These Fatty Acids Will Add Five Years To Your Life
Four specific fatty acids can serve as markers for a longer life expectancy. You should therefore ensure you have a good supply of these four fatty acids. This extends their lifespan by five years.
Increase omega-3 levels and live longer
Your blood omega-3 levels are a good marker of your life expectancy, as researchers from various Spanish, US, and Canadian universities and institutes have found. Their study, where they used the data from the well-known Framingham Offspring Study (from 2,240 people), was published in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition in June 2021. So if you want to live as long as possible (healthily) you should increase your omega-3 level — at least if it is currently too low.
Omega-3 fatty acids are essential fatty acids. Essential means that the fatty acids have to be taken in regularly with food. The essential omega-3 fatty acids include the short-chain alpha-linolenic acid in plant-based foods (flax seeds, hemp seeds, walnuts), but also the long-chain omega-3 fatty acids, which are abbreviated to EPA and DHA (for eicosapentaenoic acid and docosahexaenoic acid) and themselves mainly found in foods of animal origin (mainly in fatty fish), but also in algae.
High omega-3 levels add five years to your life
“Those who have higher omega-3 levels can expect life expectancy to be five years longer. Those who smoke regularly, on the other hand, lose 4.7 years of life,” says Dr. Aleix Sala-Vila from IMAM (L’Institut Hospital del Mar d’Investigacions Mèdiques) in Barcelona, Spain, and author of the study. The omega-3 level is thus a good indicator of life expectancy as is the smoking status of a person — only in the opposite direction.
The most important results of the study are therefore:
· Those who have a good supply of omega-3 fatty acids and who do not smoke can therefore live to be five years older.
· Anyone who is well supplied with omega-3 fatty acids but smokes will not experience an extension of the lifespan, as the years of life gained are lost again through smoking.
· If you have a low omega-3 level and smoke at the same time, you have to expect a shortening of the life span by almost 5 years.
Saturated fatty acids also extend life
Overall, the study showed four fatty acids as markers for a longer life expectancy or a lower risk of death. Including two omega-3 fatty acids (EPA and DHA), but interestingly also two saturated fatty acids (myristic acid and behenic acid). Saturated fatty acids in particular are generally associated with an increased cardiovascular risk, but this is not the case for every saturated fatty acid, as various earlier studies and the present study show.
Myristic acid is a long-chain saturated fatty acid and is found in coconut oil, for example (20 percent of coconut oil consists of myristic acid). The behenic acid is only slightly absorbed through food (peanut oil, for example, consists of 1 to 5 percent behenic acid). Rather, it arises in the body itself during metabolism.
Omega 3 algae oil vegan
According to Dr. Sala-Vila, these two saturated fatty acids cannot increase the levels as easily through diet or food supplements as the two omega-3 fatty acids.
It’s never too late to change your diet!
Even small changes in diet — such as increasing the intake of certain fatty acids — can have significantly more far-reaching effects than we think, emphasizes Dr. Sala Vila. It is also never too late to implement these changes. Here you will find the rules of a healthy diet, in case you want to change your diet right now.
The American Heart Association recommends eating high-fat fish such as salmon, anchovies (anchovies), or sardines twice a week for omega-3 fatty acids. The German, Austrian, and Swiss societies for nutrition take a very similar view. However, such a recommendation is completely out of date nowadays, as you will find out in our article on mercury pollution in fish.
These omega-3 fatty acids are important!
Since fish is not a suitable source of omega-3, we recommend supplementing it with algae oils, e.g. in practical capsules, like the Omega-3 Forte algae oil capsules from Effective Nature, which provide 500 mg DHA and 300 mg EPA daily. A study from 2010 also showed that vegetarians and vegans are well supplied with omega-3 fatty acids so you can get enough omega-3 fatty acids even without fish.
If you also use coconut or peanut oil for high heating in the future, you will also be well supplied with the two saturated fatty acids: myristic acid and behenic acid.
