Day 10 of 12 Education:

Fatty acids are important building blocks for the human body. They are essential to the structure and integrity of cell membranes and are involved in other processes such as inflammation, immune responses and the production of hormones.

As an aside, I remember while in pharmacy school I mentioned fatty acids at the dinner table. My children would have been about 6 and 8 at the time and they busted up laughing like I had said some kind of crazy taboo curse word. For years after that they would say “fatty acids” randomly and start laughing. Now that I think about it, maybe to my kids it sounded a lot like fatty “donkeys”! I digress…

Two genes involved in how our bodies process fatty acids are FADS1 and FADS2. Variants in these genes can cause an imbalance in the ratios of fatty acids and contribute to having more of the ones that are inflammatory, such as arachidonic acid.

What can you do if a nutrigenomics test shows variants in FADS1 and/or FADS2? Use diet to help rebalance what is going on in your body. Take in less of the pro-inflammatory fats such as seed oils, eat more fatty fish, and consider Omega-3 supplements or specialized pro-resolving mediator (SPM) supplements.