Dietary EFA Balance Controls Tissue HUFA Balance
The Tissue is the Issue for successful health maintenance and disease prevention.
An empirical relationship predicts the likely proportion of omega-6 in tissue HUFA. It fits competitions among four separate types of essential fatty acid (EFA) in the diet. They are: 1 & 2 =18-carbon omega-3 and omega-6 PUFA; 3 & 4 = 20- and 22-carbon omega-3 and omega-6 HUFA.
Download the calculator below to see the likely impact of different dietary types of EFA. Then, ENTER different values for the four types of EFA. See how different nutrient combinations give very different HUFA proportions in body tissues. Three typical ethnic diet combinations of EFA (expressed as percent of food energy, en%) are in the columns at the right. Some ethnic groups keep a healthy tissue HUFA balance. They have moderate eicosanoid responses by eating lots of omega-3 HUFA (as do Japanese or Greenlanders). Some populations eat lower amounts of the omega-6 18-carbon acid (as do Mediterranean people). Informed Americans may want to NIX 6 as they EAT 3.
A Simple Calculator Estimates Impacts of Nutrients on HUFA Balance.
<<<<Download Calculator here (Microsoft Excel required)
Also, free interactive computerized personal food choice programs combine all of your daily food choices and predicts the resulting tissue HUFA balance that is a biomarker for essential fatty acid intake as well as a predictive biomarker for health risk assessment related to the probable intensity of an eicosanoid response.
updated June, 2017