Feeding brains – let’s get the fats right
Dr Alex Richardson
In Ireland – as in most modern developed countries – bad diets are damaging not just our physical health, but our brains and behaviour. The evidence is now undeniable: food can fundamentally affect our mental health and performance as well as increase our risk of obesity, heart disease, diabetes and cancer. But the right health messages are still not getting through.
Most people think they should be eating less fat. Witness our obsession with ‘low fat’ foods (often packed with sugar, salt and additives). They’ve made the food and diet industries richer, but have done little for our waistlines or wellbeing. Similarly, many people still think margarine is healthier than butter. Don’t the saturated fats from butter, cream, cheese and meat clog up our arteries?
Well, in excess, yes. But the hydrogenated vegetable oils in most margarines (and almost all commercially processed foods – like pastries, cakes, biscuits, crisps, sauces, soups, salad dressings, ‘ready meals’ and takeaways) are worse.
Hydrogenation allowed the food industry to use cheap solidified vegetable oils instead of expensive animal fats. It produces ‘plastic fats’ with a long-shelf life, great texture and ‘mouth feel’, but little or no nutritional value. Worse, hydrogenation can warp the ‘polyunsaturates’ in those vegetable oils into dangerous, twisted fats called ‘trans fats’, which have no nutritional benefits and many health risks. We’ve been getting the fats very wrong, but the authorities haven’t bothered to tell us.
In fact, the type of fat we eat is more important than the quantity – and it’s actually the fats we’re NOT eating that matter most of all: namely, the special omega-3 fats in fish and seafood. They are ‘good fats’. Both omega-3 and omega-6 polyunsaturates are absolutely essential, but we must get them from our diets.
Getting enough omega-6 is usually no problem: the most important are in meat, dairy products and eggs, others in vegetable oils, nuts, seeds and grains. But 9 out of 10 people don’t get enough of the key omega-3, EPA and DHA. Fish and seafood are the main natural sources, although we can make very limited amounts from simpler omega-3 found in some nuts, seeds and green vegetables.
We need EPA and DHA for a healthy heart and circulation (they help heart rhythm and blood flow), for immune system balance (they are anti-inflammatory), and for every cell signalling system in our bodies and brains. Particularly our brains, because 60% of the brain’s dry mass is fat.
Omega-3 deficiencies have long been known to contribute to physical health problems like heart disease and arthritis. Research now shows they can contribute to depression and many other disorders of mood, behaviour or learning – from attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), dyslexia and autism to dementia, impulsivity and aggression. It’s the old folk wisdom: fish really is good for the brain.
Across Europe, rising costs of antisocial behaviour, depression and other mental health problems are at an all-time high. The EU estimated the annual burden at €360 billion in 2006. And that’s just the financial costs – because the human costs are of course incalculable. One leading scientist actually warned governments back in the 1970s – when heart disease rates were causing concern – that unless something was done to improve the quality of the fats in our diets, ‘brain disorders’ would be next. Policymakers still don’t seem to be listening, but isn’t it time we started getting the fats right?
