Fish oil supplements exploded

[blogs.courier-journal.com]

Easy to read summary of the recent disappointing research studies.

Hi Aexandra,

This article makes one wonder - again - what masters Dr. John Mandrola MD serves. Fish oil supplements - there is no free lunch is as dangerous for what it doesn't say as for what it does, for example:.

From Oils from Fish and Seafoods: EPA and DHA, Chapter 55 of the book Fats That Heal, Fats That Kill (1993) by Udo Erasmus, PhD. [www.amazon.com]

-- EPA / DHA [fish oils] help keep our arteries clean, our platelets less sticky. . .
-- In spite of many scientific studies showing beneficial effects of EPA and DHA on cardiovascular health, fish oils are still waiting for the official 'green light' in the US. In Canada, all essential nutrients are considered drugs rather than foods ... The US FDA concluded in '93 that sellers of W3 (flax and fish) oils may not make claims for the usefulness of W3s to establish cardiovascular health.
-- Fresh EPA and DHA can be a valuable addition to the human diet. They provide one of the main reasons why traditional Inuit [Eskimos] were virtually free of disease of fatty degeneration, even though their diets contained 30% fat providing almost 60% of total calories (of which more than one-tenth was EPA and DHA), but very little fiber.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/11/2012 03:46PM by Erling.

Alexandrea:

I am one who cannot take fish oils or even vit. D, they will give me aura migraines, I do not know why they do this to me. I can take flax seed oil without any problem. I also have read that vit. E has downsides as well, I am getting a little leery about some vitamins, they may be just too consentrated or the purity is lacking. My holistic doctor told me I should take boron (30mg.) for an elavated parathyroid hormone, I took it for about 4 or 5 days and I didn't feel very good, I thought it was the increase in Mag. that I was taking, I went online and read that boron should not be taken in mg. over 15, well I was taking double. They symptons described were exactly what I was experiencing, nausea, nervousness and some weakness, I quit the boron and started feeling fine. I am becomming more and more concerned about a lot of supplements, I wonder if people taking supplements live any longer than those that don't.

Liz

Alexandra,

There are many, many more studies attesting to the benefits of fish oils than there are studies claiming that they are not beneficial. See the oilofpisces.com [www.oilofpisces.com] website for hundreds of examples.

Hans

Hi Liz,
Like in all fields of medicine, the issue with most supplements is finding a doc who knows what they are talking about and can communciate the protocol properly to patients, and apparently though your Doc may have had a good idea in mind, he/she apparently did not effectively explain what they were trying to do to you ... at least with respect to Boron. A large 30mg dose is mostly used short term for rheumatoid arthritis and is also used to reduce hypercalcimia in serum to push it back into the bones as well as increase conversion of Vit D into its bioavailable form which is probably what your doc had it mind in lieu of your parathyroid issue.

Boron also has strong anti-fungal and anti-microbial action and can help in reducing candida.

What your holistic doc should have warned you about was a likely herxheimer detox reaction from such a large dose, especially if you or your family has ever had any rheumatoid or osteo- arthritis issues. A herxheimer reaction is very much consistent with the symptoms you described. When you had such symptoms, he should have told you to either persevere, if you were up to it, for 2 to 3 more weeks after which those symtoms would likely disappear as teh detox was complete and then you would feel better, or else you could choose to keep cutting the Boron dose in half until the herx symptoms were tolerable and just take a little longer to complete the detox.

In any event, a safe maintenance dose of Boron is 3mg/day and that will very much help boost the sex hormones testosterone in men over 50 and both testosterone and estrogen in menopausal women. Amoung other benefits.

And Alexandra, Dr. Mandrola is certainly not a doc I would listen too when it comes to supplement advice and that recently published fish oil article is just one relatively isolated and questionable point of view compared to hundreds of other well designed studies supporting the opposite conclusion. .. Even Mandrola's ablation advice is often a good deal less than state of the art. He does occasionally post some interesting blogs on various AFIB related topics. However, he is not a very skilled ablationist as yet with somewhere in only the middle hundreds of ablations done in the seven to eight years since he started doing afib ablations .. that is not a very busy clip, indicating patients are not beating down his door to have him do the job. ... and he apparently from all that I have heard is very much still climbing that very steep experience ladder and, as such, still seems to get swayed easily by industry hype and sometimes a little over-enthusiam over the potential implication of the latest studies.

This latest fish oil report is one such blog report that is yesterday's news and not very solid at that, and more misleading than enlightening.

Shannon



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/12/2012 08:51PM by Shannon.

Shannon:

Thank you for your post, you certainly make a lot of sense, are you in the medical field. I was thinking of splitting the boron in 1/2 or maybe 1/4 s. I have elevated parathyroid and my doctor suggested that I take vit. D and the boron, the vit D that I have is an oil that I take with a dropper, but it has given me the aura migraines, there is something about the oil.




Liz

Hi Liz,
You are welcome Liz, and no, I am not a doctor. I do work with several MDs as a coach for their BHRT (bio-identical hormone replacement) patients in helping these docs with evaluting and interpreting lab results as well as training patients on the practical nuts and bolts of how to get the best from their daily protocols. Also, giving tips and reminders for how to best prepare and conduct such tests as serum, 24 hour urine, certain saliva testing as indicated etc, so as to get reliable and repeatable numbers from their lab results.

A good part of that work also includes reviewing and suggesting which supplements and occasionaly meds the patient can use to help improve their own endogenous enzyme system in order to better optimize these exogenously applied hormones intended to bolster and restore much more effective hormone utilization at the cellular level for best effect.

The combination of years of learning as much as possible about this field, along with the many years of diving deeply into my other significant personal health challenges, ranging from post-polio muscle atrophy I developed around 1984 to AFIB has inspired my quest for health knowledge ...not unlike most of us here!

My educational efforts in health/medicine started some 22 years after coming down with full blown polio at age ten from the then newly-released Sabin oral polio vaccine in 1962. The secondary orthopedic and neurological symptoms that manifest as post polio returned with a vengence starting in the early 1980s after those 20 some odd years follwoignmy intital recovery from teh original bout of polio and three years of intense physcial therapy, and first led me staring around '84 into an eye-opening journey into the allopathic medical world in which I had 100% faith and trust at the time.

The school of hard knocks, including three back to back cervical fusions over two and a half year period from 1987 through late 1989 made me realize how vital it was for me to become a proactive consumer of medical knowledge and keep an open mind if I was going to make it through all this alive and kicking.

I had become increasingly disabled by 1988 such that I was forced to retire at age 38 in early 1990 and sell my successful mechanical engineering firm that I had started in the late 1970s which specialized in designing and building large scale energy efficient systems for heating water and cooling large buildings while minimizing fossil fuel use throughout Hawaii and other south pacific islands.

In any event, once I was retired to try to slow down the progression of this neuro-muscular condition, I filled much of my time at the University medical library learning everything I could about polio, the body and also nutrition and supplemental as well as any alternative approaches that 'might' offer some help for symptomatic relief at least since modern medicine offered nothign at all for us post polio patients at the time except for a sympathetic ear and a strong prescription to minimize our activity to try and preserve what motor neuron function we still had.

Then along came our not so welcomed friend AFIB on top of it all in the early to mid 1990s and you all know most of the story from there. In any event, after many years of trial and error, I was fortunate to get a better handle on what supplemental avenues had real promise and worked for me and others, and which were more fools gold.

Finding out that my endocrine system was pretty much out of whack with low across the board hormone levels for many critical anabolic hormones, was a huge peice of the puzzle that has helped me respond as well as I have.

And we all know the story of our shared journey in wrestling with this very challenging beast in AFIB. Anyway, it was keeping my ears and nose to the ground all those years and not giving up that has helped me get a better feel for not only how only how the body works, but how to work best with doctors in a cooperative venture rather than within a dictator/supplicant relationship that has helped me the most and that is what I try to convey to those BHRT patients I consult with.. and also is more or less what I try to contribute to the discussion with all of my friends here as well.

Just as I have learned so very much from so many on this board too through the years.

Shannon



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/12/2012 10:14PM by Shannon.

Shannon:

I appreciate your telling of some of the health endurances you have had to go through in your lifes journey. Hmm bio-identical hormones, I have been taking those for about 10 years, Dr Brownstein is my doctor and has written several books on various subjects including bio-identical hormones.

Liz

Optimizing cell membranes' form/ function by supplementing EPA / DHA fish oils was an important reason my 10 year AF was cured eleven years ago [www.afibbers.org]

This in-depth article describes the function of these 'poly-unsaturated fatty acids' (PUFAs):

Alternative Medicine Review Volume 12, Number 3 2007 [216.194.92.128]

Omega-3 DHA and EPA for Cognition, Behavior, and Mood:
Clinical Findings and Structural-Functional Synergies with Cell Membrane Phospholipids
Parris M. Kidd, PhD

Abstract

The omega-3 fatty acids docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) and eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) are orthomolecular, conditionally essential nutrients that enhance quality of life and lower the risk of premature death. They function exclusively via cell membranes, in which they are anchored by phospholipid molecules. DHA is proven essential to pre- and postnatal brain development, whereas EPA seems more influential on behavior and mood. Both DHA and EPA generate neuroprotective metabolites. In doubleblind, randomized, controlled trials, DHA and EPA combinations
have been shown to benefit attention deficit/ hyperactivity disorder (AD/HD), autism, dyspraxia, dyslexia, and aggression. For the affective disorders, meta-analyses confirm benefits in major depressive disorder (MDD) and bipolar disorder, with promising results in schizophrenia and initial benefit for borderline personality disorder. Accelerated cognitive decline and mild cognitive impairment (MCI) correlate with lowered tissue levels of DHA/EPA, and supplementation has improved cognitive function. Huntington disease has responded to EPA. Omega-3 phospholipid supplements that combine DHA/ EPA and phospholipids into the same molecule have shown marked promise in early clinical trials. Phosphatidylserine with DHA/ EPA attached (Omega-3 PS) has been shown to alleviate AD/ HD symptoms. Krill omega-3 phospholipids, containing mostly phosphatidylcholine (PC) with DHA/EPA attached, markedly outperformed conventional fish oil DHA/EPA triglycerides in double-blind trials for premenstrual syndrome/dysmenorrhea and for normalizing blood lipid profiles. Krill omega-3 phospholipids demonstrated anti-inflammatory activity, lowering C-reactive protein (CRP) levels in a double-blind trial. Utilizing DHA and EPA together with phospholipids and membrane antioxidants to achieve a “triple cell membrane synergy” may further diversify their currently wide range of clinical applications.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/14/2012 12:11PM by Erling.