Dear Friends,
You likely know that omega-3s are important for heart and brain health, but a recent study highlighted how omega-3 fatty acids can contribute to longevity and quality of life as we age.
In a nutshell, this study was able to link higher levels of omega-3s to a lower occurrence of frailty as we get older, with frailty being something we’re looking to avoid.
Why is frailty so bad for your health?
It makes you more susceptible to potentially devastating health events, including falls, bone fractures, and disability, all of which can hurt your longevity and lifespan – as well as your quality of life and independence.
How do health professionals assess frailty as we get older?
Health professionals use several criteria that were first organized by researchers from the Johns Hopkins Center on Aging and Health.
One of these is whether you are experiencing unintentional weight loss, which is often accompanied by a loss of muscle mass. This matters because muscle helps protect your bones from breaking and fracturing – and muscle helps us stay active and moving.
Lower energy and getting fatigued or exhausted easier is another indication of frailty, as is walking speed. Walking speed tends to slow as we age, but when walking speed becomes too slow for your age group it’s a sign of increased frailty – as is low amounts of physical activity.
Other indicators of your degree of frailty is your ability to balance your body, and your muscle strength.
A common test to gauge muscle strength is the hand grip test. Grip strength has been called a “biomarker of aging” because it has been linked to several age-related conditions. One of these is frailty, with lower hand grip strength associated with a higher degree of frailty.
You may have noticed that many of the ways to assess frailty are related to the preservation of muscle mass and joint and bone health.
However other things are considered, like cardiovascular health, so it’s somewhat an overall wellness measure.
How Omega-3s May Help
Many researchers are looking at the importance of nutrition to frailty, with omega-3s getting a lot of attention because it’s fairly well established that omega-3s can help support many of the body functions we just outlined.
In this latest study, health researchers from several countries worked together to analyze data from about 18,000 adults aged 65 and over, who contribute their data to the UK Biobank – with the participants coming from England, Scotland and Wales.
The researchers looked at the impact of omega-3s on frailty from 3 perspectives:
1. Those who consumed oily fish, which are typically rich in omega-3s
2. Those who took fish oil supplements
3. Using data for levels of omega-3 in blood serum.
In each case, the researchers found that omega-3s were inversely related with the prevalence of frailty, meaning the greater the omega-3 blood levels or omega-3 intake in these participants, the better they scored on the frailty criteria we discussed earlier, which is what you want.
This study was published in the Journals of Gerontology and confirmed what some other similar studies have found regarding omega-3s and frailty from other populations around the world.
What should be my target goal for omega-3 levels?
The best way to monitor your omega-3 levels is through the Omega-3 index, which looks at the total fats in your blood (specifically in red blood cell membranes) and quantifies the percentage of those fats that are EPA and DHA, the key omega-3 fatty acids.
The typical percentage for the average American is between 5% and 6%, with the ideal range being between 8% and 12%, according to research.
You can find out your Omega-3 index score with a simple blood test you can do at home. The test from OmegaQuant is regarded as one of the best.
All they need is a few drops of blood from a simple finger prick, you mail your sample to the lab, and in 2 to 4 weeks they send your results.
Besides eating fish like salmon, you can raise your omega-3 index score over 3 to 4 months with a good quality omega-3 fish oil supplement.
And I don’t think you’ll find a better fish oil supplement than NatureCity’s TrueOmega-3 product.
This fish oil combines sustainability, potency, purity and won’t cause fishy burps or repeating.
However, the real cherry on the top is the special AquaCelle delivery system that’s part of TrueOmega-3.
You may have been advised to use the triglyceride form of fish oil because the EPA and DHA omega-3 get absorbed about 1.3x better. Well AquaCelle blows that out of the water, as it’s been shown to increase the absorption of EPA and DHA by up to 6.0x.
This makes TrueOmega-3 the perfect fish oil supplement to increase and maintain a healthy level of omega-3s in your blood.
As you may know, with NatureCity you have a 365-day money back guarantee. So you can take your test to see your current Omega-3 index score, use TrueOmega-3 for the next 3 or 4 months, and retest your omega-3 level.
I’m very confident you’ll see a significant improvement – and if you don’t you can get a refund on your TrueOmega-3 product purchase!
Yours for Good Health,
Carl Pradelli
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