Lately the health press has featured articles on avoiding fats in order to insure a healthy cardiovascular system. We have been warned about consuming too much animal fat in our diet, in order to avoid cardiovascular disease. Unfortunately the details about the dangerous fats are often not spelled out in detail. It turns out that we need a balance in our diet of two types of fatty acids known as the omega fatty acids. We need both the omega-6 and the omega-3 fatty acids in our diet, but we need to have the right proportions of both to promote cardiovascular health. The omega-6 fatty acids in our diet come mainly from commercial vegetable oils such as corn, soy and sunflower oils. The omega-3 fatty acids are found in fish and in plant sources such as walnuts, flax seed, and chia seed.
A goal for good cardiovascular health would require a ratio of omega-6 to omega-3 of around 4:1. Currently in this country the typical ratio is about 20:1 which is very unbalanced. This imbalance of too much omega-6 has been identified as one of the causes of the high rate of cardiovascular disease in this country. Fortunately, in addition to the natural food sources already mentioned, fish oils that are high in the omega-3 fatty acids are available in supplement form to support cardiovascular health in seniors.