There is a great deal of research lately on the importance of essential fatty acids. Supplementing your diet with these substances can improve your overall health, as well as improving your ability to fight off certain diseases. Research shows that your body composition, as well as how well you can perform mentally and physically, is affected by the levels of essential fatty acids in your body.
Besides having a physiological effect on your body, EFAs can also make a difference in how hard you can train, how well you recover, how easily you are injured, and how quickly you build up muscle and lose fat, though the effective doses for these effects are often a lot higher than the RDA (recommended daily allowance) for these nutrients.
You need to have a certain amount of fat in your diet in order to stay healthy. Without fat in your diet you can’t absorb, transport, or store the vitamins A, D, E, and K, which are fat soluble. These vitamins are important because they are necessary in order for the body to be able to make certain parts of cells and certain hormones.
While it is important to get a little bit of each of the different types of fat in your diet, there is one type of fat that is essential to your survival. The body cannot make essential fatty acids (EFAs) on its own. These fatty acids include two different types, linoleic acids (also known as omega 6 fatty acids) such as GLA and alpha-linolenic acids (also known as omega 3 fatty acids) such as EPA and DHA. All other types of fatty acids can be made by the body from carbohydrates, fats, and protein, but the omega 3 and omega 6 fatty acids have a double bond that the human body cannot create since it is too far from the delta end of the carbon chain.
These essential fatty acids are important because they determine how cell membranes are composed and can affect inflammation in the body. Because Omega 3 fatty acids (which are found in fish oil and flax seed oil) can minimize inflammation, it is thought that they will improve the health of people suffering from inflammatory diseases such as diabetes, arthritis, autoimmune disorders, cancers, inflammatory bowel disease, and other conditions associated with aging. Other conditions in which these fatty acids are thought to be helpful include heart disease and depression.
Omega 3 fatty acids are also thought to be able to minimise the breakdown of muscle. This is helpful for those who are trying to add more muscle, as well as those who are looking to improve their exercise performance. Fish oils are thought to have some anti-catabolic properties, which is another way that exercise performance can be improved. Lactic acid is one of the end products of catabolic processes that causes pain during and after exercise, and by minimising the production of these end products it is likely people will be able to do better at reaching their exercise goals.
The essential fatty acids found in fish oil are thought to be able to increase fat loss and cause fat to be used more often as the main energy source, as well as making you more sensitive to insulin. This means that there might be benefits from taking fish oil for those who want to lose fat and weight in general.
Some of the essential fatty acids, including DHA, EPA and LNA have been shown to increase the breakdown of fat that is stored in the body as well as making it less likely that the body will store less additional fat. This is where the real weight loss benefits come in.
Another fatty acid that is important to your health is gamma linolenic acid (GLA). This fatty acid can help to suppress inflammation, both the acute and chronic types, and also lessens the body’s response to stress and anxiety. It works together with some of the essential fatty acids in order to do this.
The body uses GLA to make Prostaglandins, which are like hormones that regulate the immune system, the menstrual cycle, and circulation. They help to keep hormones balanced and keep cell growth at an optimum level.
Conjugated linoleic acid (CLA) is another fatty acid which is very beneficial. You can find this fatty acid in dairy products that have been through heat treatment and in meat. It is thought that this substance might be an anti carcinogen, as well as having strong antioxidant activity and being able to keep inflammation down.
For those concerned with body composition, CLA seems to be able to help change body composition so that people have more lean muscle mass and less body fat. It does this through making it harder for fat cells to add fat from the bloodstream and keeping new fat cells from forming. It also makes it so that cells can burn fat faster while still keeping muscle intact. The actions of CLA make it so that not only is fat loss increased, the formation of new fat is decreased. This means that it makes it easier to lose weight and keep it off.
In conclusion, essential fatty acids and some of the other types of fatty acids can make a big difference to you health, as well as your body composition and training. Although it is always best to get as much of your essential nutrients through your food as possible, it might be wise to take supplements containing the essential fatty acids in order to increase your levels of these nutrients.