The Role of Omega Fatty Acids
The journal Cancer Research introduces the topic: "Epidemiological, experimental, and mechanistic data implicate omega-6 fat as stimulators and long-chain omega-3 fats as inhibitors of development and progression of a range of human cancers, including melanoma." (12)
In other words Omega-6 fats like corn oil, safflower, sunflower, sesame, soya and canola actually PROMOTE cancer, while Omega-3 fats like flax seed and cod liver and other fish oils (organic, of course, and cold-pressed, not heat-refined) actually PREVENT cancer. And this is not really new science. The German cancer specialist Johanna Budwig was advocating organic flax seed oil as part of an anti-cancer therapy decades ago, although current evidence seems to indicate that organic fish oils have better anti-cancer properties than flax seed and cod liver oil has certainly always been the best way of gaining a balance of Vitamins A and D.
The thing to keep in mind is that in the early part of last century, when cancer was a relatively minor cause of death, we had none of the modern supermarket instant junk foods laden with cheap hydrogenated Omega-6 vegetable oils. The modern industrial vegetable oil market (Why were soya and canola the first oil seeds to be genetically engineered? Big corporate profits, of course!) didn’t exist. Instead we used a host of animal, saturated fats in our daily diet and cancer and heart disease were at levels below 4 percent of deaths instead of the 25 percent or more of today. Now Omega-6 junk oils are in everything we buy practically, even bread, and use of butter in cooking has become a dirty word (except for the French who suffer a lot less from heart disease as a result!). And, of course, cancer is reaching record heights in every country where American-style, “low fat”, junk oil-containing diets are favoured.
The correct ratio of Omega-6 to Omega-3 oils, as previously noted, is 1:1 according to the best available fat science (see <www.westonaprice.org>). The Japanese, who currently are the longest-living culture on the planet, consume huge amounts of fish oil in their diet (including whale meat!) and their typical diet is in the 3:1 Omega ratio range. They also have very low rates of cancer and heart disease. Americans, who have the worst Western-style diet in the world, which their junk food outlets heavily promote to the rest of us, routinely eat over 40 kg of Omega-6 oils per year in their typical diet and have a ratio of 15:1 and are among the world leaders in cancer and heart disease statistics.
Clearly an Omega-3-rich diet gives strong protection against all types of cancer, including breast cancer, and any possible risk to Japanese women from use of antiperspirants, etc is probably effectively countered – as we would expect – by factors in their above-average healthy diet.
12. Cancer Research 60, 4139-4145, August 1, 2000, Journal of the American Association for Cancer Research.