Distorted fatty acid metabolism and metabolic syndrome | Mahabaleshwar Hegde | Bharati Vidyapeeth University, India |

Bharati Vidyapeeth University, India

Metabolic syndrome, is a collection of risk factors that increases the chances of developing excessive body fat, heart disease,

stroke and diabetes and it is primarily the result of recent abrupt dietary life style changes, more particularly distorted

fatty acid intake. Our prehistoric food consisted of 1:1 ratio of omega-6 to omega-3 fatty acid. But today our diet has skewed

ratio of 20-40:1. Both linoleic acid omega-6 and alphalinolenic acid omega-3 fatty acids are essential fatty acids. Excessive

omega-6 and paucity of omega-3 fatty acid is almost a global phenomenon. Th is has led to the dominance of infl ammatory

pathway in modern man and is primarily responsible in phenomenal increase in incidences and severity of chronic degenerative

diseases. Omega-3 nutritional security and lowering of intake omega-6 fatty acid, correcting the imbalance is urgent need of

the day. Th erefore, our goal has been to bring back primary essential omega-3 fatty acid, alphalinolenic acid, into the food

chain. Flax seed is the richest source of vegetarian, omega-3 fatty acid. We have developed technogies, to increase production

and productivity of fl axseed; to extract omega-3 oil and soft gel capsules from fl axseed devoid of antinutrients; to stabilize

omega-3 fatty acid in emulsion to fortify milk and milk products; omega-3 enriched poultry feed mix for the production

omega-3 enriched egg and chicken meat; omega-3 fl our mix for bakery products etc. Our pioneering eff orts, through well

researched and validated “FLAX BIO_VILLAGE” concept, aims at attaining omega-3 nutritional security and correct the

omega-6: omega-3 imbalance, to eff ectively tackle metabolic syndrome.