The #1 Supplement That Keeps Your Body Younger

[00:01] have been shown to slow down biological aging in humans, and one of them is good old omega-3s. A 2025 randomized controlled trial showed that 1 g a day of omega-3s slowed biological aging by roughly 3 to 4 months over 3 years.

[00:15] Adding vitamin D and exercise to the protocol reduced the biological age by another 1 to 2 months, but this is the least interesting thing about omega-3s. The potential for health benefits from omega-3s go way beyond just the idea of

[00:27] biological aging. Omega-3s affect almost every major organ system in the body in vessels, the brain, muscles, the liver and kidneys, and even the skin. Despite a lot of anti-omega-3 rhetoric online on social media, the overall scientific

[00:42] omega-3s have immense health benefits on the body. So, in this video, I'm going to break down what do omega-3s do to your body in terms of the major organ maintain better health, better organ function, and reduce systemic aging.

[00:56] Let's start with the main reason people take omega-3s, and that's for improving heart health. With age, your heart and vascular system go through many changes that leads to the accumulation of plaque in the arteries. This is not just the

[01:08] result of an unhealthy lifestyle. At a certain advanced age, almost everyone atherosclerosis. If not hard calcified plaque, then soft volatile plaque that can result in a stroke. Omega-3s are polyunsaturated fats, and they have a

[01:21] risk of blood clotting and plaque accumulation. They also lower lipids, specifically triglycerides in the blood, and lower inflammation, which reduces been seen in randomized controlled studies that atherosclerotic

[01:40] youthful state. Because when you're young, your blood is not clotting. good circulation, good blood flow, and not an accumulation of excess lipids in the bloodstream. However, as you get older, this changes structurally. Your

[01:54] blood vessels become older, there's poorer circulation, the blood becomes thicker, and there's a higher likelihood of accumulating this plaque, which leads to atherosclerosis and heart disease. And omega-3s help to counteract that. On

[02:06] top of that, omega-3s reduce the risk of dying to heart disease events. Two 2021 trials found that supplementation of EPA and DHA at a dose of 0.4 to 6 g a day was associated with a significant reduction in the risk of cardiovascular

[02:21] disease events and myocardial infarction in a dose-dependent manner. Every additional gram per day was linked to an additional 9% reduction in the risk of myocardial infarction. That's quite a large amount of studies on over 200,000

[02:33] studies, they're randomized controlled trials. Let's move on with the brain. A lot of the benefits you see in the heart and blood vessels carry over to the cerebrovascular organ. The entire infrastructure of blood vessels that

[02:47] the body is responsible for the circulation in the brain as well. That's why poor blood flow and heart problems walk hand in hand with neurodegeneration and Alzheimer's. They originate from the same place. In regards to cognitive

[03:00] function, there was a recent conflicting observational cohort study that found omega-3 use to be associated with faster cognitive decline based on cognitive actual Alzheimer's pathology and neurodegeneration as measured by PET

[03:13] scans. First of all, this is an observational study and it's much worse trials. Secondly, other observational studies find that omega-3 against cognitive decline and is associated with reduced Alzheimer's

[03:26] risk. So, it's likely that in this study people who used omega-3s did so because they had a heart problem or some other health problem, which then increased the omega-3s were causing the cognitive decline. And we know this to be very

[03:39] likely because the study didn't control for baseline cardiovascular disease risk reason why people started to take omega-3s. What's more, actual control studies suggest that omega-3s not only don't

[03:51] accelerate cognitive decline, but would actually improve cognition. This 2025 controlled trials showed that omega-3 supplements led to modest improvements in cognitive function among adults. Each 2,000 mg a day of omega-3

[04:04] supplementation improved attention, perceptual speed, language, primary memory, and global cognitive ability significantly. So, there is no evidence harm your brain health. The evidence actually suggests the opposite. They

[04:17] improve brain health and improve brain aging. Another characteristic of aging is chronic low-grade inflammation, also called inflammaging. An average a weaker immune system and higher inflammation than an average 20-year-old

[04:30] Fortunately, there is evidence that omega-3s can counteract inflammation. A 2022 umbrella meta-analysis that looked at 32 meta-analyses, which includes supplementation with omega-3s can improve inflammatory biomarkers such as

[04:46] CRP, TNF alpha, and IL-6. That's again a massive amount of studies, and it's a enough, we also have a randomized controlled trial looking at the effects of rancid oxidized fish oil on inflammatory markers. They found that

[04:59] consuming oxidized fish oil for every day for 3 to 7 weeks resulted in no changes in markers of oxidative stress, inflammation, or lipid peroxidation. So, suggests that omega-3s have an anti-inflammatory effect, and this is

[05:12] one of the major reasons why the omega-3s also improve blood vessels, an aspect of aging that many people care about, and that's photoaging or skin aging caused by excessive UV radiation. On social media, there's a common

[05:25] talking point that omega-3s are bad for sunburn because they're polyunsaturated fats, and your skin will get damaged if you have a higher polyunsaturated fat status. Well, like with many things on social media, the scientific evidence

[05:37] suggests the complete opposite. Dietary and supplemental omega-3s have been seen to actually protect against sunburn and reduce the skin sensitivity to UVB radiation. In middle-aged white people, dietary omega-3 intake has been seen to

[05:49] be associated with less photoaging, specifically ALA in men and EPA in women. There's even evidence that omega-3s may protect the skin against reason for this is because of the

[06:02] we just mentioned. Omega-3s don't cause inflammation, they actually lower the skin, especially for various inflammatory skin conditions. A 2019 meta-analysis of 10 randomized

[06:16] trials showed that in psoriasis, omega-3 supplementation can lead to significant reduction in symptoms like erythema, itching, and scaling, especially in the studies that used larger doses of omega-3s. So, omega-3s don't make your

[06:28] skin more susceptible to UV damage or sunburn. It's actually the complete opposite. They reduce the risk. The reason for this confusion is that people confuse the evidence between mechanistic speculations and actual controlled

[06:40] interesting, but the actual hard outcomes in controlled studies supersede mechanisms all day, every day of the week. Randomized controlled trials that a much higher quality of evidence in the hierarchy of evidence compared to

[06:54] observational cohort studies, because you will see what happens in the real world. The last thing that puts a nice bow tie into all of this is muscle mass stronger is one of the major characteristics of being also

[07:07] meta-analysis found that omega-3 supplements can increase muscle strength in both old and young individuals. Another 2023 meta-analysis of clinical supplementation, even in the absence of exercise, was linked to higher skeletal

[07:22] muscle mass and higher skeletal muscle volume among sedentary individuals. A controlled trials found that supplementing 2 g a day of omega-3s for 6 months increased muscle gain and walking speed among the elderly. The

[07:36] muscle mass and strength is because of its anti-inflammatory effects. With aging or if you're being sedentary, you have higher baseline inflammation called inflammaging. And this inflammation will damage your mitochondria, which will

[07:49] poorer mitochondrial function, you'll also have lower muscle strength, lower VO2 max, and lower muscle mass. By counteracting this inflammation, you prevent the mitochondrial dysfunction. You also preserve more muscle by doing

[08:02] that. Usually, anti-inflammatory supplements like aspirin, NAC, or vitamin C taken after exercise appear to blunt some of the benefits of exercise. But it doesn't seem to be the case when we're talking about omega-3s for some

[08:14] all anti-inflammatory supplements into one category, we need to look at each individually and see what effects do they have. As you can see, omega-3s as molecules have incredible systemic benefits on the entire body on multiple

[08:28] organ systems. They improve blood vessels, heart, brain, skin, muscles, cover in this video. Because if you improve the entire vasculature system, immune system, pretty much every other organ will also improve. One reason for

[08:42] this is that omega-3s become incorporated directly into the membranes communicate, respond to stress, and regulate inflammation. They also give that help to resolve chronic inflammation, improve blood vessel

[08:56] metabolic health throughout the body. I don't think there are many other supplements that work in such a wide range. The only thing close to that you don't necessarily need to take omega-3 supplements. Yes, you could get

[09:10] sources by eating a lot of seafood, sea vegetables, fish, clams, etc. But most people, they don't just eat enough fish, which is why supplementing omega-3s might be necessary for most people. A low-quality omega-3 is in the ethyl

[09:23] ester form, which makes it less bioavailable. The triglyceride form is the better source. So, whenever you are buying some omega-3s, opt for the triglyceride form. Omega-3s are great, but supplements can only take you so

[09:35] intervention you can do to keep your body younger. Check out this video about the number one exercise that keeps you younger for longer.