Academic

OMEGA IMBALANCE produces overweight offspring? Omega-6 and omega-3, both polyunsaturated fatty ac?

By Glenn Reynolds

OMEGA IMBALANCE produces overweight offspring?

Omega-6 and omega-3, both polyunsaturated fatty acids, are each critical to good health.

But too much of the first and not enough of the second can lead to overweight offspring, the scientists showed in experiments with mice designed to mirror recent shifts in human diet.

Over the last four decades, the ratio of omega-6 to omega-3 in a typical Western diet has shifted from a healthy five-to-one to 15-to-one in much of Europe, and up to 40-to-one in the United States.

In the breast milk of American women, the average ratio has gone from six-to-one to 18-to-one.

Earlier studies have established a link between such imbalances and heart disease.

But “this is the first time that we have shown a trans-generational increase in obesity” linked to omega intake, said Gerard Ailhaud, a biochemist at the University of Nice-Sophia Antipolis and main architect of the study.

“Omega six is like a fat-producing bomb,” he told AFP by phone.

Uh oh.

Full post as published by Instapundit.com on July 17, 2010 (boomark / email).