The key to a long life: eat more “good” fats

Not all fat is bad for us. As these tips will show, "good" fats found in Omega-3 fatty acids are essential to our health.

What you eat can affect the levels of inflammation in your body. Research shows that even a regular-size fast-food breakfast (egg and sausage on an English muffin plus fried potatoes) quickly floods the bloodstream with inflammatory compounds and keeps levels high for the next three hours. If you have a fast-food meal for lunch as well, you start the cycle all over again, keeping inflammation fired up indefinitely.

An equally dangerous eating problem is that most modern humans no longer eat a healthy combination of two important fats — omega-3 fatty acids and omega-6 fatty acids. We need both for healthy brain function. But while two important omega-3s — eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) — reduce inflammation and prevent chronic health problems like heart disease and arthritis, omega-6s tend to increase inflammation. The modern dilemma: While early humans ate a good balance of these two fats — about four to five times more omega-6s than omega-3s — today we eat 11 to 30 times more omega-6s. Why? In part because we eat lots of processed foods, often dripping with corn, sunflower, and soybean oil, all top sources of omega-6s. We eat grain-fed beef and poultry instead of free-range meats (grass-fed animals have more omega-3s in their fat stores). Just as dangerous is skimping on good fats — the omega-3 fatty acids found in cold-water fish such as salmon as well as in canola oil, olive oil, and nuts — which can also promote inflammation.

Rebalance your fat portfolio by eating more fish, more nuts, and more good-for-you oils.

The immediate benefits:

• Getting more good fats could help ease arthritis pain, relieve asthma, lessen symptoms of eczema and psoriasis, and even cut your risk of depression.
• When Ohio State University psychologists compared levels of depression and levels of omega-3s and omega-6s in the bloodstreams of 43 older women and men, they found that those who were the most depressed had 18 times more omega-6s than omega-3s.
• Those who weren't depressed had 13 times more.

The long-term benefits?

• Good fats may cut your risk of dangerous heart arrhythmias (out-of-sync heartbeats that can lead to a heart attack), high blood pressure, stroke, cancer, diabetes, and even Alzheimer's disease.