Omega-3 Diet Deficiency

There is no question that today’s average diet in the US is problematic.* It’s considered by nutritionists to be a major problem and absolutely preventable. As society has changed in the past 100 years so has our diet. Rather than consuming farm fresh and natural foods rich in nutrients, we are consuming too much processed food. Rather than eating green leafy vegetables and fish, we are compounding the problem by feeding cattle, chicken and even fish with corn containing very little omega-3s.

In addition to this, the processed foods we do eat contain vegetable oils such as corn, safflower, or partially hydrogenated soybean – predominantly omega-6 oils. Omega-6 oils are known to increase inflammation. Inflammation in the body is known to contribute to many disease processes including heart disease, arthritis, allergies and dry eyes to name a few. Omega-3s, on the other hand, inhibit inflammation.

Our consumption of omega-3s today is 1/50 the amount Americans ate 100 years ago. Could the uptick in disease processes be a result of decreased Omega 3 consumption as compared to the increased consumption of omega-6s? The imbalance then would contribute to an increase in inflammation resulting in more disease.

Currently, there is an epidemic of dry eye disease (DED), meibomian gland dysfunction (MGD) and age-related macular degeneration (AMD). By reducing the risk of each of these vision limiting diseases eye surgeons can improve their surgical outcomes and we can in improve people’s quality of life.

Omega-3s are also thought to benefit people with AMD, although the Age-Related Eye Disease Study II (AREDS II) failed to prove this – largely because the incorrect form of omega-3 was used in the study.

To that point, not all fish oils are the same. In order to extract out the triglyceride from the fish and purify it from toxins, manufacturers use an alcohol to attach to the triglyceride. This, in turn, changes the original triglyceride form of the oil into an ethyl ester form of oil. The GI tract has more difficulty absorbing ethyl esters as effectively as they do triglycerides resulting in less bioavailability and increased GI distress, “fish burps” and other GI issues. As a result, ethyl esters do not achieve therapeutic levels in the blood stream. This is why it is thought that AREDS II failed to show a benefit to patients with AMD – they simply didn’t get a therapeutic dose due to the use of the ethyl ester form of omega-3.

Physician Recommended Nutriceuticals (PRN) is the producer of this omega-3 product which has shown these phenomenal results. Most nutraceutical companies prefer to fly under the radar and sell their product without quality studies validating their claims. PRN, on the other hand, is one of the few omega-3 companies that has gone through the process to show the efficacy of their product in peer reviewed studies. Besides, serving as the “raw material” for meibum (oil in tears), PRN omega-3s reduce ocular surface inflammation, improves tear stability, normalizes meibum composition, improves visual acuity, decreases programed cell death (apoptosis), and improves corneal epithelial healing times.

As an optometrist, I have been recommending PRN Dry Eye Omega for my patients with dry eyes for many years and I have been taking it myself for my own dry eyes because it is the only omega-3 I trust to relieve my dry eye symptoms. Plus, there are no fishy burps. I tried another omega-3 a colleague recommended a few years back because he was able to purchase them directly from the processing plant for a fraction of the cost. I knew immediately it was the ethyl ester form despite his claims to the contrary because of the fishy burps. I immediately returned to using PRN products.

Recently, I entered into an agreement with PRN to sale PRN Dry Eye Omega directly out of my office for the same price a patient can purchase them online to make it easier for patients to get and begin using. This way, patients can get faster relief and not have to wait several days for the PRN Dry Eye Omega to arrive.

* Much of my article is taken from You are What You Eat by Eric D. Donnenfeld, MD, Chief Medical Editor in the June 2012 edition of Cataract & Refractive Surgery Today and from a PRN sponsored webinar for medical practitioners.

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