RS in response to NIH article: "I've been trying to explain this for ages and this diagram helps. You see the straight up and down ones on the left? Those are phospholipid molecules, one end is a lipid and one end is a phosphate. We know these as "emulsifiers" that can mix oil and water. Egg yolk. Lecithin.

The cellular membrane (plants have cellulose "cell walls") is made from these and the problem is the lipid end. Phosphate is phosphate but many fats will take up with PO4 to become a phospholipid and thus be incorporated into the cellular membrane. What's supposed to be the fat there on that glycerine backbone are the 18 and 22 carbon fatty acids we refer to as "Omega 3" but what often happens is, in their absence animal (bad) and trans (far worse) fats are used instead.

The net result is instras of the carbon rich springy om3 molecules, the curvy ones on the right, the cellular membrane is instead made up of in the worst case trans fats whose hydrogen saturated carbon bonds are not springy, they are like matches in a box of matches and quite rigid.

This is a problem because these things are tiny compared to giant protein molecules that exist half in half out of the cellular membrane. Their job is to grab onto another molecule as it flies by and attach to and and receive an electron from it. The problem is with the matchbook ones this big molecule can't spin, and they don't just sit there, they have to be at the right angle to make that initial bond that attaches the neurotransmitter molecule to the cell so it can pass its electron in.

This is when we hear "the body can make enough insulin but it can't use it" or "the body can make enough serotonin but can't seem to use it" this is why. Like estrogen these are neurotransmitters and with the wrong fats in the cellular membrane they literally bounce off instead of making that initial bond to pass the electron into the cell. Our treatment of these diseases involves flooding the body so the geometry doesn't matter as much but these have toxic side effects and are not really the answer. These can be remediate by several months of a steady diet of lecithin and any source of alpha lipoic acid.

This nut was cracked by David Horrobin and to say there as institutional pushback is an understatement. When he died The Lancet, the oldest Medical journal in the modern world had to shut down the comment section within 24 hours because doctors were arguing with each other. He has been vilified by industry since before his death for pointing out things like 20% of admissions to London Doctors Hospital for schizophrenia turn out to be scurvy. Or that the success rate of drugs to control schits only works .002% of the time. But, his ideas were sound and decades later the snake oil salesman as he was called, and who also pointed out Chinese snake oil contains OM3 and sold to this day actually does something being made from water snakes, it's the American stuff made from rattlesnakes that is inert. It's amazing what real snake oil salesmen don't know about snake oil or why their stuff never worked because they're no smarter now than in 1900 when they invented the patent medicine industry which you know today as "TPP"."

07/28/18
There are more benefits to Omega 3s than just containing DHA and EPA. To gain optimal health the endoplasmic reticulum membrane must be supplied with the proper ratio of Omega 3, 6 and 9.