Ahiflower, SDA-Rich Oils Support Gut Health and Healthy Inflammatory Response: Review

A recent article published in Lipids highlights emerging preclinical research that suggests branded ingredients like Nature’s Crops’ Ahiflower and other plant-based sources of stearidonic acid (SDA) can positively impact gut health, inflammation response, and other broader health outcomes.

The review covered several recent key insights, including:

• Lipids like Ahiflower oil favorably balance the gut microbiome and express gastrointestinal tract-protective metabolites, suggesting a prebiotic effect.
• SDA-rich oils may have other properties related to inflammation modulation, gut barrier function, gut-liver-brain protection, and immune support, which are distinct from and complementary to the health effects derived from algal and marine-derived omega-3 sources.
• The content of SDA within Ahiflower is sufficient to promote conversion to EPA and DHA in tissues like the liver and the brain, despite not raising blood concentrations of DHA.
• Plant-based SDA doesn’t cause physiological trade-offs with EPA and DHA.

“As people’s cardiovascular, immune-inflammatory, gut, skin, and mental health goals via omega-3 PUFA nutrition increasingly conflict with unsustainable global demand including from aquaculture producers for marine omega-3 sources, it is critical that plant-based omega-3 dietary intakes are embraced broadly and with confidence that no inherent physiological trade-offs in in DHA biosynthesis or tissue maintenance will occur in doing so,” the authors concluded.