Fish Oil And Heart Health

The mention of the words oils and fats tends to raise concerns in the minds of health-conscious individuals. What they fail to realize is that there are good fats and bad fats. Complete avoidance of the intake of oils and fats would be a disadvantage to their health rather than yielding good health benefits. It is important to include essential fatty acids in our daily diet. We deprive the body of positive health outcomes whenever they are excluded from our diets. Essential fatty acids are divided into two families: omega-6 EFAs and omega-3 EFAS.

Omega-6 vs. Omega-3

Although there are only very slight differences to distinguish the two groups of essential fatty acids from each other, studies have shown that too much intake of omega-6 EFAs can lead to inflammation, blood clotting and tumor growth. However, the opposite is true for omega-3 EFAs.

Omega-3 EFAs are said to yield positive health outcomes and can be found in fish oils, walnut, and flaxseed oils among others. On the other hand, Omega-6 EFAs can be found in vegetable oil, and these sources of vegetable oils are corn oil and soy oil, both of which contains high amounts of linoleic acid. It should be significant to take note that fatty fish and fish oils contain eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA), fatty acids that have been observed to provide many benefits to the human body.

The two essential fatty acids, EPA and DHA, are also helpful in preventing atherosclerosis, heart attacks, depression and various forms of cancer, and reducing blood cholesterol levels. Fish oil supplemented food have also proven to be useful in treating illnesses like rheumatoid arthritis, diabetes, Raynaud’s disease and ulcerative colitis.

The heart is inarguably one of the most important parts of our body and having an unhealthy heart means having to suffer a rather limited lifespan. Naturally, it’s in our best interests to keep our hearts happy and healthy and one way of doing that is eating food that contains fish oil.