The low-fat era of nutrition advice left a lasting impression. For roughly three decades, dietary fat was framed as the problem: the cause of weight gain, cardiovascular disease, and metabolic dysfunction. The science has moved on considerably. Fat is not the problem. The type of fat, and the context in which it's consumed, is almost always what actually determines the outcome.
The body requires dietary fat to function, not as a caloric fallback when carbohydrates aren't available, but as a structural and biochemical input that has no substitute.
What fat is actually for
Every cell membrane in the body is a phospholipid bilayer: a double layer of fat molecules that forms the boundary of the cell, regulates what enters and exits, and maintains the structural integrity of everything inside it. Without adequate dietary fat, cell membrane composition degrades.
The brain is approximately 60% fat by dry weight. The myelin sheath, the protective coating around nerve fibres that allows electrical signals to travel quickly and accurately, is largely composed of fatty acids and phospholipids. Cognitive function, signal transmission speed, and neurological repair all have a direct dependency on fat intake.
Fat is also the only transport mechanism for vitamins A, D, E, and K. These four are fat-soluble: they require dietary fat to be absorbed from the gut. A meal rich in vitamin D with insufficient fat alongside it will result in poor absorption regardless of the dose. In a formulation built around 23 micronutrients, adequate fat is structurally necessary for those micronutrients to reach systemic circulation.
Finally, dietary fat is a precursor to steroid hormones, including cortisol, oestrogen, testosterone, and vitamin D in its hormonal form. Chronically low fat intake suppresses the substrate available for hormone synthesis.
The Indian urban diet and fat quality
Urban Indian diets are rarely low in total fat. Restaurant food, takeout, and packaged snacks tend to be high in fat from refined vegetable oils and, in many cases, partially hydrogenated fats. The problem isn't quantity. It's composition.
The oils most commonly used in Indian commercial cooking, refined sunflower, soybean, and rice bran, are high in omega-6 polyunsaturated fatty acids. Omega-6 is an essential fatty acid: the body can't synthesise linoleic acid and has to get it from food. But the omega-6 to omega-3 ratio in the typical urban Indian diet is estimated at 15:1 to 30:1 [1] [2]. The ratio associated with healthy inflammatory balance is closer to 4:1 [3].
MCTs are almost entirely absent from the modern urban diet. Coconut oil, historically the primary Indian dietary source of MCTs, has been largely displaced in urban kitchens by refined vegetable oils. Most people consuming a standard urban diet are not getting meaningful MCT intake.
Phospholipid-rich foods, egg yolks, organ meats, soybeans, sunflower seeds, are consumed inconsistently, and their cognitive and structural role is rarely discussed in mainstream nutrition.
MCTs: a different kind of fat
Most dietary fat is long-chain: carbon chains of 14 atoms or more. Long-chain fatty acids require bile for emulsification and travel through the lymphatic system before reaching systemic circulation. The process is slow and metabolically intensive.
Medium-chain triglycerides are 6 to 12 carbon atoms long. This structural difference changes everything about how they're handled. MCTs are absorbed directly from the gut into the portal vein, bypassing the lymphatic system entirely, and are transported straight to the liver. There, they're rapidly converted to ketones rather than stored as body fat.
Ketones are an efficient alternative fuel source for the brain. The brain ordinarily runs on glucose. When ketones are available, particularly from MCT metabolism, they cross the blood-brain barrier and are oxidised by neurons. This is why MCT consumption is associated with improvements in cognitive performance, sustained mental clarity, and reduced reliance on glucose-driven energy cycles. The research base here is substantial: MCTs have been studied extensively in the context of Alzheimer's disease, mental fatigue, and athletic cognitive performance [4] [5] [6].
For daily use, the practical relevance is simpler. MCT-derived energy arrives quickly, doesn't produce a glucose spike, doesn't require significant digestive processing, and provides a fuel source that the brain can use directly alongside, not instead of, carbohydrate-derived energy.
Omega-6 and linoleic acid
Linoleic acid, the primary omega-6 fatty acid in sunflower oil, is an essential fatty acid. The body cannot synthesise it. It's a structural component of cell membranes, a precursor to signalling molecules involved in immune response and inflammation, and necessary for skin barrier function.
The distinction that matters is between whole-food omega-6 sources, which come packaged with other fatty acids, antioxidants, and micronutrients, and refined omega-6 oils consumed in high volume from commercial cooking. Sunflower oil powder in a formulation context delivers linoleic acid as an essential fatty acid input, not as a bulk cooking medium.
Lecithin and the cognitive connection
Lecithin is a phospholipid: a fat molecule with a phosphate group attached, giving it both water-soluble and fat-soluble properties. It's present naturally in soy and in sunflower-derived ingredients.
Its primary constituent is phosphatidylcholine. Phosphatidylcholine is a direct precursor to acetylcholine, one of the most important neurotransmitters in the central and peripheral nervous systems. Acetylcholine is involved in memory encoding, attention, and the signalling between nerve and muscle cells [7] [8].
It also contributes to the structural integrity of cell membranes, the same phospholipid bilayer function described above.
Lecithin also functions as a natural emulsifier: it helps fat-soluble and water-soluble compounds integrate, which is relevant both to digestive absorption and to the consistency of a liquid formulation.
How this works together
Soma's Healthy Fats via MCTs system: MCTs for rapid, ketone-producing brain fuel, and omega-6 from sunflower oil powder as the essential fatty acid input. The phospholipids present as a function of the soy and sunflower ingredients provide the phosphatidylcholine precursor for acetylcholine synthesis.
Alongside 23 micronutrients that include vitamins A, D, E, and K, the fat in this formulation also serves as the absorption vehicle for the fat-soluble portion of that stack. The fat content isn't a standalone system. It's what makes several other systems work.
References
1. Singh, R. B., Fedacko, J., Saboo, B., Niaz, M. A., & Singh, N. (2017). Association of higher omega-6/omega-3 fatty acids in the diet with higher prevalence of metabolic syndrome in North India. MOJ Public Health, 6(6), 190-196.
2. Gupta, R., Lakshmy, R., Abraham, R. A., & Sharma, M. (2013). Serum omega-6/omega-3 ratio and risk markers for cardiovascular disease in an industrial population of Delhi. Food and Nutrition Bulletin, 34(3), 303-309.
3. Simopoulos, A. P. (2016). The importance of a balanced ω-6 to ω-3 ratio in the prevention and management of numerous diseases. Experimental Biology and Medicine, 241(10), 1083-1090.
4. Neth, B. J., Mintz, A., Carlsson, C. M., & Zetterberg, H. (2020). Medium Chain Triglycerides induce mild ketosis and may improve cognition in patients with mild cognitive impairment and Alzheimer's disease: A meta-analysis. Journal of Alzheimer's Disease Reports, 4(1), 49-59.
5. Fortier, M., Castellano, C. A., Croteau, E., Langlois, F., Bocti, C., St-Pierre, V., ... & Cunnane, S. C. (2019). A ketogenic drink improves brain energy and some measures of cognition in mild cognitive impairment. Alzheimer's & Dementia: Translational Research & Clinical Interventions, 5(1), 1-10.
6. Ota, M., Matsuo, J., Ishida, I., & Nakamura, K. (2021). An fMRI investigation into the effects of ketogenic medium-chain triglycerides on cognitive function in elderly adults: a pilot study. Nutrients, 13(7), 2134.
7. Sitaram, N., Weingartner, H., & Gillin, J. C. (1978). Administration of phosphatidylcholine increases brain acetylcholine concentration and improves memory in mice with dementia. Life Sciences, 22(17), 1555-1560.
8. Suzuki, S., & Kawamura, H. (1995). Effects of dietary phosphatidylcholine on memory in memory deficient mice with low brain acetylcholine concentration. Pharmacology Biochemistry and Behavior, 52(1), 195-199.