Alex - My Functional Medicine MD is a Board Certified Family Practice physician who definitely follows those guidelines and tests periodically to be sure that the ratio is proper.
Dr. Sears focuses on
Silent Inflammation and this is where that ratio is important... from one of his reports, he says:
Quote
In many ways, silent inflammation can be considered “silent pain” in that the immune system continues to attack at the cellular level but without the perception of pain. Like free radicals, the existence of silent inflammation is not a disease, only an indication that potential medical problems lay ahead.
All inflammation is ultimately driven by a group of hormones known as eicosanoids. These hormones are derived from long-chain essential fatty acids and can be altered by dietary interventions. Although the search for anti-inflammatory medications to shut down the generation of inflammatory pain has been the goal of medicine since recorded history, very little progress has been made in measuring the extent of other types of inflammation other than asking a patient how much something hurts.
Thus, for years it was impossible to even discuss silent inflammation, let alone how to reverse it, until suitable clinical markers were established. The first of those markers was high sensitivity C-reactive protein (hs-CRP). This is a relatively non-specific marker of chronic low-level inflammation since it can dramatically increase with any type of infection. However, an increase in hs-CRP only indicates that low-level inflammation has already started. The actual silent inflammation occurs well before the appearance of C-reactive protein. Thus, it is critical to stop silent inflammation at the cellular level.
To measure this type of silent inflammation, a new, much more powerful clinical marker of silent inflammation has been developed. This includes the ratio of long-chain omega 6 fatty acid arachidonic acid (AA) to the long-chain omega 3 fatty acid eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) in the isolated plasma phospholipids. The AA/EPA ratio in the blood gives a precise insight into the balance of the precursors of pro-inflammatory eicosanoids (derived from AA) and the anti-inflammatory eicosanoids (derived from EPA) in each of the 60 trillion cells in the body. It is the balance of these eicosanoid precursors that determines the actual extent of silent inflammation in the body. Using this more sophisticated clinical marker (the AA/EPA ratio), more than 75% of Americans have high levels of silent inflammation, including millions of children. [end quote]
Jackie
