Essential Fatty Acids are important, but what are they?

What are EFA?

There are two main type of EFA: omega-6 and omega-3.  They are called Essential because it is a type of fatty acid that cannot be generate internally and can solely be obtained and/or converted from food.  Omega-9 is not an EFA as it can be internally generated and obtain from food.

Why do pets (dog/cat) need EFA?

• A very important nutrition to our pet
• It is vital for normal growth and functioning of all muscles, nerves, and organs.
• Essential for skin, fur, nails and hair of an animal.
• Injured animal and animal with chronic disease (i.e. kidney disease) needs higher dose of EFA
• Puppies, Pregnant and Lactating animals (dogs and cats) need higher EFA

What are the signs of EFA Deficiency?

• Dull coat
• Dried Skin (Dandruff from the skin)
• Itchy skin
• Excessive shedding
• Cracked paws
• Split claws
• Anaemia
• Impaired fertility
• Overgrowth of bacteria on the skin
• Liver disease
• Biliary disease
• Chronic pancreatitis
• Malabsorption problems

What are the signs of EFA Excess?

• Obesity
• Inflammation
  • This often happens from an excess of Omega 6
  • Most food (dog food, non-grass-fed fresh meats, grains, nuts, vegetable, and vegetable oil) are high in Omega-6
  • Too much of Omega-6 and not enough Omega-3 will lead to inflammation
  • Therefore, I do not advocate supplementing with Omega-6

Omega 3 Fatty Acid Benefits

• Improve coat and skin condition
• Slow down/ stabilize kidney disease
• Slow down / stabilize disease biliary disease
• Slow down/ stabilize Chronic pancreatitis
• Slow down/ stabilize Heart disease (Dogs with heart disease has lower % of DHA and EPA in their blood)
• Improve appetite/ Malabsorption problems
• Slow down/ stabilize Hypertension
• Slow down/ stabilize Type 2 diabetes
• Improve arthritis as a natural anti-inflammatories
• Slow down Ulcer 
• Slow down/ stabilize Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease

Bad Sources of Omega 3

• Packaged pet food
  • Omega-3 from packaged pet food is not recommended as Omega-3 can easily be spoiled with exposure to air.  
  • Consuming spoiled oil will lead to more free radicals in the body, and end up doing more harm than good.  
• Plant based Omega-3
  • Dogs can only convert 15% of plant based Omega-3 consumed, and Cats can only convert 0% of plant based Omega-3.
  • Do NOT feed your cats plant based Omega-3.
  • Plant based oil will be full of Omega-6 as mentioned above, you do not need to supplement additional Omega-6.

Unless you only feed grass-feed meats and supply your pets with raw fatty cold water fish, you will need to feed additional Omega-3 supplement and we recommend you select those with the following characteristics:

• Animal based Oil (i.e. fish)
• Omega-3 only
• Capsulated as exposure to air can easily spoiled it
• With added Vitamin E as fatty acid (long chain fat) will consume Vitamin E in the body.
• Human graded
• Our CoatPlus Fish Oil product has all of the above characteristics.