Ahiflower Oil—The Rising GLA Alternative to Evening Primrose for Women & Vegans

Introduction/Overview

• There are numerous choices in essential fatty acid (EFA) supplementation

• EFAs are critical components of health and wellness

• Our current intake of EFAs is considered out of balance as omega-6 from processed food choices predominate, leading to an increased propensity for inflammation.

• EFAs support health and function in a number of ways and are important considerations for inflammatory management, women’s health, skin care and vegetarians/vegans.

• This paper is intended to provide a better understanding of the importance of a specific EFA derivative–GLA and its role in wellness—and of the comparative benefits of Ahiflower oil, the newest and most balanced dietary GLA source.

GLA Health Science Drove Plant-Based Oil Uses Globally

For more than 3 decades, clinical researchers have uncovered the many health benefits of plant-based gamma linolenic acid (GLA) for skin, hormonal, digestive and women’s reproductive health. Breast Cancer Wellness magazine’s Christine Horner, MD summarized GLA’s multiple benefits as ranging “…from lowering your risk of breast cancer, to helping reduce hot flashes and symptoms of PMS, to improving arthritis, and inflammatory skin conditions including eczema and psoriasis.”^1,2 Strong scientific evidence shows dietary GLA’s natural anti-inflammatory effects in the body, inhibiting and even reversing the progression of chronic inflammatory skin, digestive, joint, immune/respiratory, and gynecological conditions.^3-6

Especially for women, these clinically recognized benefits led to borage oil and evening primrose oil being commonly recommended as key dietary GLA sources, starting in the 1980’s right to the present day. The combined annual turnover of these two oils is now more than $250 million, with hundreds of thousands of people looking, moving, and feeling better thanks to increased GLA intakes.^7,8 Yet as noted below, this is still a relatively small uptake compared to the populations that could benefit.

Following in the footsteps of borage and evening primrose oil, echium seed oil, another GLA source, began to see commercial uptake in topical skin care and dietary uses starting in the 2000’s after clearing European and FDA food safety reviews. More recently in 2016, a genetically modified safflower oil called Sonova® was cleared for safe use by the FDA. Naturally occurring safflower does not contain GLA, but through genetic engineering a new strain was developed to contain approximately 45% GLA, however Sonova oil is not yet readily available to consumers in North America.

Plant-based GLA oils, as a category, have been recommended and consumed for specific conditions for many years. Less known but worth mentioning is their presence in many omega 3-6-9 formulations that are typically blends along with fish, algal, and flaxseed oils, providing therapeutic levels of GLA, also known as the so-called ‘good omega 6’ for its generally accepted anti-inflammatory support functions.^9,10

The Dietary Omega Conundrum

Yet despite decades of compelling clinical science and health practitioner recommendations, the market for GLA shares a similar paradox with the omega 3 market globally. Overall, people’s use of supplemental GLA and omega 3’s are significantly below recommended dietary intake levels to overcome recognized deficiencies and related chronic health challenges that arise. They are truly essential nutrients for health and wellness, yet unlike multi-vitamins which more than two-thirds of Americans consume routinely, only a small percentage of consumers frequently supplement with GLA or omega 3’s. Why is this?

Possibly, it is due to these GLA-rich oils (and their market dominant marine based omega-3 oil cousins) not truly meeting or fully aligning with each of the strong consumer preferences driving trends in health and wellness ingredient purchasing today:

• proven efficacious

• plant-based

• sustainably produced

• fully traceable

If proven efficacy and plant-based are threshold requirements, and sustainable or regeneratively produced are key to unlocking this market, how best do we act on this opportunity? These market criteria are equally important to food and supplement brands who are paying attention, plus one more–a robust, reliable, and stably priced supply. Without that last one, brands increasingly can’t justify bringing all the others forward to their customers.

And indeed, during GLA’s decades-long rise to prominence in specialized women’s health, skin health products, and omega fatty acid supplements, its most common sources have had their fair share of challenges. Echium oil is a good example. Despite echium oil’s good GLA content rivaling that of evening primrose, the plant from which the oil derives is toxic to foraging animals and it is now banned in certain countries and states. Some consumer brands are therefore discontinuing echium oil as a GLA ingredient due to oil supply disruptions. Evening primrose oil is predominantly solvent-extracted and comes mostly from China where supply chain traceability to source farms is lost. And even borage oil has had documented issues with GMO safflower oil adulteration. All of which have resulted in brands looking for a more reliable, less volatile, and more consumer trend-friendly alternative GLA source.

Ahiflower—A Complete & Balanced EFA Source

Ahiflower oil—the newest plant-based GLA source launched in 2015—overcomes these supply chain and processing issues entirely, as it is grown exclusively in the UK under strict traceability and regenerative farming protocols. Plus it has a clean, nutty taste that opens up a range of food-friendly applications that many omega-rich oils can’t approach. Let’s unpack the differences between these different GLA sources, starting with their fatty acid profiles (table 1).

Table 1.

Fatty Acid Profiles of Borage, Evening Primrose, Echium, and Ahiflower Oils

Key Fatty Acids	Type	Borage (%)11,12	EPO (%)13	Echium (%)14	Ahiflower (%)15
ALA	Omega 3	0	0	30	42-48
SDA	Omega 3	0	0	11-13	19-21
LA	Omega 6	35-40	70-74	19	9-15
GLA	Omega 6	15-22	6-10	9-11	5-8
Total Omega-3		0	0	40-43	60-65
Total Omega-6		50-62	78-84	29	14-33

Abbreviations: EPO, evening primrose oil; ALA, alpha linolenic acid; SDA, stearidonic acid; LA, linoleic acid; GLA, gamma linolenic acid.

Comparing these 4 most common GLA oils, what stands out clearly is that borage and evening primrose oils contain no omega-3 fatty acids, and echium contains only about 60% of the omega-3’s of Ahiflower oil. Yet Ahiflower has comparable GLA levels to evening primrose and echium oils. As the chart shows, Ahiflower oil delivers the richest overall balance of omega-3 and omega-6 plant-based fatty acids in an optimal 4:1 ratio.

Many dieticians and the American Heart Association argue that the most beneficial omega-3:6 balance is a 1:1 to a 1:3 ratio, but the typical Western diet’s ratio is around 1:20—way off balance due to so much corn, soy, palm, and sunflower oils in all the processed foods we eat, driving our omega-6 linoleic acid (LA) intakes so high. Ahiflower’s 4:1 ratio is great for helping people reset that balance. And since GLA is relatively uncommon in dietary food sources, and many people’s diets and genetics makes natural GLA synthesis inefficient, it makes sense for healthcare practitioners to recommend supplemental GLA.

So it comes down to how to get the most balanced and efficient delivery of both omega-3 and omega-6 together?

The Biochemistry of EFAs

It is now well recognized that dietary GLA bypasses our liver’s rate-limiting enzyme step that makes essential fatty acid metabolism less efficient. In this sense our livers are like a toll booth on a road that only takes cash payments, whether from large semi-trucks (loaded up with LA) or small nimble delivery vans (carrying GLA). Our livers can only process so much fatty acid ‘traffic’ per minute, per hour, per day and if they’re ‘backed up’ with the large semi-trucks, everything gets more sluggish and payloads don’t get delivered as efficiently. For most people, adding onto our diet’s typically high LA intakes by consuming evening primrose oil—with its 70-74% LA content—for GLA benefits is like putting only one GLA ‘delivery van’ in with every seven LA ‘semi-trucks’ at the toll booth.

For a complete and balanced omega intake, Ahiflower avoids the need for combining evening primrose or borage oils with fish, algal, or flaxseed oils. Ahiflower’s highest-available GLA plus omega-3 stearidonic acid content takes full advantage, metaphorically, of the EZ Pass lane, because both benefit from bypassing the rate limiting liver enzyme mentioned above, effectively installing a digital ‘speed pass’ onto the dashboard of our dietary omega fatty acid ‘delivery vans’. Ironically, in many cases the actual amount of GLA provided in the popular hybrid, multi-ingredient omega-3-6-9 oils is less than half that of Ahiflower oil on a daily serving basis. Taken as recommended, Ahiflower oil typically contains more GLA per daily serving than evening primrose oil (145 mg vs 115 mg).

So for vegans, vegetarians, women, and people who have been advised to increase their GLA intakes, Ahiflower provides a uniquely high plant-based daily omega-3 boost that neither borage nor EPO can do, while delivering comparable GLA levels per daily dose.

Some research indicates that high preformed DHA intakes are not as “vital” an omega-3 as has been touted, at least not for most reasonably healthy adults, because adequate precursor omega-3 intakes maintain brain DHA levels comparably to supplemental DHA intakes.¹⁶ Researchers at the Intermountain Medical Center in Salt Lake City recently found that over a 10 year period looking at major adverse cardiovascular events (MACE), “Higher levels of EPA but not DHA are associated with reductions in MACE. When combined with EPA, higher DHA blunts the benefit of EPA and increases MACE in the presence of low EPA, a novel finding.”¹⁷

The possibility that too much DHA in the bloodstream can be a problem, offsetting anti-inflammatory metabolic benefits of intermediate omega-3s and omega-6s has to be considered.

Further, recently presented research in rodents carried out at the University of Toronto has shown that higher DHA intakes can inhibit the binding capacity of key elongase enzymes whose activity is required for the onward metabolism of essential omega-3 ALA¹⁸ (and LA), and that dietary ALA is actually necessary to promote beneficial EPA pooling as a substrate for DHA synthesis and other beneficial pro-resolving metabolites. Lower DHA intake levels may be considered beneficial, providing that limited inhibition helps keep excess LA in the diet from metabolizing too quickly into arachidonic acid (AA), that at excessively high levels is implicated in chronic inflammatory conditions. But the question of how much preformed DHA is optimal vs. naturally metabolized DHA—ie, from precursor fatty acid intakes—remains a subject of active study. With ever-increasing DHA intakes, there may be a decrease in ALA metabolism and in LA’s conversion to GLA, and as such its subsequent metabolism to dihomo gamma-linolenic acid (DGLA), a powerful anti-inflammatory omega-6, may be impacted.

From a balanced health perspective, the proper balance of plant-based omegas, rich in the intermediates stearidonic acid (SDA) and GLA supports the body’s overall healthy inflammatory response. This balance is intimately involved in our immunity, mobility, cognitive performance, skin health, and cardiovascular fitness.^19,20

Sustainability & Traceability Count

Certified non-GMO Ahiflower oil is grown regeneratively and fully traceably to the UK farms and farmers who grow the soil- and biodiversity-enhancing Ahiflower crop, whereas borage and EPO are widely traded, blended, and brokered commodity crops with little source traceability, and most of their oil supplies are chemically refined using phosphoric acid, lye, and caustic sodium hydroxide.^21,22 Ahiflower oil is only physically refined using low-temperature steam distillation and clay filtration. So Ahiflower oil advances both personal and planetary wellness by reducing pressure on threated ocean ecosystems as a plant-based, non-marine omega-3 source and also by taking a ‘lightest touch’ approach to vegetable oil refining. Each acre of Ahiflower crop contains the EFA oil equivalent of 320 000 anchovies, helping reduce pressure on crucial marine forage fish that support vast marine food chains for keystone fish, seals, whales, and bird life.

Chemically refined oils that come from unknown provenance and which may include genetically modified components run against rising consumer preferences. Why go there when we don’t have to? Most people looking to consume GLA would prefer that it come from a certified non-GMO source. Now that Ahiflower oil is available widely, there is no need to combine borage or evening primrose or echium oils with fish or algal supplements to get supplemental GLA benefits. People can simply take Ahiflower oil, knowing that they’re getting a truly complete and balanced ‘multi-omega’ GLA source.

Summary of the Key Benefits of Ahiflower.

• A fully sustainably-produced, traceable, regenerative, non-GMO plant-based omega-rich dietary oil with predictable, fully de-risked, and scalable supplies

• An excellent source of anti-inflammatory GLA, on par with EPO and echium oils

• Clinically proven efficacy in published human and animal trials supporting a healthy inflammatory response and more efficient EFA metabolism

• Richest combined EFA source from a plant, supports optimal cellular function from both omega-3 and omega-6 metabolites

• Most balanced and biologically advanced SDA and GLA source supporting cardiovascular, brain, immune, skin, and joint health

• Far lower omega-6 LA content, enables more efficient hepatic enzyme conversions vs EPO

• Clean and palatable taste/aroma

• Backed by clinical evidence of efficient and rapid conversion to key anti-inflammatory long-chain omega fatty acids including EPA, ETA, DPA, DHA, and DGLA (preferentially over ARA)

• Most complete and balanced ‘multi-omega’ from a plant source

• Widely available in North America, the UK & EU in health supplements and foods

Conclusion: Ahiflower is the Definitive EFA Source

As climate and human population pressures alike drive a global need for more resilient, plant-based, and regenerative ways of achieving optimal nutrition, the crucial role that EFA’s play in driving so many preventive wellness benefits cannot be understated. As with the pivotal need for increasing biodiversity at bioregional and ocean ecosystem scales, so within our individual microbiomes and a full spectrum of omega lipids we get from our diets. Focusing only on EPA/DHA supplementation denies the body a balanced and optimized foundation in precursor EFAs and their metabolites like GLA that we are genetically adapted to consume—largely through a plant-based diet—to realize our greatest longevity, acuity, and vitality. Ahiflower oil is the newest, most complete and balanced plant-based multi-omega source, delivering all the omegas our bodies need including GLA, from a fully regenerative, ecologically responsible supply chain.

Biographies

Andrew Myers, ND, As a recognized authority on natural medicines, Dr. Myers is viewed as one of the world’s top experts in the formulation of dietary supplements and their scientific substantiation. Dr. Myers has formulated complete nutritional lines for global companies and developed many successful products. Dr. Myers received his Doctor of Naturopathy degree from Bastyr University.

Greg Cumberford, Greg has a 25+ year career as a natural products industry executive and thought leader in sustainable, vertically-integrated botanical products R&D, quality management, new product innovation, and manufacturing. He is a passionate advocate for co-evolved plant-based wellness. Greg received a BS degree in Environmental Earth Sciences from Stanford University.