Why men need more EFA's

Udo Erasmus has a great article on Seed oils vs. Fish oils (link below). In it he looks at the latest research regarding the convertion process of Omega 3 (=ALA) to its derivatives (EPA, DPA, DHA) in both women and men.

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The first study, carried out with six women, showed that these women converted an average of 36% of the ALA they were given into long chain Omega-3 derivatives (21% EPA, 6%DPA, 9%DHA).

The second study2, done with six men, showed that the men converted an average of 16% of the ALA they received into long-chain Omega-3 derivatives (8%EPA, 8%DPA). In this study, the men produced no DHA. However, another study showed that men convert ALA to DHA as well.

Udo’s Comment: Women must be able to convert enough ALA to long chain n-3 to feed two brains, theirs and that of the child growing within them. Men have only one brain to feed, and therefore require less conversion to DHA than women do.
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Interestingly on the same page Udo highlights another study which shows that women taking estrogen are more efficient converters of Omega-3 than women who aren't. He goes on to say that a natural way to do this would be to consume lots of phytoestrogens from raw foods - in particular lignans. It seems nature has already taken care of this (at least if you consume whole foods) - flax fibre/seeds being the richest source of lignans. So just because you take flax oil, make sure you also take flax seeds/fibre to get the important lignans which will help in the conversion process

http://www.udoerasmus.com/articles/udo/fish_oil.htm