Today’s modern diets can often mean we eat too much or too little fat, or frequently just the wrong type. Our cell membranes consist of lots of oil aka. fat. For optimal performance they require quite a specific ratio of different types of fats, especially with regard to the essential fatty acids (EFA’s), omega 3 and 6. If these are out of sync, cells can malfunction a bit like trying to run your car on the wrong type of oil or petrol.
Cell membranes are your cells’ border control. They control what gets in and what gets out. They act as both the gatekeeper and the hostess.
Every cell in your body has a cell membrane and your body has a lot of cells. Experts think we have in the region of 30 trillion, and we want every one of these to have a healthy cell membrane. If your cell membranes are working correctly, they will let micronutrients in and waste products out. As well as supervising which molecules can enter and exit, most cell metabolism takes place in, on, or around this location. It’s like your very own production line inside you, manufacturing energy and proteins, and churning out waste products such as urea and toxins.
The next thing to understand is that their structure is critical to how well they function. We don’t want them to be too rigid or nothing will get in, or out. We also don’t want them too soft and floppy. This might allow too much in or too much out and over time this could cause multiple issues.
So how can we nourish them and maintain their structure so they can function properly? Firstly, the fat they contain needs to be eaten, as the body cannot make it. Some of these fats have special functions such as the EFA’s. There are many arguments about the correct ratio of fats to eat in the diet but researchers generally agree that we tend to be more deficient in omega 3 which is found in fish, nuts, seeds and vegetable oils.
So by now I think you get the idea that I like my clients to achieve healthy cell membranes because “the stronger our cells the more resilient our selves”.
It’s easy to check our ratios with a simple finger prick test because the concentration in our blood has been found to strongly reflect our dietary intake. The current European average for our omega 3 percentage is less than 4% but research confirms that 8% is optimum, and that this ratio is associated with a 90% reduction in risk of sudden cardiac death.
There is nothing like analytics to demonstrate to my clients (and me) that we either need to work harder on our diet or take targeted supplements to give our cells what they need to function tip top.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18541601
