Fish Oil ~ Every Day (Multiple Times Even)

[Wheatfreedude]

I must admit, the nuns back in Catholic Grade school nearly had to put me in a headlock to give me a table spoon of Fish Oil. Obviously, they were onto the benefits of taking it well before the rest of the mainstream.

Regardless of your age, weight stats, demographics, etc.... Make SURE that you take your fish oil multiple times per day. You can do a simple google search about the benefits of taking it.

And as long it is triple distilled, you will even be safe with the store/private label brand.

Any other fish oil advocates out there? I have plenty of stories of success.

[GlutenFreeManna]

I've been wanting to try this but I can't find a fish oil capsule without soy. Can you recommend one?

[Skylark]

I'm another fish oil fan.

My bottle of double strength Nature's Bounty brand doesn't list any soy.

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[GlutenFreeManna]

Thanks Skylark! I'll have to look for Nature's Bounty.

[Tina B]

  On 7/12/2010 at 5:18 PM, GlutenFreeManna said:

I've been wanting to try this but I can't find a fish oil capsule without soy. Can you recommend one?

Omega Mint by Nutramax. I was at a primary care conference a few years ago and the rep was there with samples. It's great for those who have trouble with it repeating with reflux because it is min flavored and you don't get the fishy taste later.

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[Wheatfreedude]

When looking at supplements, such as fish oil, the first brand you should pick up is the private label or store label brand. The buyers at Costco, SAM'S, Trader Joes, and Whole Foods are some of the strictest in the industry.

You'll get the same quality as the national brands at a fraction of the price. Check the ingredient statements just to make sure there's no allergy reactants.

~Wheatfreedude~

[lukester]

Fish oil is a great addition to my list. I noticed that my joints are better in weight training circumstances and that i am in a greater mood. The mood could be caused by the dha that is added in the brand i buy. Fish oil also contains a awesome balance of omega 3 to 6 so that is another reason i take it.

[munchkinette]

I use Pure Alaska Omega. It contains no soy, and it's one of the only brands I've found that is sustainable. (The oil is recovered from the Alaska salmon fishery.)

I got mine at Costco for about $18. I've seen it on Amazon and some other places.

Ingredients: Fish Oil (100% Natural, from Wild Alaskan Salmon), Softgel (Gelatin, Glycerin, Water), Vitamin E (as d-Alpha Tocopherol).

[Chakra2]

I dropped my fish oil because of the soy, too. Isn't d-alpha tocopherol vitamin e from soy?

[Skylark]

  On 8/5/2010 at 3:37 AM, Chakra2 said:

I dropped my fish oil because of the soy, too. Isn't d-alpha tocopherol vitamin e from soy?

I took that as a challenge. Here is a soy-free fish oil preserved with rosemary rather than tocopherol.

Open Original Shared Link Advertisement.com/Nature-s-Answer-Liquid-Omega-3-Deep-Sea-Fish-Oil-EPA-DHA-Natural-Orange-Flavor-16-fl-oz-480-ml/7908?at=0

[Skylark]

OK. This spam filter has gone too far. Finally found one that works.

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[RiceGuy]

I use organic flax oil. Completely vegetarian, no fishy taste, no mercury worries, etc. I generally use it as part of the oil when I make mayonnaise and other things which are prepared, refrigerated, and eaten cold. This also makes it easier to reduce the omega-6s while boosting the omega-3s. Simply taking a supplement doesn't do that. Last I checked, flax oil has a higher percentage of omega-3s than fish oil. Though as I understand it, the fish oils are generally extracts, so the concentrations of DHA and EPA would be higher. However, some say it is better to get the whole ALA complex found in flax. You decide.

Funny, when I was little, I'd voluntarily take cod liver oil, because I was told it was healthy. My mother would make a face when I'd take it. When I asked why, she said because of the taste. But it was basically tasteless to me, like a light vegetable oil I'm wondering if I was so deficient in something that I couldn't taste it. Like the way a zinc deficiency reduces your sense of taste in general. But I can taste whole fish, so that doesn't make sense either.

[Skylark]

It has been show in multiple studies that humans do not efficiently convert ALA into DHA and EPA. It might be that we would be better off with both fish and flax oil, but your suggestion that ALA from flax oil can replace fish oil is not well substantiated. In particular, you don't get the cardiac benefits of fish oil. If you are not comfortable eating fish, there are algal DHA supplements available.

Here are a couple references mentioning the conversion issues.

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[AndrewNYC]

You would be better off eating fish itself rather than a Frankenstein creation of soy, cellulose and fish oil that is pressed out of a fish, reprocessed and preserved for human consumption inside a capsule inside a bottle with silica stabilizer for freshness.

  On 7/12/2010 at 5:12 PM, Wheatfreedude said:

I must admit, the nuns back in Catholic Grade school nearly had to put me in a headlock to give me a table spoon of Fish Oil. Obviously, they were onto the benefits of taking it well before the rest of the mainstream.

Regardless of your age, weight stats, demographics, etc.... Make SURE that you take your fish oil multiple times per day. You can do a simple google search about the benefits of taking it.

And as long it is triple distilled, you will even be safe with the store/private label brand.

Any other fish oil advocates out there? I have plenty of stories of success.

[RiceGuy]

  On 8/5/2010 at 3:38 PM, Skylark said:

It has been show in multiple studies that humans do not efficiently convert ALA into DHA and EPA. It might be that we would be better off with both fish and flax oil, but your suggestion that ALA from flax oil can replace fish oil is not well substantiated. In particular, you don't get the cardiac benefits of fish oil. If you are not comfortable eating fish, there are algal DHA supplements available.

Here are a couple references mentioning the conversion issues.

Open Original Shared Link

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I didn't suggest it, only mentioned that some do. I'd have to do some research to form a well-informed opinion. One thing I hadn't thought about until I just read it today, is that fresh fish doesn't smell. Only when it starts turning does it begin to smell. So it makes sense that a fishy tasting capsule might be due to rancidity. That is the assertion of Udo Erasmus, one of the most respected omega-3 experts (that I'm aware of). Now, I'm sure not everyone wants to believe what he says, and I cannot determine if what he says is true without delving into the subject and reading a lot more than I have. But unless you can do all your own laboratory tests, you have to put some trust in the experts whom are supposed to know.

For what it may be worth:

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Again, I will point out that changing the ratio of omega-3 to omega-6 is something every expert seems to agree is important. So replacing other dietary oils (such as salad dressings) with omega-3 rich oils makes sense. You can't effectively accomplish that by just taking a capsule, while your mayonnaise and salad dressing is still loaded with omega-6. And that is my basis for using flax oil in these and other food items. So even if flax is less beneficial ounce per ounce, you can easily consume much more of it than you can the derivatives in capsules.

Until I do enough reading to say for certain, I have to go with what makes sense given what I currently know.

[Skylark]

Notice that Udo has something to sell you, and that he has never published in the peer-reviewed scientific literature. Udo speaks of the exact problem Americans have, and the one to which I was referring. Too much dietary n-6 and there is poor conversion to DHA. If you have fixed the ratio of n-6:n-3 in your diet, and are sure you have done so accurately and correctly, you are probably fine. Most Americans are not fine and it takes a lot of dietary manipulation to get the n-6 down. There also studies on cardiovascular benefits of fish oils that Udo does not mention, and that flax seed oil does not provide.

[RiceGuy]

I knew you'd bring up the "he's selling something" argument. But what about the studies done by manufacturers of fish oil supplements? You can bet they're biased as well. Anyway, enough of that. It doesn't get us closer to answering the questions.

After a bit of searching, I found this:

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Our investigations show that exposure of human hepatocytes to different mixtures of LA and ALA affected transcript levels of a portfolio of genes encoding regulating proteins involved in several stages of fatty acid metabolism. This effect strongly depends on the ratio of n6/n3 fatty acids, indicating the importance of ingesting an appropriate amount of fatty acids, but also an appropriate ratio of n6 and n3 fatty acids. This is further confirmed by the fact that maximum conversion of LA to AA was measured only in the presence of ALA. Omitting ALA seems to result in higher oxidation rates as indicated by high transcript levels of PPARα. Additionally, the n6/n3 ratio strongly influenced the elongation of ALA to EPA and DHA as well as the transcript levels of D5D and D6D.

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So, as I expected, ALA is still important to have in the diet, regardless of whether you're supplementing with the DHA and EPA derivatives. The article also indicates to me that conversion is not as poor as some might suggest. Those PubMed articles didn't give any values. Just saying the conversion isn't very efficient isn't convincing, nor does it mean it isn't optimal. In other words, if the body doesn't need a lot of something it can manufacture, it only makes sense that it isn't going to expend extra resources to do it.

There are some very scientifically oriented paragraphs in that article, not all of which I can confidently say I fully grasp. It gets pretty deep. I don't have the background for it.

Some other articles I scanned through lead me to conclude that supplementing with DHA and EPA, and not ALA, puts things out of natural balance. Although I didn't see a study specifically examining this, that's what I gleaned as part of the overall picture, from the various articles I've seen.

The way I see it, the human body is prepared to thrive on naturally available food sources. This is logical, regardless of whether you believe in evolution or creation. If we evolved, or were designed, to eat the foods on this planet, then we're supposed to consume considerably more omega-6s than omega-3s. Even fatty fish like salmon has considerably more omega-6s than omega-3s. Even a diet of flax and other seeds, nuts, and berries will have considerably more omega-6s than omega-3s. So how could we require a diet which isn't available to us? It makes no sense to me.

That said, I do believe in the value of supplementing some omega-3s, especially when absorption isn't what it's supposed to be. But ultimately, I think people would benefit so greatly from a proper diet, that such supplementation wouldn't seem as important. I mean, I cannot ignore the notion that much of the benefits of omega-3 supplements one might experience is merely compensation for an overall poor diet/lifestyle. In the modern Western world, it can be tough to really eat as well as one should. And that's a good basis for some reasonable supplementation. Celiac does present absorption problems, so there again some supplementation seems reasonable. I just want to keep things as balanced as I can.

[Skylark]

Of course I would bring up the conflict of interest. When a conflict of interest pretty much leaps off a web page and hits me over the head, I feel obliged to point it out.

I think the assumption that we are "prepared to thrive on naturally available food sources" is problematic. Remember that "thrive" in paleolithic times meant making it to adulthood without dying of a bacterial infection, injury, disease, or outright starvation. Paleolithic humans had plenty of dietary issues. There is some archaeological evidence that various groups of indigenous people suffered from rickets, pellagra, beri-beri, and scurvy. The average human lifespan was thought to be only 25-40 years, with men outliving women because many women died in childbirth.

If you believe in evolution, we are naturally selected to do well until perhaps our early-30s, at which point kids born when the parent is in their late teens are grown and fending for themselves. Living beyond that is merely luck and not particularly selected for one way or the other. We place an entirely different burden on our bodies living into our 70s and 80s and it is unrealistic to think our nutritional needs would not be different from a 20-something hunter-gatherer. We already know older people don't absorb and retain dietary vitamins and minerals as well need to supplement D, calcium, and some B vitamins. I think the scientific evidence points to the usefulness of DHA and EPA supplementation as well.

[RiceGuy]

I don't know how much truth there is to the theories about the far distant prehistoric past, but nobody really does. That's one reason why it's still called the theory of evolution. But that is another topic, and probably better left out of this thread.

However, consider that Plato lived to about 80 years of age, Hippocrates lived to about 83, and Galileo lived to about 77. I'm no historian, but these are names which most people should be familiar with. Diseases like cancer, diabetes and obesity are more prevalent today than ever, especially in the Western world, but not because people are living longer. Young adults and even kids are developing these and other conditions with ever increasing propensity. What has evolved is diet and lifestyle, both of which are ever more deplorable. Seems to me, the human lifespan hasn't really changed, only the chances of fully achieving it, and in good health. The same things which killed people thousands of years ago also kill people today - disease, famine, wars, accidents, etc.

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I think the scientific evidence points to the usefulness of DHA and EPA supplementation as well.

Sure. The same can be said for flax oil. But do the derivatives actually have more benefit than flax oil, without any downsides? How much is optimal? The question of which is better still remains. What happens if you take too much for too long? I'm not aware of any long-term studies examining these questions. If you are, by all means post a link or two.

Anyway, the article I referenced in my previous post is quite in-depth, and compelling. If anyone can shoot it full of holes, I'd sure like to know.

[Skylark]

  On 8/8/2010 at 10:11 AM, RiceGuy said:

Anyway, the article I referenced in my previous post is quite in-depth, and compelling. If anyone can shoot it full of holes, I'd sure like to know.

I have yet to run across a piece of bulletproof science. Unfortunately it would take me a couple weeks of hard work to come up with all the counterarguments and I really am not interested enough to go to that much time and work.

The easiest and most obvious place to start shooting is this fellow's lack of peer-reviewed research substantiating his hypotheses.

[RiceGuy]

  On 8/9/2010 at 6:42 PM, Skylark said:

I have yet to run across a piece of bulletproof science. Unfortunately it would take me a couple weeks of hard work to come up with all the counterarguments and I really am not interested enough to go to that much time and work.

The easiest and most obvious place to start shooting is this fellow's lack of peer-reviewed research substantiating his hypotheses.

OK, but that in itself suggests the article isn't so easy to shoot down. I mean, it only took a search or two for me to find the article.

What hypothesis? Looks like a lot of hard science to me. Plenty of actual tests, making actual measurements.

The fish oil companies/advocates make claims, but I haven't seen the caliber of scientific analysis in support of fish oil over flax, that the article I referenced provides for its conclusions.

I did run across some information suggesting that magnesium and other nutrients are needed for the conversion from ALA to EPA/DHA. I'll dig a bit more later to see if I can find some science on that. But given that an estimated 80% of the population is deficient in magnesium, it doesn't surprise me that so many find omega-3 supplements helpful. It goes to support what I said earlier - the overall diet of the average person seems a much larger problem, and omega-3 supplements are overcompensation for it.