The human diet today is vastly different from that of our ancestors. For early mankind, hunting, fishing, and food gathering were a survival imperative, and, as a consequence, human beings evolved on “natural” foods. These foods supplied a diet that was low in total fat and saturated fat, but contained a balance of omega-6 and omega-3 essential fatty acids (EFAs).
For most of the time humans have been on earth, we have eaten foods containing omega-6 and omega-3 fatty acids in a ratio of about 2:1. In recent millennia, the emphasis moved away from hunting/gathering towards cultivating the land, but the greatest dietary changes have occurred in approximately the last 50 years. As a result of our increasing reliance on cereals, processed foods, and most significantly, vegetable oils and spreads, coupled with a decreased consumption of oily fish and grass-fed meat, today this ratio is at least 10-20:1. Today, modern Western diets are thereby deficient in omega-3 fatty acids compared with the diet on which humans evolved and their genetic patterns were established.
Both omega-6 and omega-3 fatty acids are essential, but the body requires them in a ratio that is not normally achieved by the typical diet of today’s industrialized nations. Experts think that man evolved on a diet that would have had roughly 1-2 times more omega-6 than omega-3 though there is a school of thought that argues for a 1:1 ratio.
Because of their wide-ranging roles, virtually every area of the human body is susceptible to problems if the balance of the two polyunsaturated fatty acids is disrupted. The point at which this imbalance becomes a problem is not yet known, and in practice, will probably vary from person to person. Nevertheless, it is more than reasonable to assume that general health would be greatly enhanced by the reduction of omega-6 consumption and the increase of omega-3 EFA consumption to restore the balance that nature intended.