We know the brain is about 60% fats so when someone calls you a "fat head" that literally is the truth. The question is, what fats are you feeding your fat head? Omega 3 fatty fish oil, or Omega 3 seed oil? Omega 3 fish oils are known as PUFA's (polyunsaturated fatty acids), the beneficial kind as opposed to the harmful trans fats and saturated fats known as seed oils. With an American diet laced in seed oils, it isn't just our hearts that are suffering, our fatty heads are, too.
The research today overwhelmingly shows when our fatty acid intake tips the scale in favor of Omega 3 seed oil rather than essential EPA and DHA from fish oil, in simple layman's terms, the brain is being fed the wrong fat and it becomes clogged. Without having a medical background to make sense of it all, one thing seems fairly certain. Our brains are affected by everything we put in our bodies. And as research now shows, this leads to depression, attention deficit disorders in our children, increasing cases of Alzheimer's, and this week's most disturbing news, reported cases of Alzheimer's in 20 year olds.
America, we have an enormous problem begging for our attention. The latest statistic is ten million prescriptions are being written every year for antidepressants for kids between the ages of one and 17. In epidemiological studies across countries where fish oil is consumed in greater abundance, there's a 50-fold lower rate of major depression in those countries. There is a 30-fold lower rate of homicides and a 50-fold lower rate of postpartum depression. This is not a coincidence. Omega 3 fatty fish oil is that crucial to our brain. And Omega 3 seed oil that damaging. For pregnant women, this is of utmost importance.
My favorite Omega 3 expert, Dr. Joseph Hibbeln, stated " it's critically vital for the baby's developing brain to have the right amounts of Omega 3 fatty acids and other nutrients. You get one chance to sort of lay down the highways of the brain and lay down the nervous system and the nervous track and you need to lay it down the right way at the right time. You don't want to be pregnant and have a child who's in a state of nutritional deficiency."
For a country rich in so many things as America is, it sure takes a long time for us to get to the bottom of things, conclusively, but of this I'm sure. We have to begin taking into consideration that when we feed our bodies, we're also feeding our brains, or as the case seems to be, depriving them.
by Lois Smithers
