If you can’t give up processed foods or have consumed them over the years, you likely have a huge excess of omega-6, which affects your body’s ability to make EPA and DHA. While reducing your intake of omega-6, you can also do this to help push the excess out of your cell membranes.

In this interview, Nils Hoem—a research scientist with Aker Biomarine, the largest krill oil company in the world—takes a deep dive into omega-3s and the crucial role they play in the health and functionality of your cell membranes.

“In my academic life, I spent the first 20 years as a researcher at the University of Oslo. I got my master’s and doctorate from the University of Oslo in pharmacology, and was an associate professor there … Fifteen years ago, I came … to work for Aker Biomarine … as the chief scientist, but I’m, by heart and mind, really, a pharmacologist,” Hoem says.

The Importance of Membranes

As Hoem explains, the cellular membrane is the universal surface onto and into which the cellular machinery is assembled. “Very little in the cell just floats around. It’s a very complex structure, and the integrity of membranes is absolutely vital for the function of the cell,” he said.

The cell membrane also hosts response elements and almost all signaling, except for hormones. Almost all short-path signaling begins in the membrane. Your mitochondria also have an inner and outer membrane, and the function of these are also crucial for health.

Membranes are lipid structures made of phospholipids and other constituents. Inside we find phosphatidylcholine and phosphatidylethanolamine, two ampholytic phospholipids, meaning they have a polar end and a nonpolar end.

The food you eat provides the raw material substrate that is then assembled into the mitochondrial and cellular membranes, which is why the type of fats you consume is so important.

Omega-6 Competes Against Omega-3

Hoem explained that there are two polyunsaturated fats (PUFAs) that are considered essential in conventional medicine. One of them is the omega-6 linoleic acid (LA), which is an 18-carbon molecule. Although the level of LA needed is likely significantly lower than suggested, it is a moot point, as adults are generally consuming 10 times the suggestion. The other is omega-3 alpha-linolenic acid (ALA), which also has 18 carbons.

Your body cannot make these fats, so you must get them from your diet. That said, since LA is found in nearly every food, and you need very small amounts, it’s virtually impossible to become deficient in LA.

Others, such as the omega-3 EPA and DHA, which have 20 and 22 carbons, respectively, can be synthesized in your body, provided you have enough available delta-6-desaturase, an enzyme responsible for their conversion.

The problem is that there’s competitive inhibition for that enzyme, so when you have 10-fold (1,000 percent) more omega-6 in your system, then the delta-6-desaturase will be used to convert the omega-6 into arachidonic acid, instead of converting the ALA into EPA.

Processed foods are loaded with omega-6 fats, which radically skews the omega-3 to omega-6 ratio and inhibits your body’s innate ability to synthesize EPA and DHA.

“A Japanese professor showed me data from inner Mongolia, where they eat no seafood at all, but eat a lot of meat and dairy products from grass-fed cattle. They get a lot of ALA and very little omega-6, and they actually had pretty high levels of EPA and DHA despite not eating any seafood at all. So that tells the story, I think,” Hoem said.

Most People Consume Far Too Much LA

Historically, LA used to account for only 1 to 2 percent of daily calories. Today, it’s between 20 and 25 percent, which means most people have enormous stores of LA in their cells.

If you reduce your LA intake to historical norms, then there’s not this competition for delta-6. And if you have a baseline level of omega-3 ALA, then you can make substantial amounts of DHA and EPA and probably don’t need supplements.

The problem is that most people aren’t willing to forgo processed foods and end up with far too much LA, which then necessitates taking extra omega-3. Basically, if you’re eating higher-than-historical amounts of LA, you have to either add more omega-3s or reduce your intake of omega-6. Ideally, you’d do both.

“The amount of omega-6 is so huge compared with the omega-3s that the only feasible way of increasing your omega-3s in the membranes is through taking omega-3s,” Hoem said. “Then there is a one-to-one exchange of EPA and DHA for omega-6s in the membrane.

“So if you increase one molar amount of EPA and DHA in the membrane, then you kick out exactly the same amount of omega-6. And it’s important to realize that the membrane will be a reflection of your intake of omega-6s versus omega-3s. You can’t really do much with the omega-6s because they’re everywhere, but you can fix it by increasing your intake of long-chain omega-3s.”

That said, it is possible to dramatically reduce your intake of omega-6. I keep my intake below 1 percent, so it can be done. I’ve been doing it for about three or four years now. It takes about six or seven years to fully eliminate the stores of LA from your adipose tissue due to their long two-year half-life.

Upping Omega-3 Intake Is Necessary for Most People

Based on what Hoem is saying, you could facilitate the removal of LA by upping your omega-3 intake. The question is, how much omega-3 is needed to make a difference? And what happens to the omega-6 once it’s displaced? Is it burned as fuel, or put back into the adipose cells? Unfortunately, Hoem doesn’t have firm answers to those questions. His guess is that some of it gets burned as fuel, and some gets stored.

“If you have a meal of salmon today, the EPA and DHA from that meal is going to wash around in your circulation and be exchanged within all different organs in your body for 14 days afterwards. We see that it undulates, so it goes in and out of plasma.

“So it increases in plasma, then it decreases in plasma, and increases again from six hours, then you have a 24-hour peak, and then you have another one usually, around 30 hours. When we look at how it’s being incorporated into different tissues, that might give you some ideas. You see how, for example, the liver really, really wants EPA and DHA, as does the brain.

“We’ve done experiments with lysophosphatidylcholine (LPC), which is the form that is being transported into the brain and into neuronal tissue … The fatty acid is bound to lysophosphatidylcholine and that molecule is way more water soluble—10 to the minus 4th, actually.

“Instead of being on its own, it’s like EPA and DHA and a number of other fats sit on a ferry boat, and that ferry boat is lysophosphatidylcholine, that transports them into the brain …

“If you inject EPA and DHA LPC—lysophosphatidylcholine with EPA and DHA on it—it shoots into the brain and across the blood-retina barrier. So you see some organs that are very keen on grabbing these molecules. We call it infinite sink.

“So for example, what goes to the brain seems to stay in the brain until it’s broken down. With half-life, that is probably hundreds of hours, while in the circulation, the half-life is pretty much like a hundred-ish hours longer for DHA than for EPA.

“What this means is that when you change your intake, it takes about 600 hours, at least, until you are back at steady state. So you can’t fix anything fast with those fatty acids. You really need to be patient.”

The Importance of Choline

The same transporter, LPC, also shuttles EPA and DHA into your eyes, liver, and, in pregnant women, the placenta. Since LPC is so crucial, you also need to have a regular supply of phosphatidylcholine, and this is a common nutritional deficiency.

LPC is endogenously produced, but your capacity to produce it is dependent on choline. You also need the raw materials to make it, which means you need EPA and DHA. Seafood is a great source of phosphatidylcholine. Many seafood sources also contain some EPA and DHA. For choline, the richest source is eggs.

“Research shows that if you increase your intake of choline, increase your intake of omega-3s, or basically increase your intake of phosphatidylcholine, you could actually reverse from nonalcoholic fatty liver back to a more normal liver, instead of sliding further down into steatosis and metabolic syndrome,” Hoem noted.

What’s the Best Omega-3 Supplement?

While many understand the importance of omega-3s, few realize that fish oil supplements aren’t necessarily the best source. In most fish oil supplements, the omega-3 is in the form of ethyl ester, a synthetic form of omega-3. Natural omega-3 comes in three forms: triglyceride form, phospholipid form, and free fatty acids. Contrary to these natural forms, ethyl esters are difficult to digest, so they must be taken with a fatty meal.

“Your body doesn’t recognize it as fat, so if you take pure ethyl esters on its own, it will just slide through your body. It actually ends up in your stool. But if you take it with a fatty meal, then your body recognizes fat and starts the digestion process. But I’ve seen ethyl esters glide through the gut almost unabsorbed,” Hoem said.

“Most seafood would have both triglyceride and phospholipids, and of course, the interchange form is the free fatty acids. Free fatty acids is really minor. You won’t find much of free fatty acid. You find some, but it’s really the two major classes of glycerolipids: triglycerides and phospholipids.

“That’s nature’s way of doing it, so whenever you eat whole foods, that’s what you get. Even though I work with phospholipids and krill oil, I won’t talk down fish oils because that’s how most people get their EPA and DHA, and it is way better than not getting it.

“But there is one thing that I really do not appreciate, and this is a particular for the United States. You’re allowed to call ethyl esters fish oils, and frankly, I don’t like that at all. It needs to be clearly labeled, so that is something that needs to be done.

“One advantage of the ethyl esters is that you can take out environmental toxins. Now, the price you pay for that is that there is a high thermic load on the molecule. You know the history of partially hydrogenated fats and trans fats … Fifty years down the road, we found that it had killed a million Americans … and now they’re banned both in the U.S. and in Europe.

“Trans fats are dangerous because they have the wrong geometry. They have the wrong structure. They bend in the wrong direction, and enzymes with certain response elements that read fat read them wrong. The way they are inserted into membranes, for example, is not normal, so you get a bent fat.”

Another downside of ethyl ester omega-3 is that it’s highly unstable, even more unstable than omega-6 fats, which means it’s perishable and highly susceptible to oxidative stressors. That leaves it predisposed to oxidation, which can spin off advanced lipoxidation end products (ALEs) that cause significant damage.

The key point here is that it’s predisposed to doing this spontaneously. When you have a whole-food version, you typically don’t get this. Krill oil, for example, contains natural astaxanthin, which prevents this peroxidation. Phospholipids also do not oxidize as easily.

Closing Remarks

So in closing, the summary take-home from all this is that most people probably need omega-3 supplementation, especially if they’ve been eating a lot of processed foods and therefore have high LA stores. Again, as your omega-3 intake increases, the EPA and DHA start replacing the omega-6s in your membranes at a ratio of 1:1.

Hoem recommends getting an omega-3 index test once a year. Ideally, you’d want to have an index of seven or higher.

“Just remember, the kinetics is very slow,” he said. “So if you double your dose, it will take the best part of three to six months until you are at a steady state again. The same goes for if you reduce your dose to half; it also takes three to six months. It’s exactly the reverse. This is something that makes this tricky, because you won’t recognize from day one to day two your change, but you will recognize it in six months. So it’s long-term.

“This is not pharmacology, it is nutrition. And it’s a question about being prepared when you need your lipid-based systems to function correctly. If you do not take care of your membranes with regards to the right fatty acids, when you need them to respond correctly or in a measured way, it’s too late to take them.”

Once your LA stores are depleted (which can take up to seven years, provided you’re not loading more in), and provided you’re consuming enough ALA, then your body will likely have the ability to endogenously produce the EPA and DHA it needs.

Originally published June 25, 2023, on Mercola.com