER NEW.indd 84
14/10/2016 14:39