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The Healf Source
The One Supplement The Experts At HX26 Couldn't Stop Talking About
During this year's Healf Experience, a surprising nutrient took centre stage.
Written by: the Healf Editors
Written on: July 7, 2026
Ask anyone who was at HX26 this year which supplement came up the most across two days of talks, and their answer would probably surprise you. It wasn't NAD+ or peptides or even vitamin C. It was the fish oil capsule that's been sitting at the back of the cupboard since your gran started taking it for her joints. At Healf's two-day wellbeing experience at 180 Studios, speaker after speaker, from Dr. Rhonda Patrick to Rose Ferguson and Kayla Barnes-Lentz, kept coming back to omega-3, and the case they built for this old-school supplement was one of the best of the entire event.
Across dozens of hours of Main Stage talks, inflammation kept surfacing as the root cause behind everything from poor cardiovascular health to slower cognition to faster ageing, and omega-3 kept surfacing right alongside it, as one of the few well-evidenced ways to calm that inflammatory response.
Curious to know more about why this supplement occupies so much brain and main stage space? Here's what the experts had to say about omega-3.
What's actually happening in your cells
At a basic level, omega-3s are essential "healthy" fats that help your body fight inflammation and keep your heart, brain, and eyes healthy. There are three main types: DHA, EPA, and ALA. Typically, we get omega-3 through diet, by eating oily fish like sardines, mackerel, salmon, in addition to thinks like chia, walnuts, and flaxseed.
During her main stage talk on 'Gut Instincts' with neuroscientist Dr. Tara Swart, Rose Ferguson, a nutritionist and Healf's Resident Functional Medicine Practitioner, connected omega-3 directly to brain inflammation, explaining that “good fats for EPA and DHA, which are found in fish oils or omega-3s, is really, really beneficial for brain health,” and that they help “bring your inflammation down” more broadly across the body.
Later on, during her main stage talk on 'The Science of Slow Ageing', Dr. Rhonda Patrick, PhD, a biomedical scientist, explored the biological mechanisms involved in omega-3 supplementation: when the body metabolises DHA and EPA, it produces resolvins, compounds that actively resolve inflammation at its source, and omega-3s also support how fluid your cell membranes are, including the ones lining your blood vessels. Without enough omega-3, those cells stiffen, which is where the cardiovascular link comes into play.
How omega-3 plays a role in healthspan
There's a longevity angle with this nutrient, too. Dr. Patrick opened her talk with a statistic that reframes the whole conversation around this old-school supplement. She pointed to a Harvard analysis that identified not getting enough omega-3 from seafood as one of the top six preventable causes of death, sitting alongside smoking, hypertension, and cardiovascular disease. Most people would never put “not eating enough oily fish” in the same sentence as smoking, but the data says otherwise.
Dr. Patrick also referenced a Swiss trial in which omega-3 was the only single intervention, tested against vitamin D and resistance training, that slowed epigenetic ageing on its own by 3.3 months, with a daily intake of around 1.1g making the difference. When combined with vitamin D and resistance training, biological age reduction reached 3.8 months over two years, alongside a 40% drop in pre-frailty and a 60% drop in invasive cancer in that trial population.
Unfortunately, most people aren't getting enough omega-3 from their diet. Dr. Patrick point out the omega-3 index, which tracks fatty acid levels in red blood cells over roughly 120 days. A “high” index sits at 8% or above, while a “low” index is closer to 4%, which is roughly where the average person in the US lands. And that difference can have a real impact on healthspan and overall wellbeing.
"People with the high omega-3 index of 8% have a five-year increased life expectancy compared to people with a low omega three index of 4%," said Dr. Patrick. Other research backs this up. The VITAL trial, which used a more typical 1g per day fish oil dose in a healthy general population, didn't move the needle on major cardiovascular events overall, but it did find a 28% drop in heart attack risk, with the biggest benefit seen in people who ate little fish to begin with.
What experts recommend
For all the different studies and data thrown around at HX26, one of the most repeated pieces of advice was incredibly simple, emphasising an approach to wellbeing that ignores the lengthy stack and focuses instead on the foundational bits. “I think there are probably three supplements that would benefit most people," said Kayla Barnes-Lentz during her talk on 'Anti-inflammatory Living' with Dr. Barbara Sturm. "Vitamin D if you're deficient, I would say magnesium, considering most people are deficient, and a high-quality omega-3. There's a lot of data on [this] being very anti-inflammatory… I think those three supplements are good for just about anyone.”
Her one piece of practical guidance to ensure you're making the most of your omega-3 was also very easy to action: “Store it in the fridge, get a high quality.”
The experts agree: the evidence on omega-3's benefits for your heart, your brain, and even how fast you age is all there. And it's an incredibly easy, anti-optimised step to overall wellbeing.
This article is for informational purposes only, even if and regardless of whether it features the advice of physicians and medical practitioners. This article is not, nor is it intended to be, a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment and should never be relied upon for specific medical advice. The views expressed in this article are the views of the expert and do not necessarily represent the views of Healf
Healf's editorial team works hard to produce science-backed, expert-vetted stories to break down trends and cut through the noise in the wellbeing ecosystem. Our team of writers and editors specialise in everything from nutrition, to exercise science, women's health, skincare, sleep, and more.
