Excess omega-6 actions cause financial losses
Occupational medicine experts describe costs of health care that employees and employers have every year. The top 25 most frequent health conditions are shown at the left. While employees share costs for medical and pharmacy items, employers also manage health-related losses due to absenteeism (not at work). They also have large loss from presenteeism (at work while impaired). Financial loss for these two may be 2 to 3 times more than for medical and pharmacy costs. Effective preventive nutrition advice that lowers the %n-6 in HUFA might lower the losses.
The top 10 most expensive healthcare conditions for overall financial loss are listed in the table. Most of the 25 most prevalent health conditions have excessive omega-6 actions linked to unwanted immune-inflammatory processes. They may be reduced with effective wellness programs that lower the %n-6 in HUFA. The n-6 HUFA form omega-6 eicosanoids that affect nearly every major human physiological process. Excess actions of omega-6 eicosanoids move healthy physiology toward inflammatory pathophysiology in many comorbid conditions. Such actions may be how high omega-6 intakes link to high health care costs.
Better reduction of costs may come from careful review of etiology in HUFA-based disorders and paying more attention to prevention rather than treating non-causal symptoms and signs.
Fortuately, omega-3 nutrients lower the risk of harm from omega-6 eicosanoid over-reactions. The %n-6 in HUFA and %n-3 in HUFA are useful in health risk assessment, and HUFA balance is achieved by eating functional foods that have positive Omega 3-6 Balance Scores. Recipe Repair is an activity that can lead to successful preventive nutrition. A useful tool in “repairing” recipes and meal plans is Omega Meals software.
updated February, 2020