By Dr. Marie Andersson

Part 1 of a 3-part series on vitality

Vitality isn’t just the absence of disease — it’s sustained energy, hormonal balance, and cellular health that let you actually thrive. This 3-part series breaks down the biggest levers for building it: the fats that build your cells, the medications and epigenetic factors that can work against you, and the everyday toxins quietly wearing your body down. We’re starting with fat, because every cell in your body depends on it.

If you’ve ever been told to eat a low-fat diet, this one’s for you. Every cell in your body is wrapped in a membrane built from fat — and the quality of that fat determines how well your cells function, signal, and repair themselves. In this issue, we’re digging into phospholipids, mitochondria, seed oils, and the omega-3 to omega-6 balance that quietly shapes your health from the inside out.

Quick preview: this issue covers why cell membranes matter, which fats to eat (and which to avoid), what inflammation does to your cells, and two supplements that can help close the gap. If you’re short on time, skip to “Key Takeaways” near the end for the short version.

Cell Membranes: Why They Matter

This is where vitality actually starts — not in an organ, but at the level of the membrane.

Our goal should be to give our bodies what they need to not just function but also detoxify and repair. Something you may not have ever thought about is our cell membranes. I remember back in middle school biology class learning a little about cells. They were portrayed sort of like bags of water that had stuff happening on the inside. That definitely did not even begin to explain the complexity of the cells that our bodies are composed of. The interesting thing is that much of the important stuff happens in the membranes, not inside the cells.

Cell membranes are made up of a phospholipid bilayer, meaning the membranes are made of fats held together with a hydrophobic and a hydrophilic side, creating an amazing space where important things happen non-stop.

The structure comes down to two rows of phospholipid molecules arranged tail-to-tail:

• Heads are phosphate groups — polar and hydrophilic, so they face outward toward the watery environments on both sides of the membrane.
• Tails are fatty acid chains — nonpolar and hydrophobic, so they tuck inward, away from water, forming the oily core of the membrane.

This “heads out, tails in” arrangement is why the bilayer forms spontaneously in water and why it acts as a selective barrier — small nonpolar molecules can slip through the fatty core, while ions and large polar molecules generally can’t, which is why cells need embedded proteins (channels, pumps, receptors) to move those things across.

Phospholipids are crucial to the health of every cell in your body. If you are avoiding fats, or not getting enough of the fats your body needs, then you don’t have the material your body needs to make and repair cell membranes. A surprisingly large share of disease can be traced back to some form of cell membrane injury.

Meet the Phospholipids

Now that you know why the membrane matters, let’s meet the building blocks that make it up.

Bottom line up front: your membranes need several different types of fat working together, and most of us don’t get enough of any of them from a typical modern diet. Here’s a quick look at each one:

• Phosphatidylcholine (PC) — The most abundant phospholipid in most membranes, often 40–50% of total phospholipid.
• Phosphatidylethanolamine (PE) — The second most common. It’s concentrated on the inner side, which affects membrane curvature.
• Phosphatidylserine (PS) — Normally kept almost exclusively on the inner side. It carries a net negative charge and is important for signaling; when a cell dies, PS flips to the outer surface as an “eat me” signal for immune cells.
• Phosphatidylinositol (PI) — A smaller fraction, but functionally important; it’s the precursor involved in cell signaling pathways.
• Sphingomyelin (SM) — A different type of membrane fat (not built on the same backbone as the others above). It’s concentrated on the outer side and packs tightly with cholesterol, helping keep that side of the membrane firm and stable.

Worth noting: cholesterol isn’t a phospholipid, but it’s woven throughout the bilayer (sometimes 20–50% of membrane lipids) and strongly influences fluidity and rigidity.

The asymmetry between PC/SM outside and PE/PS inside isn’t accidental — it’s actively maintained, and it matters for things like blood clotting and apoptosis (cell death) signaling.

Where to Get Phospholipids in Your Diet

Knowing which phospholipids matter is only half the equation — here’s how to actually get them on your plate.

• Phosphatidylcholine (PC), also the main dietary source of choline: egg yolks (probably the single richest common source), liver and other organ meats, soybeans and soy lecithin, sunflower lecithin (a common soy-free alternative), and wheat germ.
• Phosphatidylethanolamine (PE): similar sources to PC since they’re made together — eggs, organ meats (especially brain and liver), soybeans, and smaller amounts in most animal tissues.
• Phosphatidylserine (PS): organ meats, especially brain and liver (traditionally the richest natural source, though bovine brain is no longer used commercially due to mad cow disease safety concerns), white beans, soy lecithin, and small amounts in fish and chicken.
• Phosphatidylinositol (PI): legumes (especially soybeans), wheat germ and bran, and peanuts.
• Sphingomyelin (SM): dairy products — especially milk fat, so whole milk, cream, butter, and cheese — along with eggs and meat.

Looking back across those five lists, two ingredients keep showing up again and again: eggs and soy lecithin. That’s mostly a matter of convenience — soy lecithin is a byproduct of soybean oil processing, which is why food manufacturers use it so often as an additive. One exception worth flagging: if you’re looking specifically at phosphatidylserine (it’s marketed heavily for cognitive health), most supplements today are made from soy or sunflower lecithin rather than animal brain tissue, for the same food-safety reasons mentioned above.

These phospholipids have a name — they’re called plasmalogens — and they used to be far more abundant in the human diet than they are today, mostly because the foods that once supplied them have changed. Organ meats, once a dietary staple, are rarely eaten anymore. Wheat germ, one of the sources listed above, illustrates the same problem: modern wheat has been bred and processed differently, with more gliadin and gluten, and milling typically strips out the germ itself, so it contributes far less nutritionally than it once did. Soy has shifted too, since it’s now mostly genetically modified in this country.

One more fat deserves defending here: cholesterol. We already mentioned that it’s woven throughout your cell membranes — but its role doesn’t stop there. Every hormone in your body is built from cholesterol, and it’s just as essential to your brain, nerves, and other membranes as the phospholipids we’ve just covered. The truth is, you wouldn’t exist without it.

Mitochondria & Cellular Energy

Healthy membranes aren’t just structural — they’re also where your energy gets made, which is the other half of vitality.

We have a very important organelle in every cell of the body called a mitochondrion. The mitochondria make our energy, ATP. I don’t mean energy to go dancing — I mean energy to run every process in the human body. The mitochondria are inside the cell, and the energy they produce happens in the membrane.

But mitochondria can’t make that energy out of thin air — they depend on a steady supply of minerals and fuel passing through the cell membrane to reach them, which brings us right back to the quality of that membrane.

One of the reasons trans fats are so dangerous is that these artificial fats — made by adding hydrogen to liquid vegetable oils so they stay solid on the shelf, common in fried foods, baked goods, and margarine — can get inserted into the cell membrane and make it stiff and rigid. The membrane needs to stay fluid to let minerals and fuel flow in and out through its built-in channels. Stiffen the membrane, and you slow down the very supply lines your mitochondria depend on.

The same principle applies to your brain. Maintaining the cell membrane’s shape and fluidity is essential for healthy cell signaling, including neurological function. If brain cells are built with bad fats, they can’t signal properly — and remember, the brain itself is made of phospholipids, cholesterol, sphingolipids, omega-3s, and omega-6s.

The Truth About Dietary Fat

If your membranes and your mitochondria both run on fat, it’s worth asking why fat got such a bad reputation in the first place.

I commonly have patients tell me they’ve been advised to eat a low-fat diet. Is that a good idea? What’s important to keep in mind is that fats are crucial to every function in the human body — we need these fats, and just as importantly we need to avoid the bad fats. The fats that Mother Nature made are what we need, not what was made in a lab. Cottonseed oil — does that even make sense?

The evidence keeps mounting. A major 2026 clinical trial published in the New England Journal of Medicine found that omega-3 supplementation reduced serious cardiovascular events by 43% in high-risk patients, alongside significant drops in cardiac death, stroke, and death from any cause. A separate re-analysis of the large VITAL trial found omega-3 supplementation lowered the risk of coronary heart disease by 7–12% in the general population. Healthy fats aren’t something to fear — the data increasingly shows they’re protective.

Seed Oils and Inflammation

Not all fats are created equal, though — this is where the omega-3 to omega-6 balance we mentioned up front comes back into play.

“Seed oils” refers to vegetable oils extracted from the seeds of plants, as opposed to oils pressed from fruit (like olive or palm oil) or nuts. Common examples include soybean oil, canola (rapeseed) oil, corn oil, sunflower oil, safflower oil, cottonseed oil, grapeseed oil, rice bran oil, sesame oil, and peanut oil.

What they tend to have in common: they’re high in polyunsaturated fats, particularly linoleic acid (an omega-6 fatty acid); they have a neutral flavor and high smoke point, which makes them popular for frying and processed food manufacturing; and they’re relatively cheap to produce at scale, which is why they show up so often in packaged foods, snacks, and fast food.

Seed oils are high in omega-6 fats. Do we need omega-6 fats? Yes, but not in the abundance that is commonly consumed. For every one omega-3 fat we have, we should not have more than three omega-6 fats. Most people have a ratio much higher than 1:3. Omega-3s are anti-inflammatory, and omega-6s, in excess, are pro-inflammatory.

So where do you actually get omega-3s? Fatty fish — salmon, sardines, mackerel, and anchovies — are the richest sources, since they supply EPA and DHA directly, the two forms your body uses. Walnuts, flaxseed, and chia seeds supply a different form, ALA, which your body can convert to EPA and DHA, but only inefficiently, so fatty fish is the more reliable route. On the cooking side, swapping out seed oils is easier than it sounds: olive oil, avocado oil, butter, ghee, and coconut oil all make good replacements without skewing your ratio the way soybean or canola oil does.

If you want a concrete number to track instead of just guessing at your ratio, ask your doctor about testing your omega-3 index — the percentage of EPA and DHA in your red blood cell membranes. An index of 8% or higher is associated with the best outcomes across a wide range of studies, and it gives you something measurable to work toward as you adjust your diet.

How Inflammation Makes Cells Swell

Here’s what that omega-6 excess actually does to a cell, step by step.

Think about inflammation for a moment — what does that mean? As a simplistic explanation, it’s putting too much water into the cells. You know you’re inflamed when you see swelling, right? Now think of those cell membranes stressed to capacity by inflammation. If they’re not healthy and lack the fats they need, what do you suppose happens?

When a cell is inflamed or injured, it swells because it loses control over its water balance. Here’s the simple version:

Normally, the cell membrane tightly regulates what moves in and out. The pump that keeps sodium low and potassium high inside the cell is what keeps water balanced — water follows salt.

During inflammation or injury, a few things go wrong:

1. The pump runs low on fuel. Inflammation disrupts energy production in the membrane of the mitochondria. Without enough energy, the pump slows down or stops.
2. Sodium leaks in. Without the pump actively pushing sodium back out, it starts building up inside the cell. Damaged or inflamed membranes also tend to become “leakier,” letting more sodium in passively.
3. Water follows the salt. Water always moves toward higher salt concentration to balance things out. As sodium accumulates inside, water rushes in after it, trying to dilute the excess salt.
4. The cell swells. With more water inside and nowhere for it to go, the cell expands.

If this continues without relief — say the inflammation isn’t resolved and ATP stays depleted — the swelling can progress to the point where the membrane itself ruptures, spilling the cell’s contents and often triggering more inflammation in the surrounding tissue.

So, in short: injury disrupts the cell’s energy supply → the sodium pump fails → sodium builds up inside → water follows → the cell swells and then ruptures.

Short-Chain Fatty Acids & Gut Health

Fat isn’t the only nutrient that supports vitality at the cellular level — fiber and gut bacteria play a surprisingly direct role too.

Some other fats which are crucial to longevity and vitality are short chain fatty acids, or SCFAs.

SCFAs help protect your DNA through something called epigenetics — the switches that turn genes on or off without changing the DNA itself. We’ll cover this in more depth in Part 2, but the short version here is that healthy SCFA levels help keep those switches set correctly, so they don’t accidentally flip on a disease process.

SCFAs are made by the microbes in your gut, and their benefits reach far beyond digestion:

• Maintaining the gut lining’s integrity
• Supporting GLP-1 production (a hormone that helps regulate blood sugar and appetite)
• Regulating immune function
• Influencing glucose and cholesterol regulation in the liver
• Supporting gut-brain communication through the vagus nerve and central nervous system
• Balancing gut pH to keep harmful bacteria in check

Where they come from: SCFAs are produced by fermentation of soluble fiber like resistant starch, inulin, and pectin, found in foods like beans, oats, garlic, onions, bananas, and cold boiled potatoes. Dietary fiber is extremely important in maintaining the production of SCFAs. Soluble fibers are what matters here, not insoluble ones.

Omega-3 fats and SCFAs work together, too. Research shows omega-3 supplementation increases populations of beneficial gut bacteria like Bifidobacterium, Lactobacillus, and Akkermansia, while directly boosting SCFA production itself — another reason your fat intake and your gut health are so closely linked.

Key Takeaways: Fats & Vitality

• Cell membranes are built from phospholipids — eat foods with intact cells (eggs, organ meats, legumes) to keep the raw materials coming.
• Avoid bad fats: trans fats and excess seed oils (soybean, canola, corn, sunflower, cottonseed) stiffen cell membranes and skew your omega-3 to omega-6 ratio.
• When cooking, swap seed oils for olive oil, avocado oil, butter, ghee, or coconut oil — they won’t skew your ratio the way soybean or canola oil does.
• Add healthy fats to your daily diet: fatty fish (salmon, sardines, mackerel), walnuts, flaxseed, and chia seeds all boost your omega-3s — your cells, your mitochondria, and your brain all depend on them.
• Get enough soluble fiber to feed the gut bacteria that produce short-chain fatty acids.
• Ask your doctor about testing your omega-3 index — a level of 8% or higher is linked to the best outcomes.

Get the fat foundation right, and you’ve covered one of the three pillars of vitality — medications and toxin exposure are next.

Supplement Support for Your Omega Needs

Food comes first, but if you’d like extra support closing the gap, Dr. Andersson recommends two supplements in particular:

• Body Bio PC by Body Bio — a phospholipid supplement to help rebuild and maintain healthy cell membranes.
• Biomega-1000 by Biotics Research — a concentrated omega-3 fish oil supplement to help correct your omega-3 to omega-6 balance.

Both are available through our Fullscript dispensary: us.fullscript.com/welcome/drmarieandersson.

If you have questions about your cell membrane health, omega-3 index, or supplement options, we’d love to help. Contact us to get started.

As always, check with your doctor before starting any new supplement.

Next up in this series: Part 2 will cover medications, polypharmacy, and epigenetics; Part 3 will cover toxin exposure, endocrine disruptors, and daily lifestyle habits.

Note: This content is intended for informational purposes. Always consult a qualified healthcare professional before making changes to your health management plan.