Lecture 3 – Essential Information on Essential Fatty Acids
Lecture 3 – Essential Information on Essential Fatty Acids or
“Why Your Pet Should Be Taking Fish Oils!” EFA, Essential Fatty
Acids are an important nutritional topic and hopefully this will
help cut through the confusion and the myths. Here we go! What
makes it essential? There are many fatty acids that the
mammalian body uses in virtually every cell in the body. The
EFA, Essential Fatty Acids are the fatty acids which cannot be
made by the body but which must be obtained through diet. Lets
breakdown the types of Fatty acids. There are two main groups of
EFAs: Omega 3 FA and Omega 6 FA. Their name comes from the
placement of a double bond between carbon molecules. Omega
threes have the final double bond at n-3 and Omega 6’s have them
at n-6. Thus they are often referred to as n-3 FA and n-6 FAs. (
Don’t worry, I won’t bore you with going into any more detail of
the biochemistry of it all). Omega 6 – Beware of too much of
these… Omega 6 is plentiful a