157. Preventing Disease: The Critical Role of Omega 3 and Omega 6 Balance

In this insightful episode of Limitless Healing with Colette Brown, Colette shares her personal journey of overcoming chronic illness and dives deep into the importance of maintaining a balanced ratio of Omega 3 to Omega 6 fatty acids for optimal health.

Drawing from her own experiences and extensive research, Colette explains how modern diets have disrupted this crucial balance, leading to increased inflammation and the onset of various chronic diseases.

Colette reveals the essential role that diet plays in achieving this balance, offering practical advice on how to reduce Omega 6 intake and increase Omega 3 consumption through specific food choices.

Whether you're looking to improve heart health, reduce inflammation, or simply learn more about the science behind these essential fatty acids, this episode is packed with actionable insights.

Key Takeaways:

Personal Health Journey: Colette shares her story of being chronically sick for over 20 years and how she discovered the importance of sleep, mindfulness, and diet in her healing process.
 
Understanding Omega 3 & Omega 6: Learn why both Omega 3 and Omega 6 fatty acids are essential for health, but why the balance between them is critical.

Modern Diet Imbalance: Discover how Western diets have dramatically skewed the Omega 6 to Omega 3 ratio, sometimes as high as 30:1, leading to chronic inflammation.

Impact of Inflammation: Understand how an excess of Omega 6 can prompt inflammation, contributing to diseases like diabetes, arthritis, and heart disease.

Ideal Ratio: The optimal Omega 6 to Omega 3 ratio is 1:1 or 3:1. Colette provides tips on how to achieve this balance through dietary changes.

Top Omega 3 Foods: Explore the best sources of Omega 3, including fatty fish (salmon, mackerel, sardines), algae oil, flax seeds, chia seeds, and pasture-raised eggs.

Omega 6 Foods to Avoid: Identify common sources of Omega 6, such as vegetable oils (soybean, corn, sunflower) and processed foods, and learn how to minimize their intake.

Practical Tips: Get actionable advice on replacing unhealthy oils with alternatives like avocado, olive, and coconut oils, and the importance of budgeting for high-quality ingredients.

For more tips and updates, follow Colette on social media and join her community of health-conscious listeners. Remember, your health is your greatest wealth. Until next time, be well!

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Connect with Colette:

Instagram: @wellnessbycolette

Website: love-colette.com

Thank you for listening to the Limitless Healing podcast with Colette Brown! It would mean the world if you would take one minute to follow, leave a 5 star review and share with those you love!

In Health,
Colette

Transcript

[00:00:00] Colette Brown: Today, I want to share a little history about myself. For those of you who don't know, I was chronically sick for over 20 years. It started in childhood being on a seemingly constant dose of antibiotics. I constantly had strep throat tonsillitis and would take penicillin to make this go away. Years later, I realized that my body requires a certain amount of sleep and as a child, I wasn't getting the proper amount of sleep that I needed and therefore was chronically sick.

[00:00:34] So as I learned about 10 years ago, what it was in my body that needed to be repaired, I started examining all sorts of things in my life. From relationships to lifestyle to sleep habits, exercise, mindfulness, journaling, everything. I started taking a deep dive and one of the things that I learned that has really come to the forefront is our food is so important.

[00:01:05] Everything else is important to equally important. And if you're doing all the things. And you're still eating not so well, you are not going to have the best outcomes. So in the foods that I learned to eat, which were non inflammatory, I learned to be very disciplined in what is going in my body. And years later, I understood that there's something called the omega 3 to omega 6 balance.

[00:01:34] Colette Brown: And within us. We need to be about a three to one or a one to one ratio. And I find in my conversations that people don't often know about it. So I thought that I would just share a little bit with you today about the omega three and omega sixes and why they're important to us. So omega three and omega six fatty acids are both essential.

[00:02:02] Meaning that our bodies cannot produce them. So we need to go get them from our diet. And both play a crucial role in our health, but the balance between the two is key. historically humans evolved on a diet with a roughly equal ratio of omega 6. to omega 3 or even slightly higher in omega 3s. However, modern diets, especially western societies have tilted this balance heavily in favor omega 6 and sometimes by as much as 15 to 1 or some calculations say 30 to one.

[00:02:40] This imbalance is problematic because omega six and three compete for the same enzymes to be converted into signaling molecules in the body. When we consume an excess omega six, it can prompt inflammation, which is the root of all disease, diabetes, arthritis, heart disease, you name it. It's at the base of it.

[00:03:04] On the other hand, omega 3, they're anti inflammatory, and they help to reduce inflammation and promote overall heart health, brain function, and more. What is the ideal ratio? Most research points to a one to one ratio. ratio or a three to one at the most. So three Omega six to one Omega three, ideally one to one to achieve this.

[00:03:30] It's not just about increasing the Omega three intake, but also about reducing the Omega six consumption. Just to give you a baseline, two pieces of bread contain All of the omega sixes that you need within one day. So if you add onto that other pre processed foods, other grains, oats, extremely high in omega six for all of those of you who think that you're getting away from milk and dairy and using oat in your coffee every day, this is a problem because it's very high in omega six.

[00:04:08] Let's talk about foods that are high in omega 3, fatty fish like salmon, mackerel, and sardines are excellent sources, along with other fish such as trout. anchovies, shellfish like oysters, mussels, and shrimp contain high omega 3s. If you're looking for plant based sources, algae oil, which is derived from algae, is a rich in DHA and a great option, especially for vegetarians or vegans.

[00:04:37] Seeds like flax seeds, chia seeds, and hemp seeds are also good choices as are walnuts. And just so you know, on the nut front. Almonds are about a 2000 to one ratio, omega six to three. So other types of nuts are going to be high and sixes and will create inflammation in the body. So when you're consuming nuts, please do that in moderation and understand what that ratio is and what you're eating for something a bit different.

[00:05:05] certain leafy greens like green spinach and kale, along with seaweed varieties such as nori or wakame provide small amounts of omega 3s. You can also find omega 3s in pasture raised eggs

[00:05:20] and grass fed meat, which have higher levels compared to conventional options. Another topic I'll get into on another podcast episode is organic regenerative farming. And they found that products that come out, produce, cattle, all have higher levels of omega 3. So including a variety of these foods can help you increase your omega 3 intake and work towards a healthier, Omega 6 to omega 3 ratio, reducing omega 6 rich vegetable oils like soybean, corn, sunflower oil, which are all common in processed foods is also a key in achieving better balance in your diet.

[00:06:06] when considering a vegetable source. Or an animal source. It's important to remember that the plant sources provide omega 3 in the form of ALA, or linolenic acid, which isn't readily used by the body as EPA and DHA that is found in fish.

[00:06:25] On the flip side. Omega 6s are found in high amounts of vegetable oils, like soybean, corn, sunflower, vegetable, which are ubiquitous in processed foods. Please remove these oils if they are in your kitchen as much as possible. I would not have them at home because it is guaranteed that if you eat out at all or you're eating processed foods, you're getting all of these all the time in your diet anyway.

[00:06:54] replace all of these oils with other oils, such as avocado, olive oil, and coconut oil. And when you're cooking at high temperatures, I recommend a well sourced avocado oil Olive oils are not good at high temperatures and also seed oils. When you cook with them, they oxidize rapidly, and this creates free radical damage in the body.

[00:07:20] And that's very toxic for us. Some people have told me that they don't use different oils because of the cost, but I. Would ask you what's more important paying a few pennies more for a well sourced oil and Not your health later or saving a few pennies today and compromising your health in the future.

[00:07:44] Most people will spend on Starbucks or other splurges. And if you're on a true strict budget, these are little things that you can do to cut out and reinvest in your health, get well sourced oils. You can also find them. If you're living domestic at a store such as Costco, and you can buy these in bulk.

[00:08:04] And sometimes they are the same price as a tiny bottle in a grocery store. And I'm saying this to say that there's always ways that we can do better for ourselves and budget for it if you need to, but have the end goal of your health. in the forefront of your decision making.

[00:08:24] So ifit's your sleep, it's your exercise. Some people tell me, I just don't want to, sometimes we just have to do grit and we have to push through and do it anyway. So what are you willing to do for your health? What compromises are you willing to make for a better you in the future.

[00:08:47] I'd love to hear from you. I hope this information helped and wishing all of you lots of love and until next time be well.