Talk:Omega-3 fatty acid

Mayo Clinic

This might be helpful:

http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/fish-oil/NS_patient-fishoil/DSECTION=evidence

Contradictory statements?

In the section The n−6 to n−3 ratio:

Metabolites of n−6 are more inflammatory (second paragraph)

n-6 fatty acids also reduce inflammation (last sentence)

Which one is true?

— Preceding unsigned comment added by 188.143.26.96 (talk) 14:48, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

Factual Error

According to many literature and scholary sources, Omega 6 can be either pro -inflammtory or inflammatory.http://www.Livehealthytoday.org/pages/omega-fattyacids.phpLeo04 16:01, 18 November 2011 (UTC)

This page claims that olive oil has a 3:13.1 ratio of omega-6 to omega-3 fatty acids. Would that this were true! The page nutritiondata.self.com/facts/fats-and-oils/509/2 shows that a tablespoon of olive oil has 103 mg of omega-3 and 1318 mg of omega-6 fatty acid.

The site http://www.oliveoilsource.com/definition/omega-3-and-omega-6-fatty acids states that olive oil has an average 10:1 ration of omega-6 to omega-3.

The British sports website http://www.pponline.co.uk/encyc/omega-3-omega-6.html says that olive oil is devoid of omega-3 and very low in omega-6, making it a very poor source of essential fatty acids.

A table of fat components on the University of California at San Diego web page http://math.ucsd.edu/~ebender/Health%20&%20Nutrition/Nutrition/oil_good.html agrees with this evaluation, showing zero omega-3 to just one omega-6. It’s not clear why the math department is discussing nutrition, but it’s reasonable to assume they have their ratios going the right direction.

All of this suggests that this Wikipedia page may have reversed the values in the ratio for olive oil. If so, this particular error is not consistent, because the UCSD table lists the omega-3 to omega-6 ratio for canola oil as 1:3, and this Wikipedia article shows it as 1:7. This is may be a significant difference, but at least it goes in the right direction.

The problem may stem from the fact that the author is inconsistent in which fatty acid is given first in the references to ratios, and simply got the two confused in this one instance. I don’t have the time or inclination to go into it any further than this, so I hope the original author or someone else will do so.

Elaeo (talk) 07:07, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

Error: Omega-3 fats are not essential, ALA is

I'm not knowledgeable in this area, so I'm noting here the sentence I removed from the intro:

Essential fatty acids are molecules that cannot be created by the human body but are vital for normal metabolism. One of the two families of these essential fatty acids is the omega-3 fatty acids.

And what I put in it's place:

The omega-3 fatty acids are "essential" fatty acids because they are vital for normal metabolism and cannot be synthesised by the human body. More precisely, ALA cannot be synthesised by the human body at all, and the other omega-3 fatty acids can only be synthesised from ALA.

I'm quite sure that's correct. The difference is important because consuming EPA and DHA won't ward off metabolism problems. That's because there is no general requirement for omega-3. Omega-3 isn't essential. There is a requirement for ALA. If you consume just ALA, you can have normal metabolism. Gronky (talk) 03:25, 14 December 2011 (UTC)