76% of People Don’t Get Enough Omega-3 - And It Affects Your Brain | Philip Calder

22:16Sarah Ann Macklin:Yeah, absolutely. I mean, psychology plays a huge role in our food decisions and choices.

22:21Philip Calder:Yeah, the psychology of food choices, that's a big and complex area. But actually, that's something where maybe more resource should be placed. because we have a public health challenge, not just with over consumption of calories, but under consumption of essential nutrients, which I include EPA and DHA in there.

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24:23Sarah Ann Macklin:There's so many supplements out there, and people can feel so overwhelmed when even looking at what to buy. And it's interesting thinking about that, you know, there's a lot of supplements that are labelled omega-3, 6 and 9. Yes, there are. And I feel like from hearing what you said, this is from my own personal understanding as well, is that we really should just be trying to have more of the omega-3 supplements than opposed to adding the 6 onto it as well.

24:50Philip Calder:I couldn't agree more. So 369, to me, doesn't make a lot of sense. And let's deal with the nine first. So the omega-9 in those supplements is probably oleic acid. Oleic acid is the most prevalent fatty acid in our diets. So we get it a lot from plants. We also get it from animal foods. Not only that, we can make it ourselves. It's not an essential. the amount you will get in a supplement is negligible compared i mean most people are eating like 30 grams of oleic acid a day yeah right so if you've got a supplement that's got

25:29Sarah Ann Macklin:a teeny tiny bit of oleic acid in it that's like useless yeah you can use that word um

25:36Philip Calder:so the nine is not relevant most people are eating enough omega-6 some people would argue they're eating too much. We've talked a bit about that, but they're certainly eating enough. Okay. So we're way above the threshold, for example, to prevent essential fatty acid deficiency. That actually hardly exists. Yeah. Okay. So we're way beyond that. We're talking about, you know, amounts related to long-term health now, not an acute deficiency disease. But we're eating way beyond that. I mean, most, I think in the UK, the average man is eating about 11 grams of linoleic acid a day in a woman, I think about eight or nine grams per day.

26:19Philip Calder:So again, in a capsule, if you're getting a little bit of omega-6, it's not making any difference. The difference is the omega-3 because most people are eating very low amounts of omega-3s. I mean, even alpha-linolenic acid, you might be eating one gram a day. Okay, so linoleic, I said 11 grams. Oleic, I said 30 grams. So we're talking about, you know, an order of magnitude less. So we've got low intake of alpha-linolenic acid, unless people are consuming a lot of flaxseed, flaxseed oil, stuff like that. And we've got very low intakes of EPA and DHA, unless people are eating a lot of oily fish.

26:59Philip Calder:So we're talking tiny amounts. So a capsule, a supplement, can make a big difference to omega-3 intake. It makes no difference to omega-6 and omega-9 intake.

27:09Sarah Ann Macklin:I just think it's so important to clarify that because I can imagine so many listeners will walk in trying to find the right supplement and seeing the omega-3, 6 and 9s. I mean, I remember before I started studying this and thinking that I was doing really good for my health and had no idea of these ratios. So I think, yeah, go in, look for a supplement, but it is just omega-3. And I'd also say, not sure if you agree this, but looking at the back and just seeing what the differences is between EPA and DHA and how much is also bulking agents? Because some supplements are like 30 % of just that supplement and the rest is bulking agents.

27:45Sarah Ann Macklin:And others are like full of 90%. So that's also really important.

27:49Philip Calder:Yeah, so this is super, super important. So all of the effects of EPA and DHA that I've been talking about are related to dose, if you like. They're related to intake. Now that could be intake from fish, could be intake from a supplement. But in other words, the more you're taking in, the greater the effect is. That's really clear, dose-dependent, okay? Now, I think it's really important to distinguish between the oil and the omega-3s, okay? So a standard fish oil, whether that is a fish oil or a liver oil like cod liver oil, a standard fish oil is about 30 % EPA and DHA, okay? So if someone is having a one-gram capsule, that's got 300 milligrams of EPA and DHA, and it's got 700 milligrams of other fatty acids.

28:39Philip Calder:They're naturally present in the fish oil. So let's agree on that. They're not watering the omega-3s down. That's actually how the fish have made it. So it's about a one-third EPA and DHA. So that's why people should look at the label, how much EPA and DHA is in the supplement. Now, it's possible in industry to concentrate the EPA and DHA. So a lot of supplements will be concentrates. So they might have 45 % EPA and DHA. They might have 60 % EPA and DHA. They may even have 90 % of EPA and DHA. So in other words, in a one gram capsule, you could get 450 milligrams, 600 milligrams, 900 milligrams.

29:25Philip Calder:So you're getting less of the other stuff that you don't need. Of course, a concentrate is more expensive. And in general, the more concentrated it is, the more expensive it is. So you can sort of work out the price per 100 milligrams of EPA and DHA, if you like. And, you know, you make your choice. Yeah. Do I want to spend less and get a less concentrated form? Do I want to spend more and get more for that money that I'm putting out? Now, the algal oils are around about, typically they're about 45%. So they're more concentrated than the standard fish oil. But I agree people should look at the label.

30:02Philip Calder:How much EPA and DHA is in here? Now, sometimes the label will have total omega-3s. Total omega-3s doesn't necessarily have to be EPA and DHA. So it's really handy if the label has EPA and DHA on it. About EPA and DHA content. So that's a really interesting question. And so the question is, does it matter if there's twice as much EPA than DHA or twice as much DHA than EPA? So I think that depends on the answer. It depends on who the consumer is. So there's a lot of DHA in the brain and in the eye. So as our brain is developing and as our eye is developing, DHA is really, really important. okay it's not to say that epa isn't important for other parts of the body but dha is vital so and when you think okay when was my brain built some of it was built before you were born and the rest of it was built in the first few years of your life so during pregnancy during lactation and mom and during infancy in the baby dha is really important okay so if you're thinking about pregnancy and someone's wanting to have a supplement, we could talk a bit more about that as well, you know, a DHA-rich supplement might be really important there.

31:31Philip Calder:In infancy, if supplementation is what you want, you know, I would look for a DHA-rich supplement. And later on, both EPA and DHA are important. So in adults, in adolescents, in adults and older people, you know, to me, it doesn't really matter too much whether it's got more EPA or more DHA so long as you're getting enough of those things but it's a life course consideration I think that's really important

31:57Sarah Ann Macklin:the pregnant woman is one of the most important ones to highlight there as well because the third trimester is when the baby's brain is formed and so obviously the mother's needs are increasing during that and that's actually when it's a really important time to make sure so so I mean that's a

32:11Philip Calder:physiologically interesting stage of the life course. So the mother is transferring DHA and also arachidonic acid actually, and other fatty acids as well. But the most interest is DHA because of its role in the eye and the brain. The mother is transferring DHA across the placenta to the fetus. And in fact, the fetus is concentrating DHA. So the fetal blood has a higher concentration than the mother's blood. And of course, things usually go from high to low concentration. But across the placenta, the baby's actually concentrating DHA out of the mother. So where is that DHA coming from? So some of it will come, obviously, if the mother's eating DHA, so dietary DHA, but also DHA stored in adipose tissue, for example.

33:05Philip Calder:And some people have even argued that the mother's brain gives up DHA for the growing fetal brain. Wow, I didn't know that. Yeah, so this has been, so I think the evidence for that is very weak, if existent, but it has been a hypothesis. And some people have used this as a rationale for some of the cognitive and mental changes that can happen in pregnancy and soon after pregnancy, that the mother's brain is losing some of its DHA. So I think it's an interesting thing to think about. But certainly the mother's physiology is set up to provide DHA to the fetus. And then afterwards, of course, breast milk is important.

33:53Philip Calder:Breast milk contains DHA. You know, in Europe, infant formula has to contain a certain amount of DHA actually to mimic the average DHA content of breast milk. So that's a very important stage of the life course.

34:07Sarah Ann Macklin:I'm interrupting for one moment to ask one small favor. Please subscribe to the show. This helps it grow more than you know. And I'm so bad at asking this from you. I'm so bad of thinking about this but you know my goal is a hundred thousand to get to on YouTube and I really want to bring you more content and bigger episodes and we can only do that with your help together so please do hit subscribe thank you when I think about how mums can increase this the one thing that I think comes under fire and it's not just mum there's anyone trying to increase their fish horses right because I can just imagine them going how she not asked this question yet but I don't know if you ever saw see spiricy that documentary that absolutely terrified people of eating fish.

34:51Sarah Ann Macklin:There was a lot of scaremongering in that as there is with so many health documentaries and I think now so many people are worried about whether the fish contains adequate amounts of these of these EPA and DHAs or they're also laced with other like microplastics and chemicals and dyes and so now we find ourselves in this position where people are worried sometimes to choose the farm fish. Environmental conditions I can also understand, but when we're just physically just talking about the health kind of outset of this, people have now watched so many different things on media that it's made them quite fearful.

35:28Sarah Ann Macklin:So is there a difference when it comes to just health, we aren't talking about anything else, with farm fish versus wild organic fish?

35:36Philip Calder:Yeah. So, I mean, this is a brilliant question and, And, you know, it's fundamentally important, obviously. So let's think about wild fish first. So there is a risk of... So the sort of fish we're talking about, omega-3 rich fish, EPA and DHA rich fish, there is a risk in some species particularly, particularly the ones right up the high end of the food chain, because a lot of the things in the sea are passed through the food chain, of course, for those fish to contain contaminants. be that mercury or other types of contaminants, like flame retardants, for example. Now, because of this, going right back to where we started when I talked about the UK government recommendations, so if anyone chose to look at the book that contains the UK government recommendations, which most people don't, most people just say 450 milligrams per day.

36:35Philip Calder:I pointed out it's at least 450 milligrams per day. and what they say in the recommendations almost nobody talks about and that is that men, boys and women not of childbearing age could consider consuming one to four portions of oily fish a week but women of childbearing age should limit to one or two and the reason for that is the point I'm making the concern about contamination being present if people ate, if pregnant women ate, or women of childbearing age in general, ate more than two portions of oily fish a week. So that's actually in the UK recommendations, although almost nobody says that.

37:23Philip Calder:So that's a recognition of the potential for this. Now, having said that, personally I'm not aware of anyone actually being reported as being poisoned. by eating too much oily fish. Now, of course, there's also, in the same recommendations, there's a statement that people, particularly women of childbearing age, should be wary of swordfish, shark. Tuna. I think it's bluefin tuna, and there's one other. There's four fish that are named because they are the highest in the food chain and the most likely to be contaminated. So that's wild fish being discussed. Your question is about farm fish. So we're mainly thinking about salmon here, I think, although there are other farm fish.

38:13Philip Calder:And some trout. So in the wild, salmon are carnivorous. So they eat other fish. And they have a high requirement for EPA and DHA. Okay. So when you farm salmon, you have to give them EPA and DHA, otherwise they don't grow well and also they get sick. Okay. Fish oil is used in aquaculture, fish farming, as a source of EPA and DHA. In fact, aquaculture, fish farming, uses 80 % of the world's fish oil. And humans use most of the other 20%. Wow. Actually, some is used in pet food, which is a growing area. We love our pets. People love their pets, yeah. So both cats and dogs. So the amount being used, so there's sort of a fixed amount of fish oil.

39:11Philip Calder:Yeah. And, you know, that's because it's a natural product that comes from fish that are harvested. There's a sort of a fixed amount. So as these other uses go up, there's going to be less for humans. And we're talking about wanting more so far. So I think that's an important consideration. Fish oil is also expensive compared to vegetable oils. So if you're using it in fish farming, it's an expensive part of the farming industry. So the fish farming industry got very interested in sort of how low could they go. What's the minimum amount of fish oil that salmon needs when it's being farmed? And can we make up the rest with plant oils?

39:58Philip Calder:so if you go back let's say 20 years in salmon farming fish oil was the sole oil that was used okay if you go and look now they use mix mixes of fish oil and the common plant oils that we've been talking about and maybe the fish oil has gone down to about 50 percent so if you go below that threshold, the salmon are not growing well, they're sick, and so on. But if you go above that threshold, the salmon grow fine, they're healthy. The consequence of that for human nutrition is the salmon, although it still contains EPA and DHA, contains less than it would if they were using 100 % fish oil. So in other words, farm salmon in 2026 has less EPA and DHA than farm salmon in, let's say, 2000, 2005.

41:00Wow.

41:01Philip Calder:So that has some consequences. So that means actually the UK government recommendation was made in 2004. And it was based on how much EPA and DHA was in salmon at that stage. If it has less salmon, instead of at least one oily fish per day, maybe we need at least one oily fish per week, maybe we need at least two to get the same amount of EPA and DHA. It also means the food composition tables are probably not accurate. So we can't work out so well how much EPA and DHA people are consuming.

41:35Sarah Ann Macklin:Wow. So you're saying that because we've changed how the aqua farming is distributing the fish oil now to the fish farms in 2026 the fish that we're eating has probably less epa and dha in it than

41:50Philip Calder:it did 10 years ago so i think the first caveat just before people panic too much is that that salmon is still a good source of epa and dha yeah okay so it still has a lot of epa and dha it's just it doesn't have as much as it would have had had it been produced 20 years ago it's

42:06Sarah Ann Macklin:so interesting because when i look about this even and you know like in in farm culture with you know the minerals that's in our soil we know that they've been depleted over the last 50 years dramatically and so how much when we think when we look at you know a bowl of salad that's got you know your spinach and in your tomatoes how much more you might have to eat to compensate what you did 50 years ago precisely is massive the same with meat and how cows obviously eat the grass and similarly now to fish yeah so actually we need more of an abundance in more concentrated forms than ever before.

42:41Philip Calder:So some of this is about cost. So of course in the farming industry, I mean we're mainly talking about commodities and I mean you know farm fish is a commodity even though it's not something that everyone is using. You know there's a desire to keep the price lower. So if you have an expensive product like fish oil, you know the industry will look for an alternative to keep the price of the fish, in this case, lower. I'm sort of guessing, although I haven't had this conversation, that if people were willing to pay more, it wouldn't be such a pressure. But I mean, we're actually talking about the need for more people to be eating these fish.

43:23Philip Calder:So I think having them more expensive is not going to help with that. So maybe it's a good alternative for more people to be eating fish with less EPA and DHA than for fewer people to be eating fish with more epa and dha you're sort of spreading the epa and dha over more people in

43:42Sarah Ann Macklin:a way yeah i just think it's such a sad state of affairs that as we kind of develop more into a world that's meant to become more efficient and better we have more knowledge than ever we're actually more deprived of the nutrients that's in our food because i always say you know supplements to supplement your diet but as it as everything starts dropping it's i'm you know starting to feel like over time in another 50 years, is it going to be an essential? So when we're looking at the verdict on the farm versus the wild fish, the guidelines are one to four for men and women, apart from childbearing and pregnant women, to have one to two because of the microplastics and all the things that are in the, because they're top of the food chain, basically.

44:29Philip Calder:So when the guidelines, the UK recommendations were made, which was 2004, microplastics weren't on. I don't think they'd been discovered. I don't know. But they weren't on the agenda anyway. So the concern then was mercury and other contaminants like flame retardants, for example, which are fat soluble. Okay. So, I mean, but the concern was contamination.

44:55Sarah Ann Macklin:Yeah. And so what I'm saying now is if people were to go into a supermarket and they're going, OK, I've just listened to this podcast. I've heard what the guidelines are, but I also know what the farm fish kind of landscape is. Is there a real difference between which one should choose versus the health benefits? They're going to have higher EPA and DHA on the wild, I feel, and maybe lower on the farm.

45:17Philip Calder:Yeah, they may do. Yeah, yeah.

45:19Sarah Ann Macklin:Will the other things change, like the microplastics and chemicals or not?

45:23Philip Calder:I think it's hard to answer that question because I don't actually know the level of undesirable ingredients, more ingredients isn't the right word, chemicals, in farm fish versus wild fish. I think I'll come back to the point I made earlier. I'm not really aware of people suffering adverse consequences due to contaminants in either farmed or wild fish as something that's happening at all. I'm not saying it has never happened. Yeah. And so when people got a little bit concerned about mercury, for example, in fish, some researchers did like a risk-benefit analysis. So if you've got risks from the contaminants, but you've got benefits from the omega-3s, and they're both together, how does that weigh up?

46:21Philip Calder:So again, this was in the early 2000s when these issues first came up. and those studies almost always came to the conclusion that the benefits outweigh the risks in other words the benefits of having more omega-3s outweighs the risk of the possibility

46:37Sarah Ann Macklin:of low levels of contaminants i think that's really interesting people to hear yeah right knowing that actually yeah there is things that maybe aren't the best for you in there but actually the benefit of getting these ep and dhas kind of yeah makes it worthwhile making sure you're including them.

46:53Philip Calder:Yeah, I think there's another, just to mention that, of course, fish, particularly, you know, oily fish, fatty fish, isn't just about omega-3s. You know, you've got good quality protein in fish, you've got fat-soluble vitamins, and you've got a lot of some of the trace elements, for example, selenium, iodine, things like that.

47:17Sarah Ann Macklin:And iodine's so important because we're also seeing an iodine deficiency right now from the reduction of dairy in our diets.

47:22Philip Calder:Yeah. So, I mean, fish is a very good nutritional package. And actually, you know, white fish, lean fish is also a good nutritional package. Just doesn't have so much of the EPA and DHA. So I think, you know, being more holistic about fish as a food, lean fish, oily fish, you know, it's not just the omega-3s, although they are important. There's lots of other things in there as well.

47:47Sarah Ann Macklin:It's all about balance, Phil. You know, it's all about balance. It's all about balance.

47:51Philip Calder:Everything's about balance.

47:52Sarah Ann Macklin:So one thing that's not balanced, but also kind of a real revolution, and it's a real zeitgeist, this conversation. I mean, it's one of the most interesting things that's happened in the pharmaceutical world in decades, and it's GLP ones. There's so much discussion around this. But something that I find really interesting, just from a nutritionist perspective, is like seeing how important that people who do go on these drugs actually look at the micro macro intake on their diet because obviously it blunts your appetite which means that you're eating less and we know that when people do that they're more at risk of a nutrient deficiency and there's so much buzz around protein right now that we kind can't get away from it and it is really important but there's so many other also parts of the diet that are also important to talk about and I saw this week that Marks and Spencers has actually released a line of food that is specific towards people on GLP-1.

48:47Sarah Ann Macklin:So these meals are smaller, but they're more nutrient dense. They've got a higher quality of amino acids for your protein, they've got rich omega-3s in. And what they're trying to do is saying, well, obviously you can't eat large amounts. So what we'll do is we'll make these more smaller and more specified to you to making sure that you're maintaining a good micronutrient baseline. I think that's really important. The one thing that I found really important when looking at this and kind of looking at today's conversation was how omega-3 also plays a really important role within this guideline, but also within the connection to muscles.

49:24Sarah Ann Macklin:Because I think protein is so widely spoken right now, but we forget that omega-3 is also really important in helping our muscles as well. So can you tell me why that's so important that we shouldn't be forgetting this?

49:36Philip Calder:So I think GLP-1 receptor agonists obviously are increasingly used, and it's clear they work very well. They manage to get people to lose weight quite quickly. Yeah. And this is mainly fat that they're losing. There's also some discussion about loss of lean mass, which probably is mainly protein, but it might be other things as well. And, you know, these are working by suppressing appetite. So people obviously are eating less. Now, this could be problematic because if people are eating a low essential nutrient diet already, and that could include EPA and DHA, I'm including that along with the vitamins and minerals and so on, and they reduce intake of their diet, they're going to be getting even less of these important nutrients.

50:24Philip Calder:And I think one of the issues which relates a bit to the last topic we were talking about, or the one before that, is many people have moved to energy-rich, essential nutrient-poor diets. So if that's a diet that people are choosing to eat, but now they want to eat it in a much lower amount, okay, they're cutting down their energy intake, but they're also cutting down their essential nutrient intake. So this could be quite an adverse thing. So it's very interesting that this trend that you mentioned has happened, where I think people are wanting more protein, but there's definitely a need for more protein.

51:12Philip Calder:But packing into that more vitamins, more minerals, more omega-3s, and so on. So people will actually not only be reducing their caloric intake, but they will be increasing the intake of essential nutrients. So I think that's a good thing. And although maybe this is a focus for people who are receiving GLP-1 receptor agonists, this is actually the sort of diet that everyone should be eating, right? So this is actually maybe an innovation that will improve health more widely than the intended target group. So your second question is about the relationship between muscle and omega-3s. And this is really fascinating.

51:51Philip Calder:So I mentioned before that when people consume more omega-3s, they get into lots of tissues in the body. That includes skeletal muscle. That's been very well described. There's some time course and dose response studies looking at people's skeletal muscle. This has mainly actually been done in young people interested in physical activity, partly because of the interest in muscle and exercise performance. It would be good if some of this research was done maybe in older people who are at risk of loss of lean mass. That hasn't happened quite so much yet. So throughout the day, people are breaking down muscle to release amino acids for use elsewhere in the body and then they're rebuilding muscle so there's a turnover of muscle protein okay and what happens is when you eat a meal you build up your muscle and then after a period of time you start breaking it down then you have another meal you build it up again so if you're in a steady state over the course of a day you're not really using muscle you've just been turning it over of course if you're growing, like in childhood and adolescence or bodybuilding, you're making more protein over the course of the day.

53:00Philip Calder:But you've got this turnover. So you can study the breakdown and the synthesis of muscle protein experimentally. So it's very well defined, this rhythm that people have. So some researchers here in the UK, but also in North America, have done studies to see if omega-3s somehow are playing a role in regulating this muscle protein turnover. So one of the things that drives muscle protein breakdown is inflammation. So the thinking was, if omega-3s are anti-inflammatory, they could slow the breakdown. Now, when people did these studies, they actually found that omega-3s increase synthesis of protein.

53:48Philip Calder:They increase muscle protein synthesis. They might also decrease breakdown, but they seem to primarily promote synthesis. So it's not really understood how that happens, the mechanism, but it turns out if you have a higher omega-3 intake, your muscle protein synthesis is increased in response to a

54:11Sarah Ann Macklin:And for people that don't know what muscle protein synthesis is, just explain.

54:16Philip Calder:So that's making muscle protein. So your muscle is mainly composed of protein, right? That's how your muscles work, because it contains proteins that drive contraction. And when you have the contraction increase and decrease in contraction, that's how you're actually moving. So that's promoting your mobility for skeletal muscle. You have to be muscle protein synthesis is making new muscle proteins. And as I've said, that's happening all the time in real time, but it happens in response to a meal because you've got amino acids in your meal that you can use to support the muscle protein synthesis because proteins are made of amino acids.

54:55So this process is increased by omega-3 fatty acids.

55:01Philip Calder:Okay. So this effect is called an anabolic effect. So anabolism is making things. catabolism is breaking things down. So the main drivers of increasing muscle protein synthesis are insulin. And of course, after you have a meal, insulin levels go up. And also the presence of particular amino acids called branched chain amino acids. And omega-3 seem to increase the response to insulin and branched chain amino acids. So it could be if you want to make protein, having a higher omega-3 intake could really increase this.

55:34Sarah Ann Macklin:Wow. Well, I'm just thinking, you know, resistance training has been on the forefront now of the conversation for so long, especially for women, especially when they're going through pre and post-menopausal. But, you know, we do say on the show that everybody should be doing some type of resistance training. You know, 10 years ago, people spoke a lot more about cardio, but now we're really understanding the importance of our muscles for our health. And I just don't think this has been spoken about as much. You know, we talk about how important it is with protein timing and protein quality. And I'm not saying that's not important to talk about it is.

56:03Sarah Ann Macklin:But it's interesting that omega-3 hasn't come into the picture of the mention of this conversation.

56:08Philip Calder:So this is an emerging area. I mean, obviously, the overriding effect is having the amino acids there to build the muscle. OK, so omega-3s can't replace amino acids, right? You need amino acids to build muscle. So I don't want people to get the wrong idea. But what I'm saying is you just get an increment if the omega-3s are there. That process is working just a bit more efficiently, I suppose, as a way to think of it.

56:30Sarah Ann Macklin:I just think it's fascinating because we started off this conversation by saying 76 % of people are in a deficit. And I don't think people know that. I don't think people maybe are aware that they might be in a deficit. And if people are really working hard on their resistance training, really working hard now on their protein intake, this could be just one thing that can also help increase all the things that they're doing already. You know, a lot of people who listen to the show are very much into preventative health. You know, they want to learn, they want to figure out like, what is the science-based evidence right now that I can do to put myself in the best position.

57:04Sarah Ann Macklin:And it's just interesting. This is such an interesting area that this one small tweak, if they are deficient and they start consuming more fish, could be a massive game for them.

57:13Philip Calder:Yeah, sure. So I think, you know, a way to look at this is I'm not saying this is what you should do, but let's say you think, okay, I'm not actually so interested in heart disease. What I'm interested in is my muscles and my performance. So omega-3s are for you as well. So I think a way to look at this is it's a bit more holistic. Yeah. So you shouldn't really think about one organ system. So don't only think about the brain or the heart or the muscle, because they're all interconnected and they're all in the same body. And don't only think about omega-3s. Think about your protein. Think about your micronutrients.

57:53Philip Calder:Think about your total energy intake. Because, again, all those things are interconnected. did. So I think we have to think in a much broader sense. And, you know, there aren't actually magic bullets. We're just trying to get our physiology to a more optimal state. OK. And that is physiology across the whole body, across the whole life course. And we've touched on some things around pregnancy and so on. Mentioned older people at one stage. And, you know, we're thinking multiple nutrients, multiple organs across the life course.

58:24Sarah Ann Macklin:So Philip, I guess I always leave with one lasting question, which I ask the same to every guest, which basically is a similar formula for health. Everyone has their own opinion of what that means for them. So Philip, what does live well, be well mean to you?

58:39Philip Calder:Living well and being well is complex. So I think for me, primarily a good quality diet is part of that, by which I mean plenty of fruit and veg and other plant-sourced foods. Eating oily fish is certainly part of it. I think trying to get enough fibre is important. And, you know, maintaining calorie intake, trying to maintain weight, you know, that can be a struggle of course. Physical activity is the other side of the coin but other things like you know getting enough sleep is really important those sorts of things. Social interactions of course are important. I think the things you do in your spare time are also important to your health and well-being but it is complicated and it's different for different people and you know it can be hard to follow when people have busy lives, which could be busy professionally, but they could be busy domestically as well.

59:41Philip Calder:And I think something I touched on, which is important, I think, is where you can, you should prepare your own meals from scratch at home using fresh ingredients. I don't mean never go out and eat. Of course, that's brilliant. And that's part of having a good life as well. But I think, you know, the mainstay is good old-fashioned home cooking, I think.

1:00:03Sarah Ann Macklin:Yeah, I love that. I mean, I feel like that's massively declined, but I think it's one of the most things that you... I think it's the biggest form of self-care that you can give yourself is cooking for yourself and cooking for people you love. It's definitely a love language. It's definitely one of my love languages. So we all want to get people back in the kitchen. Philip, thank you so much for coming on to Live Well, Be Well and divulging us for such a plethora and amazing evidence on Omega-3.

1:00:27Philip Calder:Well, thanks for having me. It's been great.

1:00:29Sarah Ann Macklin:I hope you all now go and eat one to two portions of oily fish a week.