Underlying a wide range of the postpartum ailments that I often see in my practice-including asthma, allergies, eczema, mood problems, depression, and autoimmune disease-is a single nutritional imbalance: too much of certain fats and not enough of others. You may be accustomed to thinking of fat only in terms of how much of it has collected on certain parts of your body, preventing you from getting into your pre-pregnancy jeans. Or you may only consider it when loading up your shopping cart with low-fat or non-fat foods. If so, it’s time to change your thinking.

Certain fats are essential for life. Every cell in your body is surrounded by a membrane made from fatty acids, the most basic building blocks of fats. Fats are necessary building blocks for hormones. Prostaglandins, which regulate immune system and reproductive function, inflammation, the constriction and expansion of blood vessels and blood clotting are made exclusively from fats.

Your Fat Stores Build Baby’s Brain

During pregnancy, your body was literally drained of the fats needed for the building of your baby’s brain and nervous system. The human brain is more than 60 percent fat. Research has shown that children who breastfeed score higher on I.Q. tests than those fed formula, because specific fats that are found in mother’s milk are important for proper brain development. Those fats continue to flow from your body into the body and brain of your child during breastfeeding. This is another reason breastfeeding for at least a year is one of the best gifts you can give your baby-and why taking special care to maintain fatty acid balance in your own body is so crucial during and after pregnancy.

Research studies have shown that skin problems, asthma, autoimmune disease, unexplained rages, and depression improve when fatty acid balance is restored. Children with learning disability, attention deficit disorder, hyperactivity and autism often improve when given fats that promote this balance.

A hundred years ago, most humans ate a diet containing a ratio somewhere between 1 to 1 and 4 to 1 of two essential types of fats: omega-6 and omega-3. When we describe a nutrient as essential, we mean that it is needed for survival but can’t be made by the body. Today, the omega-6 to omega-3 ratio is closer to between 20 to 1 and 30 to 1!

The omega-6 fats include linoleic acid (LA), found in sunflower, safflower, sesame and corn oils; gamma-linolenic acid (GLA), found in primrose, borage and blackcurrant oils; and arachidonic acid (AA), found in meat, eggs, dairy products and fish that live in warm waters. The omega-3 fats are found in far fewer foods: as alpha-linolenic acid (ALA) from flaxseed, walnut, canola and pumpkin seed oils; eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) from some cold-water fish and algae; and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) from other cold-water fish and algae.

The Transformation to Prostaglandins

The form in which you choose to eat your fats-as broiled salmon, margarine, flaxseeds, corn oil, french fries or chicken-fried steak-will have dramatic effects on how you think, feel, learn and remember. Your choice of fats also powerfully influences the formation of prostaglandins, and these hormone-like substances regulate many body systems.

Prostaglandins E1 and E3 are generally anti-inflammatory. Prostaglandin E2 escalates the inflammatory process. If inflammation escalates too far, tissue damage and free radical overload can result. When there’s too much PGE-2 and not enough PGE-1 and PGE-3, inflammation can run amok. Allergies, asthma, eczema, joint pain and autoimmune diseases are all manifestations of inflammation that isn’t being shut off at the appropriate time.

When you’re breastfeeding and giving up PGE-1- and 3-forming fats to your baby, this kind of imbalance can be created in your body. In the worst-case scenario, you aren’t even getting enough to give your baby what he or she needs. This could make him or her more vulnerable to allergies, eczema, asthma and even learning disabilities and hyperactivity later in life.

Several enzymes take part in the process that transforms fats into prostaglandins. These enzymes act as gatekeepers, channeling fats into the making of this or that prostaglandin. Like any other enzyme in the body, they require specific nutrient coenzymes to do their jobs. Aspirin and drugs like it work to reduce inflammation by affecting these enzymes, temporarily shutting down the production of both inflammatory and anti-inflammatory prostaglandins. Diet and supplements can be used in a more specific way, enhancing the balance of “good” and “bad” prostaglandins rather than just shutting them all off.

The enzyme delta-6-desaturase acts on linoleic acid (LA, from most vegetable, nut and seed oils) to transform it to gamma-linoleic acid (GLA). This enzyme also transforms alpha-linolenic acid (ALA) into stearidonic acid (SDA), which then is transformed into eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA), the fat that supports series 3 prostaglandin production and brain cell formation. GLA is used to make the anti-inflammatory series 1 prostaglandins and also supports healthy nervous system function.

The activity of delta-6-desaturase is affected by dietary factors. Transfatty acids (see below) from hydrogenated oils, too much saturated fat (found in meats, fried foods, most junk food and dairy products) in the diet, high stress, too much alcohol or too much sugar or refined flour in the diet all conspire to slow this enzyme down.

The Notorious Trans fatty Acids

Many processed foods contain trans fatty acids. These fats are notorious for slowing down the activity of delta-6-desaturase. They are manufactured from vegetable oils in a process called hydrogenation, which involves the bombardment of liquid oils with hydrogen atoms to make them solid and prevent rancidity. The trans fats have harmful effects on the stability of cell membranes and the structure of nerve and brain cells. They interfere with the formation of anti-inflammatory prostaglandins. Trans fats pass readily into your baby’s body through your milk supply, and the more of them you eat, the more your baby eats. They show up on food labels as partially hydrogenated vegetable oils, and are present in almost all processed foods.

Large amounts of alpha-linolenic acid (ALA) in your diet can also subdue delta-6-desaturase activity. Some experts say that adding lots of flaxseeds and flaxseed oil to your diet will enhance the production of anti-inflammatory prostaglandins, but we recommend you use flax and other ALA-rich foods with moderation. By suppressing the delta-6-desaturase enzyme, ALA suppresses both “good” and “bad” prostaglandin formation in much the same way as aspirin does. Suppressing all of the prostaglandins doesn’t create balance, only a different kind of imbalance.

DGLA (formed from GLA or entering your baby’s body in breast milk) can go one of two directions: either into “good” PGE1 or into arachidonic acid (AA). The activity of the enzyme delta-5-desaturase dictates which way this process goes. Delta-5-desaturase is activated by the hormone insulin and suppressed by the hormone glucagon. Insulin levels rise in the body when you eat lots of sugars and refined carbohydrates; glucagon levels rise when you eat foods that contain balanced amounts of fat and protein.

Eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA), the omega-3 fat found in fish, also suppresses delta-5-desaturase production. In other words: sugars and refined carbohydrates increase AA and “bad” prostaglandin production, while a diet rich in healthy proteins, fats, and deep-water fish helps to funnel DGLA towards the production of “good” prostaglandins.

Keep in mind that AA is a nonessential fat-the human body can make it from other fats from the age of about six months forward. Your baby gets AA from your milk in her first six months of life. Besides vegetable oils, what do you think is the major source of dietary fat in the typical American diet? Meats, eggs, and dairy products, all of which contain lots of AA. We don’t want to make AA into the bad guy here-it’s an important nutrient, and the cholesterol found in meats, eggs and dairy products is essential to your good health. However, Americans tend to overeat AA-containing foods; we want to encourage you to strive for a more balanced approach.

The Bottom Line

The bottom line here is that the balance of omega-3 and omega-6 fats in your cells is directly attributable to your diet and the nutritional supplements you take, and this balance, along with how the other systems in your body are working, influences the balance of inflammatory and anti-inflammatory prostaglandins made in your body. If your family has a history of inflammatory disorders such as asthma, allergy, heart disease, eczema or autoimmune disease, you may have a genetic predisposition to make more of the inflammatory prostaglandins, and you may have to work a little more to hit your balance point.

All of the enzymes that participate in the transformation of fats to prostaglandins require nutrient coenzymes. Vitamins B3, B6, C, E, and A, along with magnesium and zinc, are required in order for delta-6-desaturase to make GLA from LA and EPA from ALA. The transformation of EPA into DHA requires biotin and B6.

A portion of Sound Formulas proceeds are donated to Remote Area Medical, USA, a non-profit organization which provides free health care to under-served and disadvantaged populations in America.