American Heart Association Recommendations

• All adults should eat fatty fish at least two times a week.
• Patients with documented heart disease should take one gram of EPA plus DHA combined per day.
• Patients with high triglycerides should take two to four grams of EPA plus DHA combined per day. 

Omega-3 Fats and Healthy Blood Vessels

Go with the Flow

Omega-3 fats profoundly benefit your arteries and blood system, including blood pressure and blood clotting.

Flexible and Wide Arteries Help Avoid Bottlenecks

Your arteries are like freeways, serving as a transportation corridor for blood cells. Have you ever driven on an expressway in which the lanes narrow to just one creating a bottleneck? As the cars funnel into one lane, they create a traffic jam. That’s similar to what happens to your blood cells when your arteries constrict. It’s harder for them to travel smoothly.

Under stress, your body produces a chemical (norepinephrine) that starts a chain reaction leading to narrower arteries. Omega-3 fats counteract this problem by widening the arteries. This yin and yang of artery widening and narrowing is triggered by eicosanoids, made from omega-6 and omega-3 fats.

Your arteries work best when they are elastic and supple. Stiff arteries diminish blood flow to the heart and increase your risk of heart disease. A recent study showed that fi sh oil supplements, when taken daily for seven weeks, increased the elasticity of arteries.

Omega-3 Fats Helps Prevent Stroke

High blood pressure (hypertension) is the most preventable cause of stroke and a major risk factor for heart disease. Hypertension damages your arteries and makes them stiff. Here’s how hypertension damages your blood vessels:

Sheer stress.

Even diamonds can be cut with water if the pressure is high enough. Similarly, blood flowing at higher pressure erodes the artery, causing injury, which triggers inflammation. Lesions develop in these areas, especially at points of high wear and tear, where arteries branch out or at curvatures. Notably, these lesions will trigger plaque formation, which clogs arteries.

Overstretching it.

Hypertension stretches out the blood vessel, which makes arteries more permeable. Consequently, inflammation compounds, including the “bad” cholesterol, LDL, easily get enmeshed in the arterial wall.

Bursting your bubble.

If you fill a balloon with too much air, it can burst. Similarly, your blood vessels can burst from high blood pressure. Blood vessels in the eyes can burst or bleed, which may cause vision changes resulting in blindness. Shaving even a few points off your blood pressure can help your arteries. More than 60 studies found that fish oil has a modest but significant effect on lowering blood pressure.

Omega-3 Fats Keep Blood Flowing Smoothly

Consuming just two to four grams of fish oil lowers triglycerides by 20 to 50 percent. 

Omega-3 fats help blood flow efficiently and prevent blood clots. They do so by preventing blood cells, specifically platelets, from clustering together, which would hamper blood flow. This is like drivers slowing down to gawk at an accident; the clustered cars amplify traffic snarls. This type of traffic jam in the blood is known as platelet aggregation. Omega-3 fats also help break down fibrin, a mesh-like compound that forms a blood clot.

Fish oil also helps keep blood flowing smoothly by lowering a category of fats called triglycerides, which in high levels are a risk factor for heart disease. More than 70 studies clearly show fish oil has a potent ability to lower these fats.

What About Cholesterol?

You probably know that elevated blood cholesterol is a risk factor for heart disease. Yet half of the people with heart disease have normal blood cholesterol levels. Despite changes in lifestyle and the use of medications to lower blood cholesterol, the death rate from heart attacks in India is among the worst in the world. The  explanation? Inflaammation, not cholesterol itself, has the most profound impact on heart disease.

Your Arteries: The Super Inflammation Highway

Heart disease or atherosclerosis is often described as “clogged arteries,” but this is a misnomer. It is an inflammatory disorder, which is much more than the accumulation of plaque in the arteries. While the notion of inflammation as the cause of heart disease still grabs headlines, the idea is hardly new: it originated nearly 200 years ago! The inflammation theory went in and out of vogue depending on the medical opinion leaders of the time.

In 1815 surgeon Joseph Hodgson published Treatise on the Diseases of Arteries and Veins, which identified inflammation as the cause of artery damage. But he wasn’t popular, so neither was his theory! About 40 years later, pathologist Rudolf von Virchow resurrected the inflammation theory. But another prominent doctor disagreed. It would take more than a century for scientists to settle this issue.

Old-School Lipid Theory.

In the 1900′s, scientists created clogged arteries in rabbits by adding cholesterol to their food, which gave rise to the theory that dominated most of the 20th century. According to this theory, plaque builds up in the arteries, limiting blood flow, resulting in a heart attack. This sounds logical, but there is actually more to the processes causing heart attacks.

What about clogged arteries?

Plaque build-up in the arteries is certainly a problem, but it is akin to loading a bullet into a gun — it’s dangerous but not lethal in and of itself. The chronic inflammation process ultimately pulls the trigger by causing plaque to accrue and then rupture, spewing a blood clot and inflammatory compounds into the blood.

New-School Inflammation Theory.

Thanks to technology, it became clear that blood clots (which are caused by inflammation) play a pivotal role in heart attacks. Inflammation was widely accepted as the culprit of heart disease in 1999, when Russell Ross published  his landmark paper, “Atherosclerosis: A Chronic Inflammatory Disease,” in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Inflammation of Arterial Highway 

Inflammation is triggered by a microscopic injury to the artery, which can be caused by high blood pressure, smoking, and oxidized LDL, a more toxic form of cholesterol. Attempting to self-heal, the injured artery releases a chemical SOS, which initiates the inflammation cascade, resulting in plaque formation. The core region of the plaque consists of fat and immune cells, surrounded by a tough cap (like a scab). The inflammation process ensues, causing the cap to weaken. Consequently, the plaque ruptures like a lethal volcano, spilling its toxic contents into the blood.

Your arteries become the inflammation highway, circulating these compounds, one of which is the omega-6 fat arachidonic acid.

Omega-3 Fats Keep the Pace and Rhythm of the Heart 

The heart is an “excitable” tissue, meaning the heart cells generate electric currents, which trigger the heart to beat regularly. Fatal rhythms occur when the electrical signals get chaotic, which disables the heart’s ability to beat and pump blood. One of the ways omega-3 fats benefit the heart is by stabilizing their electrical action.

Omega-3 Fats Improve Heart Rate Variability

Heart rate variability reflects your heart’s autonomic function, which allows your heart to beat automatically, without you thinking about it. Omega-3 fats, especially DHA, improve this heart function.

EPA and DHA Are Comparable to Anti-Arrhythmia Medication 

A Harvard research team evaluated the effects of the long-chain omega-3 fats, EPA and DHA, on heart rhythm. In every instance, the omega-3 fats stopped violent fibrillation (deadly heart beat rhythm) and helped the heart cells resume a normal beat.

Omega-3 Fats Slow the Pace of Beating Hearts

Lowering your heart rate a few beats may appear trivial, but it may help prevent sudden death, as shown in a French study that followed nearly 8,000 healthy men for 23 years. The men who remained healthy had a slower heart rate by four beats per minute. A review of 30 studies indicates that omega-3 fats lower heart rate by nearly two beats per minute. This effect occurs after 12 weeks of fish oil supplementation, which is how long it takes omega-3 fats to get holstered into your heart cells.

Clearly, omega-3 fats help maintain a healthy heartbeat, which is why scientists believe they are protective against sudden cardiac death.

So eat your fish and eat it regularly!

Note: Feel free to republish this article on your own blog or website but please copy paste the below ‘Author Credits’ and include it at the bottom of your post or page. Thank you. 

Dr. Sunita Banerji received her MBBS degree from The Armed Forces Medical College, Pune, one of India’s leading Medical Institutes and received her DGO credentials in Obstetrics and Gynecology in 1982. She started her successful Aesthetic Medicine practice in Lokhandwala, in 1989 after undergoing extensive training in London. She was far ahead of her time in starting this type of practice in India. Owning one of the best wellness clinics in Mumbai she helps treat major medical problems related to lifestyle, aging and cosmetic treatments and surgery.