Functional Essential Fatty Acids

/in /by

Understanding that linoleic acid is the essential omega-6 fatty acid and alpha-linolenic acid (ALA) is the essential omega-3 fatty acid, the logical question would be what about fish oil and other sources of omega-3 fatty acids? It’s just a little complicated, but let me explain.

It’s true that in humans, we can use ALA to make EPA and DHA. The problem is that it isn’t a dominant biochemical pathway. That’s why the phrase “functional essential fatty acids” are used to describe EPA and DHA. Another way of saying it is that to function at optimal levels, we should get DHA and EPA from either food sources or from dietary supplements every day.

DHA is critical to brain and eye health while EPA has anti-inflammatory properties. The best sources of EPA and DHA would be seafood. For vegetarians, there are some products available that contain these functional fatty acids derived from algae; it’s only a matter of time before the more easily reproducible sources like algae and seaweed replace fish as the primary source found in supplements.

Seed Oils

I’ve written about seed oils several times. I do not disagree that we overconsume seed oils, but most are found in ultra-processed foods; that’s why we end up with the disproportion of omega-6 to omega-3 fatty acids eaten in our society as a whole. There’s no problem lowering the amount of intake of omega-6s. If you want to use oils in cooking, safflower, sunflower, corn, and soybean oil have the best omega-6 profile; you can certainly find non-bioengineered and organically grown sources of those oils if you want. If you’re going to get oils from food, you might as use the sources with the highest amount of linoleic acid per serving.

What are you prepared to do today?

        Dr. Chet

References:
1. Linus Pauling Institute. Essential Fatty Acids
2. J Lipid Res 2014 DOI 10.1194/jlr.R055095

Essential Fatty Acids

/in /by

There are always controversies in nutrition. With all that’s been written about seed oils and sources of omega-3 fatty acids, I thought we’d go back to the basics this week—back to what are the essential fatty acids, seen above floating in the bloodstream. Similar to essential amino acids, essential fatty acids are the fats that we cannot make ourselves; therefore, they must be obtained from the foods that we eat. We can make plenty of saturated fats from carbohydrates and even proteins, but we can’t make the two essential fatty acids (FA).

The two essential fatty acids are the omega-6 fatty acid called linoleic acid (LA) and the omega-3 fatty acid called alpha-linolenic acid (ALA). With those as a base, other fatty acids can be made that have a variety of important functions in the body; the most important function is making cell membranes. If you have adequate amounts of these essential fatty acids, it simply means your cells will work better. The sources for these oils are all plant based: seeds, nuts, and oils from those foods.

Men need about 17 grams of ALA per day while women need about 11. Women need about 1.1 grams of LA per day while men need 1.6 grams per day. That seems like such small amounts when you consider that works out to fewer than 150 calories for women and 200 calories for men, using oils as the primary source.

What about the omega-3s we hear about all the time like EPA and DHA? I’ll get into those on Saturday.

What are you prepared to do today?

        Dr. Chet

References:
1. Linus Pauling Institute. Essential Fatty Acids
2. J Lipid Res 2014 DOI 10.1194/jlr.R055095

Exercise Rules!

/in /by

The top sumo wrestlers weigh an average of 355 pounds. I watched a little wrestling when Konishiki, a Hawaiian sumo, was popular; he had been the heaviest sumo up to that time weighing over 600 pounds. The question is with weighing so much, are sumo wrestlers at risk for weight-related disease? It comes down to the visceral fat issue.

The sumos train for five or six hours first thing in the morning. Think about moving your body weight or more for that long every day. This isn’t just lifting weights—you’re trying to grab, hold on, and move 300 to 400 pounds for hours every day. The sumos have massive core, hip, thigh, and calf muscles. No doubt they have massive amounts of body fat, but most is subcutaneous fat. The visceral fat is much lower than the 300- to 400-pound North American obese individual and lower than those with comparable body fat.

What protects the sumo is the excessive exercise they get every day. True, they often eat 5,000–10,000 calories per day to gain weight, but they don’t suffer the same issues as sedentary people of the same weight.

The problem begins when they retire and no longer train. Due to their massive size, the risks of increasing visceral fat and disease accelerate. Unfortunately, many succumb to those diseases. The great Konishiki developed kidney failure within the past two years and required a kidney transplant. As of this writing, he’s still alive at 62.

The lesson for all of us is this: until we can lose the excess body fat, we have to stay as active as we can with regular exercise, especially weight training. Preventing the age-related loss of muscle due to sarcopenia and building as much muscle as we can through weight training and aerobic exercise can help reduce visceral fat. It’s not a permanent solution, but doing as much as we can to reduce the risk is significant. Until we can master the first two steps of eating less and eating better, moving more is critical. Exercise rules!

What are you prepared to do today?

        Dr. Chet

Body Fat: Location Matters

/in /by

Last week, I mentioned in passing that a hippopotamus has less body fat than most humans. Since then, I’ve wondered exactly how little body fat they had. By several estimations, it’s around 5%—about the same as elite soccer players. That’s not enough fat to cause the hippo health problems as we see in humans; they have a thick skin and a bad disposition to boot. What they also have is a lot of muscle.

I was reminded about the differences between visceral and subcutaneous fat. Subcutaneous fat is found underneath the skin and seems to be more a storage facility for fat. Visceral fat is the worst type because it’s packed in and around our organs like the liver, kidneys, and intestines. It’s also metabolically active and not in a good way. It causes the release of inflammatory hormones which contribute to all sorts of diseases such as cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, and cancer. But is it hazardous for every person who is obese, even morbidly obese? I’ll let you know on Saturday.

Tomorrow is the Insider Conference Call. Without realizing it, I picked a day where many readers have another important teleconference that they want to attend. The Guest Pass is still a great option because you can watch the replay at your leisure, and if you send your questions before the meeting begins at 9 p.m. Eastern Time, I’ll answer them as well. It’s an opportunity to double your education investment that can help your business and your health. I hope you’ll join me.

What are you prepared to do today?

        Dr. Chet

Your Perfect Diet

/in /by

Continuing what I learned from the podcast, I hope you had the chance to listen to it as well. I checked out Dr. Daniel Lieberman’s research, and he is a leading expert in his field. There are three facts that stood out to me.

Three Facts

The first thing I learned is that hippopotami have less body fat than the typical human being! It seems incredible that animals who are that round can have so little body fat. Assessing body fat was my job when I was in grad school, and whether that’s absolutely accurate or off by a bit, I’m not going to try to assess body fat in a hippo any time soon.

Second, as time proceeded, our digestive systems changed: our small intestine became longer and our large intestine became shorter. Our digestive system has adapted to cooked foods; that means our microbiome has shifted over the millennia, and less time is needed for fermentation in the gut to extract nutrients.

Third, the typical protein intake never really exceeded 30% of total dietary intake. We can survive on any type of diet as long as we get enough of the raw materials to take in or to make the nutrients we need such as hormones and vitamins.

The Bottom Line

There’s no perfect diet for everyone—we are too genetically different, raised in different environments, and process foods differently. The key is to find the perfect diet for you that gets you to a normal body weight and allows you to stay there. These recommendations never change: eat less. Eat better. Move more. For life.

What are you prepared to do today?

        Dr. Chet

Reference: Zoe. August 6, 2026. The Evolutionary Science Behind Why You Can’t Lose Weight.

Get a Guest Pass

/in /by

Have you ever wondered what being an Insider is like? One of the benefits is our monthly conference call, and I’m giving everyone an opportunity to participate for a small fee. You’ll be able to participate two ways: you’ll be able to listen to my presentation on the nutrition topic I’ll be talking about, plus you’ll be able to send in your questions before the call just like every Insider.

This month’s topic is a review of the important nutrients over time. I’ll explain why they were so important then and why they’re still important today. I’ll end with what I believe is the most critical nutrient we all need to supplement.

After that, I’ll answer the questions submitted in advance—that gives me time to research any specific conditions. No promises of cures and such; just what nutrients may help if there are any.

You get access for only $9.95 for a wealth of knowledge. You’ll learn about the critical nutrients of today, and you’ll be able to hear answers to everyone’s questions, anonymously of course, and you’ll learn a lot from that.

InsiderGuestPass

So join me on Wednesday, August 19, 2026, at 9 p.m. Eastern Time to learn live and in person; you’ll also get an opportunity to listen during the following week.

Click on the ticket to sign up!

        Dr. Chet

Paleolithic Diet: More Hype than Hope?

/in /by

Over the weekend, I was listening to a podcast about the Paleolithic diet. Daniel Lieberman, the expert being interviewed, has focused his research on the Paleolithic era. I found it quite interesting based on the number of gurus and influencers that continue to say that era was the diet we should mimic for optimal health. You can listen to it yourself at this link, but two factors stuck out to me.

First, the foods that were available during that time bear no resemblance to the foods available today. I’m not just talking about processed foods; the plants and even the meat sources were very different.

Second, cooking changed the way our ancestors ate. Cooking allowed more variety of plants to be eaten because it broke down the matrices in plants, which released more nutrients to be digested and absorbed. More nutrients could also be released from the animals and allowed more of the animals to be eaten. Bone marrow is definitely not a recent discovery.

There are a couple more points that I’ll cover Saturday, but listen or watch the podcast and see if you can figure out where I’m going.

What are you prepared to do today?

        Dr. Chet

Reference: Zoe. August 6, 2026. The Evolutionary Science Behind Why You Can’t Lose Weight.

Exercise on the Wild Side

/in /by

Here are a few observations and comments about exercising on the wild side.

  • “I think I may walk around the yard and talk to my cow.” You know, if it gets you moving, I’m all for it—you do you. I did not talk to the skunk I met on the sidewalk. I took to the street, and we parted as friends.
  • Take a 1½- to 2-year-old to a trampoline park. Watch them run toward the steps; catch them before they fall down the steps; repeat over and over and over, because they never seem to get tired. It’s a naturally occurring HIIT workout.
  • Go to the gym and just lift the weights you want to lift. No order. No schedule to keep. Just do a few random sets of whatever takes your fancy. Take a long shower and you’re done.
  • Back to the trampoline park—get your steps in while the kids jump. Didn’t even realize what the women were doing completely independent of each other; looking at their watches gave them away.
  • Dance. Put on some music and go for it. If you normally bike for 45 minutes, dance for 45 minutes instead.
  • From social media: “Do the thing you can do instead of beating yourself up over not doing the thing you’re not doing” is honestly life-changing, even lifesaving, advice. I agree. Sometimes, you just have to say, “Well, that’s good enough.”

What we think about structure and uniformity to our schedule is important; having a schedule and sticking to it relieves you of the need to decide what you’re going to do every day. But some of the time, we just have to think outside the box, shake things up, and go a little nuts. Every time Riley says, “I’m bored,” Paula says, “That’s your fault. Find something to do.” If you get bored with your workout, change it. Sometimes, you’ve got to lose the structure and get a little wild.

Finally, I misjudged the number of voters; I promised to do 10 push-ups after every 25 voters in my precinct, and we had over 500 voters Tuesday. By the time we got to 250, my shoulders were shot, so I substituted 10 squats; I did 100 push-ups and 100 squats over a 14-hour day. Still felt sore the next day.

What are you prepared to do today?

        Dr. Chet

Election Day: Get Wild!

/in /by

Today from coast to coast, there are primary elections being held—five today, including Michigan, and about a dozen more the rest of the month. It’s not just the U.S.—it looks like Iceland, Kosovo, U.K., and Zambia have elections this month, and there may be more I’ve missed.

I’m a Michigan election inspector and will be working to make sure everything is done according to the book—and it’s a thick book. Wherever you live in the U.S., take the time to vote for the candidates you support. All the people involved in elections are doing their part to make sure we have a free and fair election. Do your part and vote today or when your primary is scheduled. That’s our voice and we have to express it.

Then go do something a little crazy with a workout. Do jumping jacks at a bus stop. Go up two flights of stairs and then get on the elevator to go to your floor. Race your grandchild across the yard. Play catch with a football. When a meeting is over, drop and do 10 push-ups. Just do some sort of movement that is out of the norm, that is safe, and within any restrictions. I’ll start by doing 10 push-ups after every 25 voters in my precinct. I hope to break 100! Let me know what you did and I’ll put it in Saturday’s Memo along with some of the responses I got via email.

What are you prepared to do today?

        Dr. Chet

Use Animal Protein to Build Muscle

/in /by

Plant-based food versus supplemental shake: that is the question. It’s not the only question, but it’s where we start today’s Health Memo. The supplemental shake used in the study used the same type and amount of amino acids found in the rice and beans. They also used the same amount of carbohydrates, fiber, and fat. With the results virtually the same as to the lack of muscle-protein synthesis, the question becomes why?

Food Factors

The researchers suggested that the lack of muscle-protein synthesis could be due to the extraction of the amino acids from the food structure. It may take the digestive system too long to release the protein from the carbohydrate material before it reaches the end of the digestion process and thus is eliminated from the body. If true, that means the issue could get worse the older that we get and could contribute to age-related sarcopenia.

The researchers also cite that the high carbohydrate level of the rice at 114 grams might have impaired the availability of the amino acids. At some point, the elevated blood sugar blunts the use of amino acids to build muscle. They also used a supplement of carbohydrate alone in another similar study which also blunted muscle-protein synthesis.

The researchers also suggested that perhaps the amount of protein at 20 grams was too low. Other studies have used 30 grams of protein or more in similar studies with much lower carbohydrate.

The researchers also included data from another similar study using ground pork. The rate of muscle-protein synthesis was twice that found in the current study.

The Bottom Line

Where does this study leave us? With more questions.

This was a very small group of young adults; we know age, gender, fitness level, and other factors may also impact protein utilization. At this time, animal protein, whether in food or in supplement form, is probably better to build muscle than plant-based protein. In addition, it should be taken either before, during, or just after muscle-building workouts to maximize muscle-protein synthesis. We still need our carbs in grains, veggies, and fruits as well as some fat—just at another time for maximum benefit from all the nutrients.

What are you prepared to do today?

        Dr. Chet

Reference: AJCN. 2026. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ajcnut.2026.101380