What Do You Know About Omega 3?

What? Yes I am serious there is a good cholesterol. The reason is that it has more protein in it than t has cholesterol. Neat isn’t it? The Abbreviation stands for High Density Lipoprotein so that makes sense. But is that why it is called the good cholesterol?

Hardly.

It is good because it has more protein than cholesterol and it takes the back cholesterol away from your heart and puts it back into the liver where the bad cholesterol came from in the first place. HDL is the one cholesterol number you want to have over fifty. HDL does a good job at 50, a really great job at 60, a fantastic job at 70 and so forth. The higher, the better in other words.

How do you get that good cholesterol at and over 50?

Exercise…wait a minute I hate that word, how bout you?

Physical activity is the best way to increase your HDL. Then there are the foods called Omega 3. The more of these types of foods you put into your diet the better your chances are of improving that HDL number. So what are Omega 3 foods anyway?

First, it is important to find just where this word Omega and the number 3 came from in the first place.

They do not come from our body. We cannot make these fatty acids. If we want to receive their benefits, we have to eat them. Omega foods come in short and long versions as well. Short chain omegas are from plants and long chain omegas come from foods. Other names for the long chain of Omega 3 are called EPA (Eicosapentaenoic Acid) and DHA (Docosahexaenoic Acid). The best known of theses is fatty fish. The benefits of fatty fish to raise our good cholesterol came about during research being done on the Inuit tribe of the Arctic. Their diet consisted predominantly of cold-water fish such as tuna, salmon and mackerel. Their levels for good cholesterol (HDL) were much higher than anyone else. Of course, paleontologists have studied this phenomenon as well and found that ancient human’s brains were larger if they lived near the ocean.

The most exciting part about good cholesterol is that fact that not only will the cholesterol number concerning your heart health increase but also you will decrease your chances of Alzheimer’s, mental illness, depression and even increases your brain ability to learn and remember!

The best known is probably Flaxseed oil. Just remember the seeds themselves are poisonous so growing this plant, flax, in your backyard must be done with care and with the advice and overall supervision of an expert! Then, once you have your flaxseed oil keep it refrigerated. If you buy it, be sure whomever you buy it from also keeps it cold. It has to be taken cold and without cooking as high heat destroys all the good, you are wanting from the flaxseed oil itself. The thing that makes flaxseed the best of all the Omega 3 is the fat that it has the highest amount of Linolenic Acid (an essential fatty acid) which then turns into the EPA during digestion. Other foods with this acid include sunflower seeds, walnuts, and leafy green vegetables such as kale or spinach and of course, all the cold-water fish like albacore tuna, sardines, mackerel, anchovies and salmon.

Flaxseed oil has the highest amount at 12059 mg and just so, you get the true scoop on if your chocolate is “good” for you?

It only has 250 mg.

Big SIGH, I know, that really upset me as well!

If you get a physical once, a year and the numbers look like something written by an alien from planet X to you, here is one number you know and one you can do something to improve! Increase your physical activity (don’t you hate the word exercise and remember every bit helps, even just walking around the building you work in twice a day on your break. And of course, adding a few more of the foods to snacks and meals that will help so much!

And finally, check with your physician to see if you should be taking an Omega 3 supplement every day. That’s an easy way to get those good fatty acids, especially if sardines make your mouth get all twisted!

what do you know about omega 3 by barbara bethard is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.