Dr. Roizen Explains The Benefits of Omega-7

Interviewer:  Doctor, so many people are familiar with Omega 3, Omega 6, even Omega 9.  Can you talk about Omega 7?  I think that is a new topic that most people aren't familiar with.

Dr. Michael Roizen:  Well, the Odd Omegas appear all to have substantial benefits.  

So Omega 9 is extra virgin olive oil which has substantial benefits as a cooking oil and may in fact suppress inflammation, especially in the joints.  Omega 3, good for the brain and eyes. Especially in certain forms of it, the DHA.  

The Omega 7 is another odd Omega, and there must be a special property in that they all suppress inflammation.  

But Omega 7 is different than Omega 3 in that it also improves insulin sensitivity.  That is it improves glucose uptake into your cells. You don't want glucose floating around loose in your blood, you want it in your cells.  It decreases hepatic fat.  

It appears to strongly decrease triglycerides and at the same time as opposed to Omega 3's which often don't decrease LDL cholesterol at the same time, it decreases LDL cholesterol substantially, increases the healthy HDL cholesterol and decreases inflammation.  That's a lot of stuff.  

Basically what it does is it decreases inflammation in your body and decreases hepatic fat accumulation, one of the causes of inflammation in the body.  

So it does a number of things that are different from both Omega 3 and Omega 9, and seems to do the ones that it does similar to those at least as well if not better than the Omega 3 and the Omega 9 do.

Interviewer:  When it comes to the benefits that you mention, is this a relatively new discovery?  Like I said, not many people have heard about the Omega 7.

Dr. Michael Roizen:  Well, the reason it's new, the reason Omega 7 is relatively new is that all the prior ways of sourcing Omega 7 were either expensive or came with the antidote.  What do I mean by that? 

So for instance, sea buckthorn, the leading oil in it is actually one that causes inflammation.  It's palmitic oil which causes worse problems than you get with the Omega 7's.  So you have to purify the Omega 7 and that was expensive from that source.  

If you did it with macadamia nuts, another source, it costs about $10 bucks a pill.  Well, no one's going to study that because you're not going to have very much of a market if it costs you $10 bucks just to make each pill.

Interviewer:  Um-hmm.

Dr. Michael Roizen:  But they found a way of purifying Omega 7 from a fish source that is inexpensive and reliable and purifies it so you don't get the antagonist with it as you would with some of the other sources.