Why Your Omega 3 to Omega 6 Ratio Is So Important– & How to Fix It

Over the thirty years of my personal MS journey, I have recognized that healthy oils have been a large part of my recovery process.

In my first book on health recovery, “Who Is In Control of Your Multiple Sclerosis?” I focused on Omega-3 and Omega-6 fatty acids and in my second book I noted particularly that unhealthy fats were key to brain degradation.

Now, excess Omega-6 is a crisis as our food intake of these has almost tripled in the last 20 years. This throws into incredible disarray the all-important Omega-6 to Omega-3 fatty acid ratio. This is perhaps now the most important ratio that we should establish and learn for our general wellbeing.

This Omega-6 to Omega-3 ratio was reported in the journal “Lipids” in August of 2025. This gigantic study looked at the Omega-6 to Omega-3 ratios throughout the world. They studied 590,000 individuals of almost all ages, and the results are enlightening. An optimal Omega-6 to Omega-3 ratio is 3 or 4 Omega 6 to 1 Omega-3. This means that for every Omega-3 molecule, there should be no more than 3 or 4 Omega-6 molecules.Yet this 2025 study in Lipids found that the average North American has an Omega-6 to Omega-3 ratio of 15:1 and in some groups it is as high as 20 to 1! This is largely due to our diet and our high in-take of processed and ultra-processed ‘fast food’ which is often deep fried in Omega-6 oils.

Why is this of concern? A diet high in Omega-6 oil, mainly from seed oils, causes inflammation throughout the body. Furthermore, when these oils are chemically altered or hydrogenated, trans fats are produced. High amounts of these fats in our diet contribute to atherosclerosis, which is the hardening (or reduced elasticity) of our arteries. This, triggers heart attacks and strokes. On the other hand, diets rich in Omega-3 fats have the opposite effects and contribute to healthy “softening of the arteries”. The result is improved health, reduced pain, optimal function of cells, and increased longevity. Thus, balancing our Omega-6 to Omega-3 ration to the optimal 3 or 4 to 1 ratio is extremely important!

This of course is why all trans fats should be anxiously avoided and Omega-6 oils should be relatively minimized. Happily, health legislation has helped to do this, and trans fats are now avoided in most of our real food choices. The trans fats have mostly been replaced by the much healthier saturated fats of palm oil, coconut oil, butter, lard and beef tallow.

The focus is now on reducing the Omega-6 oils. Joseph Mercola states that we could dramatically reduce heart disease if we ingested under 5g per day of Omega-6 fatty acids. However, most folks are unlikely to change their diet. Yet Omega-6 has continued to be boosted in our food supply by almost all food manufacturers. Why has this happened? Simply put the Omega-6s are much cheaper as they are sourced from seed oils such as corn, soybean and safflower oil.

In addition, the Omega-6s and trans fats from these oils are incredibly shelf stable and almost never smell bad or taste rancid.

Consequently, over the last few decades, processed foods and ultra processed foods high in Omega-6 have become staples in many people’s diets. This is because of convenience and low cost. Therefore, in the last 20 years or so, the intake of Omega-6 is in the North America has nearly tripled. This has had near catastrophic effects on our optimal Omega-6 to Omega-3 oil ratio. The result: heart attack is the number one killer today and number two is stroke. A high intake of Omega-6 also contributes to the development of cancer because of its inflammatory effects.

Sadly I’ve realized that it’s quite a small number of people who are willing to do the work of changing their diet dramatically, which is why we see declining levels of health, and diet-related health issues starting at a much younger age.

However, the good news is that a Norwegian company has recently developed a blood spot test to measure Omega-6 to Omega-3 ratio which can help you determine what your own personal ratio is. Once you have completed this measurement you then can start on a specially developed liquid Balance Oil, made by the same company. It can then bring your Omega-6 to Omega-3 ratio down to that target range of about 3:1. This can occur even without major changes to diet—in 95% of people within 4 months!

This Balance Oil is unique as it contains 60% high quality fish oil from anchovies caught near Iceland and 40% of a top-quality olive oil rich in polyphenols. The fish are carefully cleaned and purified to remove any pollutants, including micro-plastics which can now be found in almost all farmed and free-range ocean fish, leaving just the purest Omega-3 oil.

Just before ending I wanted to tie in the concept of improved quality and availability of Omega-3 fatty acids for our cell membranes throughout the body which also has a dramatic benefit to the oxygenation of the entire body. 

There was a study done in 2022 which confirmed that Omega-3s dramatically enhanced the ability of the red blood cells to be well distributed through the body, even through the tiny vessels of the brain. As I hope you can now understand, this further makes me enthused because better oxygenation leads to better function of our mitochondria, better energy and therefore better functionality of every cell in the body. This has a dramatic impact on things like fatigue but also, of course, in mitigating the risk of cardiovascular disease, heart disease, brain problems and even reducing cancer risk because of its anti-inflammatory effects.

Bill Code, MD