(P08-004-23) Rethinking an Anti-inflammatory Diet: Precision Nutrition

Objectives: The “western diet” (WD) in the USA maintains 75%-80% omega-6 (n-6) in highly unsaturated fatty acids (HUFA) and reflects a dramatically increased intake of n-6 linoleate in the twentieth century. The WD is associated with a high prevalence of chronic inflammatory conditions (including heart diseases, type 2 diabetes, obesity, and depression), contrasting with a lower prevalence among populations with less than 50% n-6 in HUFA. Shifting to an “anti-inflammatory diet” by reducing n-6 nutrients and increasing omega-3 (n-3) nutrients may decrease inflammatory health conditions.

Methods: We report a case of a clinical nutritionist who set out to maintain a blood biomarker of HUFA balance like that for traditional Greenland Inuit (near 30% n-6 in HUFA) by eating familiar foods. For rapid recognition of a food item’s likely impact on HUFA balance, we used validated, predictive tools developed by extending the competitive hyperbolic relationship (the Lands’ equation) of fatty acids accumulated in human tissue. The subject recorded foods eaten for over four years; assays were done every three months documenting a near 30% n-6 in HUFA.

Results: Representative meal plans from 2018-2023 were recorded and analyzed with the Omega Meals tool embedded with 5,100 familiar foods. Our results show a HUFA balance, like that for traditional Inuit, can occur with n-3 HUFA intake as low as 0.6 percent of food energy (en%) when linoleate intake is near 1 en%. This adds to the long-standing evidence for a narrow therapeutic window for dietary n-6 linoleic acid which links to the likely risk to public health from having high proportions of n-6 in HUFA.

Discussion: A weakness in many reports about essential fatty acids is in having predicted results without testing (proving/disproving) the prediction with an intervention the way our data do. Strengths in our report include the strong correlation between predicted results and actual results; the use of biomedical evidence; repeated assays with consistent results; and an extended four-year intervention.

Conclusions: Our report provides additional measured evidence supporting the hypothesis that lowered linoleate intakes allow dietary n-3 HUFA to be more effective in shifting HUFA balance, without n-3 omega supplementation. Further precision nutrition studies may show even less n-3 HUFA is needed when linoleate is 0.5 en%.

Funding Sources: None