The evidence is convergent. Multiple independent sources reach the same conclusion, the underlying mechanism is well-characterized, and even the field's most cautious voices treat it as worth doing.
So this is actually the omega-3 level in red blood cells. So red blood cells turn over about every 120 days. So it's a long-term marker of omega-3 status. This is very different from 99.9% of any study you see or any lab that you go to to get your omega-3 levels tested. You're getting your plasma phospholipid levels tested, which is kind of like you can think of it as, what did I eat a couple days before?
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if you are curious you should check our BC red blood cell omega-3 levels really RBC fatty acid levels a lot of companies do this but you want to know what your omega-3 index is and make sure you're getting enough omega-3
the serán levels of mega threes are inaccurate and I I will either look at the total omega-3 or the omega-3 index
I would encourage you to measure red blood cell omega-3s that are like a glycohemoglobin have a 13 or a 60 90 day half-life rather than a plasma free fatty acid or may which might be what did you eat for lunch
red cells are we've shown red cells correlate with quite a few other tissues in terms of the omega-3 levels so they are a good reflection of other tissues probably the only one that's the least reflective of is the brain at least in the adult it's heart and he asked the composition of the brain yeah
red cells correlate with quite a few other tissues in terms of the omega-3 levels so they are a good reflection of other tissues probably the only one that's the least reflective of is the brain at least in the adult it's heart and he asked the composition of the brain yeah I don't think anyone's gonna sign up for the brain biopsy so what are some of the tissues that you've seen high correlation with with RBC
we were able to get their red cells and the heart biopsy and measure the omega-3 content and show the nice correlation to higher the omega-3 and the red cell the higher the omega-3 in the heart
red blood cells also prefer DHA lysa phosphatidylcholine / DHA and free fatty acid form which is not surprising because the DHA concentration in red blood cells tightly correlates to the actual DHA levels in the brain
we picked red blood cells because that had been used in past studies and it makes sense because it's a long-term marker of omega-3 status because the omega-3s are in the membrane of the red cell and in most other tissues in the body all other tissues so it was a good reflection of other tissues
the correlation between the red blood cell and brain tissue is not nearly as good in brain as it is in heart liver muscle every other internal organ where the red cell does reflect much better numerically may be a different value for red cell versus liver but the correlation would be very good
so the red blood cell is very much like a hemoglobin a1c relative to a plasma glucose it's the same concept it's a more stable long-term marker it's not not affected by daily fluctuations whereas plasma levels are
do you think the the red blood cell omega-3 the omega-3 index is better indicator of brain than plasma i think i well probably yeah probably better than plasma
plus very few studies have really used plasma it's hard to know what the target omega-3 level would be in plasma
So the omega-3 index is measuring omega-3 fatty acid levels, the EPA and DHA, and there's other fatty acids as well, but in red blood cell membranes. And it's really important because most of the time when you go and get a omega-3 blood the plasma phospholipids are measured, which is better than nothing. But you're really looking more at your dietary intake in the last week or two versus red blood cells, which are 120 days before they turn over. It's a long-term status of your omega-3, kind of like the difference between looking at fasting blood glucose and your HbA1c, right?
the omega-3 index is one of the best measures of Omega-3 so this was pioneered by um Dr Bill Harris and uh his calling Von shaki many years ago back in 2004 and um it's measuring omega-3 levels in red blood cell membranes as opposed to plasma phospholipids and the reason for that is because it is a long-term biomarker of Omega-3