Vitamin F just isn’t a vitamin within the conventional sense of the phrase.
Quite, vitamin F is a time period for 2 fat — alpha-linolenic acid (ALA) and linoleic acid (LA). They’re important for normal physique capabilities, together with features of mind and coronary heart well being (1).
ALA is a member of the omega-3 fats household, whereas LA belongs to the omega-6 household. Widespread sources of each embody vegetable oils, nuts, and seeds (2).
They had been found within the Twenties when scientists discovered that fat-free diets had opposed results on rats. Initially, the scientists suspected the rats had been poor in a brand new vitamin they referred to as vitamin F — later discovered to be ALA and LA (3).
This text discusses vitamin F, together with the way it works, its potential well being advantages, and which meals comprise the very best quantities of it.
Key capabilities in your physique
The 2 varieties of fats that comprise vitamin F — ALA and LA — are categorised as important fatty acids, that means they’re vital for well being. Since your physique is unable to make these fat, you need to get them out of your food plan (4).
ALA and LA play the next essential roles within the physique (5, 6):
Vitamin F deficiency is uncommon. Nevertheless, a scarcity of ALA and LA can result in varied signs, equivalent to dry pores and skin, hair loss, sluggish wound therapeutic, poor progress in youngsters, pores and skin sores and scabs, and mind and imaginative and prescient issues (7, 8).
Potential well being advantages
In response to analysis, the fat that make up vitamin F — ALA and LA — might provide a number of distinctive well being advantages.
Well being advantages of alpha-linolenic acid
ALA is the first fats within the omega-3 household, a gaggle of fat thought to have many well being advantages. Within the physique, ALA is transformed into different useful omega-3 fatty acids, together with eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) (9).
Collectively, ALA, EPA, and DHA provide a wealth of potential well being advantages:
Well being advantages of linoleic acid
Linoleic acid (LA) is a major fats within the omega-6 household. Like ALA, LA is transformed into different fat in your physique.
It gives many potential well being advantages when consumed sparsely, particularly when used instead of much less wholesome saturated fat (16):
Advisable doses
To optimize the advantages of vitamin F, sustaining a wholesome ratio of LA to ALA in your food plan could also be key.
That is as a result of opposing indicators these fat ship within the physique. Whereas LA and different omega-6 fat are inclined to induce irritation, ALA and different omega-3 fat work to inhibit it (20).
Some specialists estimate that the ratio of omega-6 to omega-3 fat in Western diets could also be as excessive as 20:1. In response to research, this will contribute to irritation and an elevated threat of coronary heart illness (21).
Although a super ratio has but to be decided, a well-liked advice is to take care of the ratio at or under 4:1 (22).
Nevertheless, as a substitute of abiding by a ratio, it could be less complicated to comply with suggestions from the Institute of Drugs (IOM). These counsel adults eat 1.1–1.6 grams of ALA and 11–16 grams of LA per day (23).
Meals excessive in vitamin F
Vitamin F dietary supplements are pointless in the event you eat all kinds of meals containing ALA and LA.
Although most meals sources sometimes comprise each, many carry a better proportion of 1 fats than the opposite.
Listed here are the quantities of LA in some widespread meals sources:
Many meals excessive in LA additionally comprise ALA, albeit in lesser quantities. Nevertheless, notably excessive proportions of ALA might be present in:
Animal merchandise, equivalent to fish, eggs, and grass-fed meat and dairy merchandise, contribute some ALA and LA however are primarily excessive in different varieties of omega-6 and omega-3 fat (35).
The underside line – “what does vitamin f do”
Vitamin F is comprised of two important omega-3 and omega-6 fat — ALA and LA.
These two fat play a serious function in common bodily processes, together with immune system operate, blood strain regulation, blood clotting, progress, and growth.
Sustaining a 4:1 ratio of LA to ALA in your food plan is usually really useful to assist optimize the potential advantages of vitamin F, which embody improved blood sugar management and lowered irritation and coronary heart illness threat.
Consuming meals excessive in ALA, equivalent to flax seeds, flaxseed oil, and chia seeds, is a method to assist shift the stability in favor of optimistic well being outcomes.