By Olive Curran
More good fats, less bad fats
Many years ago, two Danish physicians working in Greenland noticed that the Eskimos seemed practically immune to heart disease – in fact, they didn’t have a phrase for “heart attack” in their vocabulary. Considering the Eskimos’ high fat diet, this struck the doctors as intriguing enough to investigate further, and they discovered that the Eskimos’ diet was rich in particularly beneficial fatty acids – omega-3 fatty acids: eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA). The Eskimos’ Diet included alot of oily fish such as mackerel, trout, herring, sardines, tuna and salmon, which contain valuable omega-3 fats EPA and DHA.
Since we now eat less fish than people did in the past, some doctors believe that many people in Europe and the USA have a deficiency of Omega-3 fatty acids in our cells. Conversely, the Japanese and Greenland Eskimos consumption of Omega-3 fatty acids is very high.
According to Professor Tom Saldeen, Department of Medicine, Uppsala University, people consume 30% more Omega-6 and 80% less Omega-3 compared to consumption of these fats 80 years ago, possibly due to the high consumption of vegetable oils.
Having published over 400 papers, Tom set about formulating a fish oil that could be used as a daily supplement to incorporate omega-3 into our diets. After years of painstaking research, the now popular Eskimo-3 fish oil was born.
