Omega-3 vs Omega-6: The Missing Link to Inflammation

Researcher and Neighborly Wellness founder Chip Paul breaks down how the omega-3 to omega-6 ratio can “program” your body toward inflammation or healing—and why that matters for your endocannabinoid system (ECS), immunity, and recovery. 

We cover the modern diet’s omega-6 overload (grain-fed meats, seed oils), simple omega-3 food fixes (chia, flax, bone-broth/grass-fed options), supplement quality (oxidation, stability), and how ECS balance may influence pain, immune “overreactions,” and overall resilience.

What you’ll learn

• The role of omega-3 & omega-6 in the ECS and immune responses
• Why the Standard American Diet pushes a pro-inflammatory state
• Practical ways to rebalance fats with foods & smart supplements
• Grain-fed vs grass-fed: how animal feed changes your fat profile
• Tips to avoid rancid/oxidized oils and pick cleaner omega supplements
  
  

Watch now!: https://youtu.be/is0RZ5qTijE

Visit UltraBotanica.com to learn more about us and how you can get a free sample of our products.

Transcript

0:00:00 - (Chip Paul): Right now, in our current food consumption, we grossly over consume omega 6 and we're very deficient in omega 3 fats. And what that does is it programs us to a very inflammatory and reactionary state. So when your immune system activates in our current world, it's like an explosion. It's like a nuclear explosion. In fact, it's way too voluminous for the situation usually and you usually stay stuck, stuck in some kind of immune event.

0:00:33 - (Chip Paul): And this is why we need immunosuppressants in order to deal with cancer or the flu or whatever. But it. We're all hyper tweaky, hyper inflamed.

0:00:53 - (Josh Bellieu): Hey everyone. Welcome to Ultra Life Today. I'm one of your hosts, Josh Belew.

0:00:59 - (Adam Payne): Sitting here with Adam Payne, CEO of Ultra Botanic.

0:01:02 - (Josh Bellieu): There you go, CEO, lead inventor of that really cool tech called Protozorb Technology. We've got a really awesome guest today. I recently met him and his wife. They're founders of a unique health ecosystem, you might say, out in Edmond, Oklahoma called Neighborly Wellness. Chip Paul is the name of this guy. He's a researcher, educator, patent holder, expert on the endocannabinoid system.

0:01:31 - (Adam Payne): And hold on, is isn't Chip the guy responsible for getting hemp into Oklahoma?

0:01:36 - (Josh Bellieu): He was one of, he and his wife for Big. This is petitioners of. Yeah, BIG petitioners and a grassroots movement to actually be able to bring our state to that place where we could play around in the cannabis and hemp world.

0:01:50 - (Adam Payne): Huge role.

0:01:50 - (Josh Bellieu): Huge role. Yeah. And so Chip, why don't you welcome to Ultralife today. Why don't you tell us a little bit about you and your background and journey and how you got to be doing, doing now.

0:02:02 - (Chip Paul): Yeah, sure. Well, thank you Josh and Adam and thank you for having me. God is really where I got to where I am right now. And you guys really just described, you know, I was a kind of, you know, young, bright eyed, kind of smart guy, had a, got a math degree out of college, went to work for Southwestern Bell, did really good in corporate life, but hated it was very stifling. And I'm not a, not a go along kind of guy but you know, did well let's say in corporate life but at some point decided to start an entrepreneur career. Did and started that really around helping people.

0:02:42 - (Chip Paul): So that was, you know, if you look at kind of the theme of, you know, the stuff that I've done, it's always been around trying to help you, you know, solve some problem or some health problem or something. But in 2013, my wife and I were complete teetotalers. So we had never, we didn't drink alcohol, we didn't mess with, you know, cannabis or anything like that. We were in a lot of pain, both of us. So I've got a bad back and she has a two level spinal fusion. And we knew that some kind of, you know, pain control was in our future.

0:03:15 - (Chip Paul): So we decided to drive to Colorado and try medical marijuana. And at that point, my life completely changed. You know, we became, and let's say, you know, as God will do, God kind of, you know, begin to open doors and kind of direct things in a certain direction.

0:03:33 - (Josh Bellieu): Yep.

0:03:34 - (Chip Paul): And since then, I have been focused on understanding why marijuana works. And it works because we all have an internal system called the endocannabinoid system. It turns out that system is much bigger and, you know, broader, let's say, than most systems in our body. And it is most likely our master regulatory system. So I started studying that system, the why behind cannabis. And it turns out that that system is the why behind everything.

0:04:04 - (Chip Paul): It's our master regulatory system. And as you understand that system, you understand diet, you understand disease, you understand infection, you understand immune, you understand many of the functions of our body, and you also understand kind of truths, let's say, in the medical system, there's just better ways to do things. And, you know, God built us a great natural system out here. You know, it's kind of incumbent on us to understand it and use that less risky, safer, godly system rather than the, the, you know, injections and vaccines that we seem to want to do now.

0:04:42 - (Adam Payne): So, you know, that, I mean, this really aligns around, you know, our thinking and, and some of the discoveries that we've made. I, I've always called the. Well, I, I've learned to call the endocannabinoid system the epigenetic switching hub of the body, essentially designed to handle all of those incredible life transitions and stages that the body goes through over time. And when it gets, when for if people are endocannabinoid deficient, then all sorts of things don't work. Things get backed up, people remain in pain, infections remain in effect, or the immune system remains activated and doesn't stop from being activated. So I'm really excited to learn more about your thinking around the endocannabinoid system. And I think our listeners will really enjoy getting into a deep dive on how.

0:05:44 - (Adam Payne): With an understanding of the endocannabinoid system, what can we do about it? Right. Or with an understanding of how a deficient or an out of balance. Endocannabinoid system can impact our life status and situate health status and what's going on, even mental, psychological, spiritual. What can we do to unstuck ourselves from those different situations? I think this is going to be a really exciting episode for a lot of people because we're kind of talking about the keys of life here, right?

0:06:22 - (Adam Payne): And literally when you unlock something in the endocannabinoid system, these are keys because it essentially opens up a whole new health venue or a whole new access to a whole bunch of different wellness options that our bodies might have been keeping locked up.

0:06:42 - (Chip Paul): Yeah, it's, you know, the endocannabinoid system is driven and fed by two essential dietary fats. Okay. So it really has nothing to do with cannabis, although cannabis is a nice magic screwdriver into the system. But Those fats are omega 3 and omega 6 fats. You literally program yourself by your consumption of these fats. Most people don't even realize that these two fats exist. Certainly don't realize that they're essential to your function. Meaning you have to have them every day.

0:07:16 - (Chip Paul): If you don't have them, you will suffer. And what does that mean? Immune cells will be sent to war with no ammo or no weapons. Nerve cells won't propagate a nerve event. Periantal cells in your release stomach acid. So you don't want to send your soldiers off to war without the proper things that they need to do battle. Now, right now, in our current food consumption, we grossly over consume omega 6 and we're very deficient in omega 3 fats.

0:07:49 - (Chip Paul): And what that does is it programs us to a very inflammatory and reactionary state. So when your immune system activates in our current world, it's like an explosion. It's like a nuclear explosion. In fact, it's way too voluminous for the situation usually, and you usually stay stuck in some kind of immune event. And this is why we need immunosuppressants in order to deal with cancer or the flu or whatever. But it we're all hyper tweaky, hyper inflamed, really easy thing to fix, eat more Omega 3s.

0:08:26 - (Adam Payne): Yeah, yeah, the functional medicine world has kind of figured that out. And you get with a functional medicine doctor, frontline, nutraceutical, that every functional doc is going to make sure that their patients are on at least a gram of omega 3s a day in order to supplement their system. But I don't know if the functional docs really have made the connection back to the endocannabinoid system being the reason why it's so important.

0:08:56 - (Adam Payne): But I think we'll get there today.

0:09:00 - (Josh Bellieu): Something, because so many people, for instance, if a person is eating just a typical standard American diet, we know that they're massively over the Omega 6 thing and they're probably not getting a fraction of the Omega 3 they need. But so make a distinction for the individual that's out there that actually hasn't begun to get their diet cleaned up and what they, what's the ratio that they need to try to utilize. And then let's talk about those, those of us who have been on a health journey are eating cleaner.

0:09:36 - (Josh Bellieu): Tell us the ratio of omega 3 to omega 6 so that we can kind of demystify that. Because people are all over the map when they talk about that stuff at times. And I heard you talk about it and it was so simple the way you described that in your kind of three prong approach or pillar of health, so to speak, that you, that you speak about.

0:09:56 - (Chip Paul): Yeah, so absolutely. And I just, you know, to, let's say, illustrate the importance of what, you know, we're talking about right now. And I'm getting ready to explain in more detail. I just wrote a paper, white paper, with the world expert on omega 3 and omega 6 fats, a lady named Dr. Artemis Somopoulos. And Artemis is a wonderful woman. She was one of the leading scientists at NIH back in the 80s and 90s and super smart lady. But we both see this as just a major, major health crisis and so detrimental to everything. The health of our children, the health of you and I, our readiness to fight a war, all those type things. But let me kind of walk you through what's happening right now. So in a perfect world, we're built to eat equal amounts of omega 3 and omega 6 fats.

0:10:50 - (Chip Paul): Why? Well, if you just look at your immune system and how your immune system works, let's say we have an insult, like we get infected with something or we have an allerg allergic reaction or something like that, we should inflame a little. And basically we need to inflame around, let's say a insult or an injury or trauma or whatever. So we need to kind of pad up and water out that area. Then in that area we start all these repair and healing mechanisms to, you know, kill whatever's there, heal up whatever's there, and then we deflame. And that's the way that we all should work. That's the way your immune system should work and kind of healing should work.

0:11:26 - (Chip Paul): And again, Omega 6s are the fire. Omega threes are the water. They're kind of the healing and cooling right now. And let's say feed you equal amounts of omega 3, omega 6 in this example. And let's say you have a dust allergy. I could drive you into a dust storm. You're going to have an allergic reaction in the dust storm. You're going to be really mad at me. Chip, why the hell did you drive me into a dust storm? Then? After we get out of the dust storm, though, you're going to come right back to normal. You're going to be exactly the same guy that we drove into the dust storm. So all your systems are going to kind of return to normal.

0:12:01 - (Chip Paul): Your inflammation is going to go down, and you're going to be the same guy that drove into the dust storm. Let's say I'm feeding you what we eat right now, which is about somewhere between 20 to 40 to 1. Omega sixes over omega 3s. Now, when I do that, that is reflected in every single cell wall in your body. I can pull out one cell and I can tell you exactly what Your ratio of Omega 3 to Omega 6 is because it goes to every cell.

0:12:33 - (Chip Paul): That's how important it is. But if you eat what we eat right now, I can't drive you into dust storm. I might kill you. It's a risk you might die of anaphylactic shock because you're so tweaky and hyper inflamed. But if I do drive you into a dust storm, and I can't do that, I just expose you to one dust might, you're going to have the same reaction as if I drove you into a dust storm, and you're going to get stuck.

0:13:01 - (Chip Paul): That's the situation that all of us are in right now. Hyper tweaky, hyper inflamed. You know, 80% of us die of chronic inflammation. We have to give immunosuppressants in order for your body to deal with cancer. We have to give immunosuppressants in order for your body to deal with COVID That's not normal. Or let's say that's not optimal for our.

0:13:23 - (Josh Bellieu): There you go.

0:13:23 - (Chip Paul): Right. So that's not optimal, but that is where we're at. And this is a crisis all the way down to what we're feeding our. Where does this come from? Well, first of all, none of us really know what's the source of omega 6s in the D of us Couldn't Even tell you what's a source of omega 3s in the diet. Again, most of us couldn't even tell you, but you can teach a third grader this stuff. So it's not like it's verboten or super complicated information, but basically in our meat supply right now. And this is the problem, and this is what we're kind of raising the flag on is we're just doing this to ourselves in our meat supply. We're feeding our meat a lot of corn and soy. And corn and soy are very heavy in Omega 6 that imbues into the meat.

0:14:08 - (Chip Paul): So you used to have cows that would eat in the pasture and eat grass and all that. That meat had omega 3 in it because they were eating grass. Right. Now you have cows that eat in a feedlot that eat a bunch of corn and soy. That meat has very little Omega 3 in it and has got a ton of Omega 6. And that's the biggest source, let's say, of the problem is, you know, what we're feeding our food supply. Yeah. And so it's. That's a kind of a bigger than an HHS problem. And that's why we're raising the flag on it, you know, to ag. HHS needs to be centrally kind of, you know, a source of education on that problem.

0:14:50 - (Josh Bellieu): So you mentioned a source that I thought was fascinating when I was watching you talk about your kind of three pillars of health, trying to simplify people on that journey to beginning to eat right and supplement right. And. And, you know, most people are like, my gosh, this is a $90 bottle of, you know, omegas, you know, that I'm getting off the shelf from a real reputable company, you know, can be very pricey.

0:15:16 - (Josh Bellieu): But you mentioned something, I think, as simple as, like, buying, what, chia seeds and. Yeah, flaxseed, like that. Just organic chia seed. Now tell me again, how much Omega 3 can I get?

0:15:29 - (Adam Payne): Curious.

0:15:30 - (Josh Bellieu): Taking. Taking a tablespoon of organic chia seed. I thought this was fascinating. I the connection.

0:15:36 - (Chip Paul): And you're going to get ala. And if we get into that discussion, there's a lot. Yeah, there's a lot of controversy and science about ala. But I'm a. I'm an ala. Alpha linolenic acidic, which is the precursor to DHA and epa.

0:15:52 - (Adam Payne): Right. It gets trend. It gets turned into the. Yeah, the Omega 3.

0:15:57 - (Chip Paul): Yeah. And again, you have an enzyme that is competitive, so an enzyme called delta 60 saturase. And HE omega 3 and omega 6 are both cleaved by D6D. And so there's a competition for that enzyme. So when you go to literature and you look at ALA consumption versus DHA and epa, there's some misleading, let's just say things in literature there that take some explanation to walk someone through. So, but anyway, chia seeds are. Or chia seeds are a good source of ala. They are, you know, 40% roughly fat.

0:16:35 - (Chip Paul): And of that fat, most of that fat is Ala, which is a really good source of Omega 3. So we encourage people to. About a tablespoon a day of chia seeds is, you know, potentially not therapeutic, but it certainly is, you know, satisfying. So you're going to get a lot of omega 3 from a tablespoon of chia seed. And it doesn't, you know, you can find chia seed in the baking aisle. Bob Mills. Chia seeds. Great. Yeah, Bob. Bob, you need to give us a little spiff on that, by the way.

0:17:10 - (Josh Bellieu): So how does a person. Are you saying the primary way one nourishes your endocannabinoid system is truly the correct. Correct balance of omega 3 and omega 6 is the biggest trigger?

0:17:25 - (Chip Paul): Absolutely. Thousand percent. So. Yep. And you literally, you know, you're programming yourself by your food every day. So am I going to program myself to be nice and dynamic? Am I going to program myself to be super inflammatory and reactionary like we're doing now, or do I want to go the other way and program myself to be slow as to an immune system, but a super healing guy, you know, so it's. You program basically your immune response and other responses by that.

0:17:53 - (Chip Paul): Think about this. A cell. So when a cell gets ready to do something, where are his resources? They're in the cell wall. Right. And if, you know, 90% of that cell wall is omega 6, guess go to get resources. If 50% of that cell wall is omega 3, then he's got a little bit more diversity that he can issue a response with.

0:18:15 - (Josh Bellieu): So in an individual being on a healing journey, they come to you in neighborly wellness. They've, they, they have problems. It sounds to me like the Omega 3, Omega 6 thing is so foundational to you that there could be many practitioners out there. And if they don't address the omega 3, omega 6 thing first, they're kind of running in circles, aren't they?

0:18:40 - (Chip Paul): Yeah, absolutely.

0:18:41 - (Josh Bellieu): So I would. And it's. Yeah. I just, I don't want this to go over people's heads. I think this is so important that we pound this omega 3, omega 6 issue so that people understand and how easily they can incorporate that into their diet, whether they choose to pay, you know, for a large supplement. Now when it comes to supplements though, in Omega 3 and Omega 6, how does one choose a supplement and know that they're not going to be contaminated with, with heavy metals and things like that?

0:19:10 - (Josh Bellieu): Yeah, because I know that bothers a lot of people because there's a lot of cheap fish oils out there.

0:19:14 - (Adam Payne): Yeah, I mean the, the essence there is you got to do the molecularly distilled, you know, mega 3s to make sure that they're, they're really clean and from a reputable source there. And there are a couple out there that really, you know, we, we, we don't make any Omega 3s here, but we, we buy some from reputable suppliers that we then package for some of our customers.

0:19:36 - (Josh Bellieu): Right, right, right.

0:19:37 - (Adam Payne): And it's, it's, there's quite a diverse amount of Omega 3s that are available to the, to, to, to purchase from. The cheapest ones come from China as always, and they are also the most highly suspect in terms of quality and, and, and their, their heavy metal content and all that stuff. But Chip, what do you think about all this?

0:20:02 - (Chip Paul): Yeah, so I, I again I, I'm always going to go to God first. So what is, how's God to provide it to us? Well, certainly fish is a way, but what if you don't live near the ocean? So you know, chaya seeds I like and that's, you know, for years and years and years and years, let's say we have been supplementing our Omega 3 with, you know, grasses and nuts and seeds and things like that. So I like going there. And they're shelf stable. You know, God built them shelf stable, which is kind of nice. So a chia seed oil is not going to degrade very readily and has some nice stability features. And then we do some interesting, that's huge.

0:20:42 - (Chip Paul): To stabilize ours. But if you look at most EPA and dha, let's say that's on the market, it's not shelf stable. So it's going to oxidize and going to degrade and you don't want that. So if it's stabilized with a polyphenol, that's a pretty good way to stabilize it. We use CBG, so we use a cannabinoid to stabilize our omega 3. But there's a lot more, let's say to omega 3 than people realize. And why, you know, the ultimate nutrient is an electron. Right. So that's ultimately what we're after in our mitochondrial electron transport Chain. We're after those electrons to, you know, play the proton pump game and all that. But electrons are ultimate nutrient.

0:21:22 - (Chip Paul): The more electrons you have in a food source like a polyunsaturated fat, the more subject it is to oxidation. So you have to be careful and stabilize those things.

0:21:33 - (Josh Bellieu): Yeah. A lot of. A lot of people don't realize that rancid oils are one of the most unhealthy things that one could ever put in their body. Something that could be good. It's rancid. You take it very destructive.

0:21:45 - (Adam Payne): And what you mean by rancid, it's oxidized oils.

0:21:47 - (Chip Paul): Right? Yeah. Next time you go to McDonald's and eat those McDonald's french fries, I want you to think about all the polyunsaturated fats in that oil. And it sounds good when you read about their oil. Oh, it's got Omega 3 in it. Yeah. Heat it up. What happens?

0:22:03 - (Josh Bellieu): Right. Yeah, exactly. Now, now it can cause all kinds of problems.

0:22:07 - (Adam Payne): For one, pyrethrins and all that stuff.

0:22:09 - (Josh Bellieu): Yeah, yeah, yeah. So this, by the way, this is Ultr Life today. You're listening to Chip Paul, our guest today. If you want to connect with Chip, I. And I'm. And Chip, I guess that you also like a lot of people over the last few years in Covid. I bet you do remote consultations and things with people. So if they potentially are outside the metro area or outside the state, they could reach out to you.

0:22:37 - (Josh Bellieu): And the website, you can reach out to Chips, Chip and. Or his wife Cindy. On is neighborly wellness dot com. That's neighborlywellness dot com. I highly encourage you, if you're in the metro area to book an appointment with this guy and spend some time. You're going to get some really quality care. He's going to take a lot of time with you. And, and Chip, aren't you also moving into one of those kind of health models where people, people can maybe pay a monthly fee or something like that? Tell us, because that's beginning to really get popular and people need to hear this because it's a really affordable way to be able to see people like you that live in the integrative and functional medicine world.

0:23:23 - (Chip Paul): Yeah. So it's, you know, healthcare obviously is really changing and is changing, you know, past Covid. I would say that we're changing it, you know, and not like us as professionals, but really us as people and what we want and need out of our healthcare system. So a really interesting, you know, holistic and let's say non Medical healthcare, kind of what we do. So herbal supplements and what you guys do.

0:23:49 - (Chip Paul): I mean, we have kind of driven a stake in the ground, and we don't really move. I mean, we don't really inflect. You know, we're talking about nature and God and, you know, this system that God's built and kind of, you know, this is it. Right. And this is the way we see the world. Professional medical is absolutely moving our way. And I would point to the direct primary care model, the monthly model that you're talking about.

0:24:10 - (Chip Paul): So I am. I think those two things marry up really soon. So I think you've got a direct primary care model that's offering holistic and natural care and also offering supplements. And that's just part of your $149 a month or whatever you're paying for. And, and that's where we're headed. I. I think our clinic will ultimately marry up with a direct primary care and we'll build kind of what comes next type of situation.

0:24:38 - (Chip Paul): And I'm looking for, you know, people that are interested in that. I just had a direct primary care doctor in here yesterday, had a great conversation with him. But systems, you know, are more interesting. So if you can imagine a clinic that had professional medical on one side, had holistic care on the other, had kind of a compounding and diagnostic lab in the middle, that's what I'm super interested in building.

0:25:01 - (Josh Bellieu): Yeah, I. Well, I don't know about you, Adam, but I feel like Chip has like, been and busting myths here as it relates to the omega 3 and omega 6 and how much that so powerfully regulates our body and is the driver of our endocannabinoid system. I just think that this has been incredible.

0:25:21 - (Adam Payne): What Chip is saying has kind of been the missing link for me between the connection between the Omegas and our immune system and why they're so important. So if, I think, if our listeners begin to understand the link of the importance of omega 3s and what we can do and how that affects our endocannabinoid system, I think a lot of people are going to start to gain a lot more insight and can really maybe latch on to better wellness.

0:25:50 - (Josh Bellieu): Yeah. And in our next episode, I've got to tease this up here. Chip does something really fascinating about a biological resonance frequency scan, and you're going to learn some things about that that are going to blow your mind. And you're probably going to want to get out there and see him at his Wellness Center. Neighborlywellness.com this is Josh with Ultralife today? Hanging out with Adam Payne.

0:26:14 - (Adam Payne): Yeah. Thanks for being here.

0:26:24 - (Josh Bellieu): Sam.