I read the following statement in the Wikipedia.org entry on "essential fatty acids:"

QUOTE: ...Biologist Ray Peat has pointed out flaws in the studies purportedly showing the need for n-3 and n-6 fats. He notes that so-called EFA deficiencies have sometimes been reversed by adding B vitamins or a fat-free liver extract to the diet. In his view, 'the optional dietary level of the "essential fatty acids" might be close to zero, if other dietary factors were also optimized...' UNQUOTE.

This is not a complicated matter. Either these molecules are necessary to the life of a full-grown, non=pregnant adult human or they are not. I saw my great grandparents live to ages 100 and 96 without any source of omega 3s (except for whatever tiny amounts they might get in the small portion of meat they ate, for example - they didn't eat oily fish at all), so I know this is a nonsensical claim, but "experts" cite studies involving rats (from what one can tell by the wikipedia article), such as:

Burr, G.O., Burr, M.M. and Miller, E. (1930). "On the nature and role of the fatty acids essential in nutrition" (PDF). J. Biol. Chem. 86 (587). Retrieved on 2007-01-17.

The problem is that rats are not people, the needs of periods of growth should not be compared to fully-grown adults, who don't want to grow any more, and the complete knowledge of vitamins did not exist in1930. Fortunately, a group of scientists did what they were supposed to do (at M.I.T.), and tried to directly verify or refute the Burr hypothesis/claim of 1930. This is what they found in the mid 1940s:

QUOTE: ...fed a pyridoxine-deficient diet, rats develop a scaliness of the paws and tails which is hardly distinguishable from the syndrome which develops from a deficiency in "essential" fatty acids. Others have demonstrated that pyridoxine is necessary for the formation of fat from protein. From this we have reasoned that there may be an interrelationship between pyridoxine and "essential" fatty acids.

We have demonstrated that this deficiency condition can be cured by feeding pyridoxine but that it is not affected by feeding linoleic acid. The effects of pyridoxine have been confirmed in a repeat experiment. The evidence indicates that pyridoxine deficiency not only decreases the appetite of rats but also the efficiency of food utilization... UNQUOTE.

Source: http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/radiation/dir/mstreet/commeet/meet4/brief4.gfr/tab_e/br4e1c.txt

So why are our "experts" not telling us about the M.I.T. results? If they are ignorant of these results, how can they call themselves "experts?" If they know about these results and are remaining silent purposefully, they are guilty of academic dishonesty, at the very least. If I try to edit the wikipedia entry and provide this information, what will happen? It's one thing to argue "interpretation" of experimental results, but this was a direct, undeniable, total refutation of the 1930 Burr experiment, so if this information is not included, what reason could the wikipedia entry have to exist in the first place? Is it there to make people feel comfortable about destroying our oceans to eat more "essential omega 3s?" I'm not suggesting there is any sort of "grand conspiracy." In general, people (including the "experts") are so concerned with obtaining "truth" quickly, have such a "herd mentality," and are so resistant to ideas that contradict what they think they "know," that it only takes a "little push" (supplied here by Burr) to get things moving in the wrong direction. Once that happens, self-interested parties (such as those who want to sell refined, highly-unsaturated oils to the masses) show up to "cash in."

Those of you who haven't read about arachidonic acid on this site yet may be saying to yourselves, "yes, I've come across these kinds of things before on the internet, and even if you are correct, why should I care?"

As I tell people, understanding the implications of this may save you a whole lot of suffering and provide you with a few more decades of life. The causes of death today are quite different from those before the middle of the twentieth century (in the USA, at least). Before circa 1950, most Americans ate a diet that led to a polyunsaturated fatty acid (PUFA) called the Mead acid being incorporated into their cells. You need PUFAs in your cells, because they are used for clotting and the inflammatory process, among other things. However, if you eat a diet rich in the typical dietary "essential fatty acids," your body will displace the Mead acid with another one, called arachidonic acid (AA).

AA is released from cells just as Mead acid is, when there is a major stressor. However, AA is much more biochemically acid than the Mead acid, so inflammation can be more intense if you have AA in your cells. What is even worse (for most people) is that AA, because of its extreme biochemical reactivity, is also released when there are minor stressors, unlike the Mead acid. Inflammation can become chronic much more easily (with AA in your cells), and and chronic inflammation is the cause of most "chronic disease" in nations like the USA. On this site, you will find plenty of evidence which demonstrates that if you follow the disease process back to its source, chronic inflammation, and by definition, having AA in your cells, is the underlying or "root" cause. If this isn't a lot more important than other claims you've read about it, I suggest you use the forums here and post about what you've found that seems more crucial to know.

Lastly, I'll mention my own experiments (on myself) with "essential fatty acid deficiency." For more than a few years, starting in 2001, I refrained from eating any food with more than trace amounts of omega 3 or omega 6 PUFAs. I witnessed some interesting changed in my body. I seemed to breathe with greater ease, I haven't had a cold since then (when I used to get at least 2 colds per year), and when I got cut the inflammation only lasted hours, not days (as used to be the case). I also had a terrible case of rosacea, which didn't go away until I also started to eat more high-quality protein and some gelatin, so it's hard to say exactly what was causing that condition. I was raised on a diet rich in corn oil, and I had several inflammatory conditions which are based upon having AA in one's cells (chalazions and keloids).

However, I also noticed that I seemed to need to drink a bit more, and I occasionally had small dry spots on my face. On the other hand, my hair didn't get "greasy," and I was able to go nearly two weeks without washing my hair, whereas I used to wash my hair every day before going "EFAD." As I began to examine "junk food" more closely, about two years ago, I noticed that it probably wasn't too unhealthy, so long as it was low in unsaturated fatty acids and cholesterol (because the cholesterol can get oxidized during processing). I began to eat some baked good that had a fat content that was a bit more than 50% saturated (paying no mind to trans fatty acids one way or the other and had little or no cholesterol.

Adding small amounts of this kind of food item led to an end to the dry spots, but my hair usually began to get greasy in 5 to 7 days. This is consistent with the M.I.T. findings and suggests that foods with more than trace amounts of unsaturated fatty acids that are not PUFAs (meaning monounsaturated fatty acids) may prevent the mild skin conditions that many of today's "experts" argue are signs of horrible ill health to come. Here is the M.I.T. finding mentioned above: QUOTE: ...The animals on the fat-free diet developed a very mild scaliness of the feet and tails. Since, in a later experiment, this condition was prevented by feeding additional amounts of the various vitamins in the supplement, it is considered possible that olive oil or elaidin in the diet exerts a vitamin-sparing action... UNQUOTE. Note that you can also find this statement in the Encyclopedia Britannica Book of the Year, 1948 in the biochemistry section (page 121): "Pyridoxine [a B vitamin] was found to relieve the deficiency state resulting from the absence of dietary fat, and to cause the deposition of linoleic [the most common omega 6 PUFA in diets] as well as di- and tetraenoic acids in the tissues of rats on fat-free diets�?This contradicts the idea that linoleic acid cannot be synthesized by by rat tissues..."