What's the Deal with Fish Oil?

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/16/opinion/16greenberg.html?_r=1

by frankus • 17 years ago

136 65 17 years ago

alecco3• 17 years ago

And the funny thing is the Omega-3 oil in question comes actually from algae and not fish. I bet it's even easier to get it directly from the source.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Docosahexaenoic_acid

tokenadult• 17 years ago

I bet it's even easier to get it directly from the source.

I think in terms of what is economical for food production and what is bioavailable to human eaters, that is not the case yet today. Scientists are working on that, I have read elsewhere.

evgen• 17 years ago

Soon it will be even easier to get. The new GMO coming down the pike is a soybean that produces omega-3 via SDA (converted to EPA by humans once ingested) which is a more efficient conversion process than the ALA -> EPA process that most other botanical sources provide.

dejb3• 17 years ago

> I think in terms of what is economical for food production and what is bioavailable to human eaters

I've been taking Algae based DHA supplements for a while. The consensus seems to be that it should work just as well as DHA from fish oil but so far there are no studies using this form so it isn't 100% certain. The cost is somewhat more than fish oil (maybe 2 or 3 times the prices) although I'm sure that is mostly because it is a niche product. There are also version with both DHA and EPA but they are a fair bit more expensive and the conversion of ALA to EPA is generally viewed as good enough for flax seed oil to be used for EPA.

blakeweb• 17 years ago

FYI, the author mentions "flax oil also fits the bill", which from what I know, and from the most recent Nutrition Action Newsletter (nonprofit consumer information organization), isn't true. It's in their latest (November) issue, but I can't find a link to it online. http://www.cspinet.org/nah/index.htm

Flax oil I believe contains mostly omega-6, which people aren't generally as needy of with our current diets.

jpschorr• 17 years ago

The problem with the omeaga-3 in flax oil is that it's ALA, while we really need EPA and DHA. Although the body can convert ALA, it doesn't do so with great efficiency.

http://www.marksdailyapple.com/omega-3-dosage-sources/

dejb3• 17 years ago

From what I've heard the conversion from ALA to EPA is OK but conversion to DHA is a lot more variable.

catzaa2• 17 years ago

As I understand it a high amount of Omega-6 means that you cannot absorb the omega-3. From WP:

> Thus accumulation of long-chain n−3 fatty acids in tissues is more effective when they are obtained directly from food or when competing amounts of n−6 analogs do not greatly exceed the amounts of n−3.

Fish oil contains a higher ratio of omega-3 to omega 6 than other sources (flax seed).

Also, fish oil contains Vitamin D which is very good for teeth (if you get enough vitamin D, holes in teeth repair themselves).

A lot of fish oil is also specified as "cod liver oil". So I don't think that it uses the above fish and i don't think that the cod livers is used in food (so it is a byproduct).

10ren• 17 years ago

> if you get enough vitamin D, holes in teeth repair themselves

I'm interested - do you have a citation for that? I've read that teeth can repair themselves to some extent in Weston A. Price's Nutrition and Physical Degeneration.

alecco3• 17 years ago

> Fish oil contains a higher ratio of omega-3 to omega 6 than other sources (flax seed).

NO.

On the contrary, flaxseed oil has more v ω-3 than ω-6.

Flaxseed oil: http://www.nutritiondata.com/facts/fats-and-oils/7554/2 RATIO: 43 Salmon oil: http://www.nutritiondata.com/facts/fats-and-oils/632/2 RATIO: 23 (allegedly the best fish oil for ω-3) Cod Liver Oil http://www.nutritiondata.com/facts/fats-and-oils/628/2 RATIO: 21.5 http://www.nutritiondata.com/facts/fats-and-oils/629/2 http://www.nutritiondata.com/facts/fats-and-oils/633/2 ...

ars2• 17 years ago

Parts of this article is almost word for word straight from the wikipedia article on the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Menhaden.

zach• 17 years ago

And if that guy who keeps editing the Wikipedia page doesn't stop, this article is going to become wholesale plagiarism!

ars2• 17 years ago

No, I checked the wikipedia article on the date before he published his piece.

And yes, some of his article is making his way back to wikipedia - but now wikipedia has a ref.

kingkongreveng_2• 17 years ago

I get a kick out of these consecutive sentences:

> the company’s ... continued right to fish in federal waters, means a half-billion menhaden are still taken from the ecosystem every year. ... this egregious privatization of what is essentially a public resource is shocking.

The whole issue is that public federal waters and fishing rights are being abused but this guy complains the problem is privatization.

anigbrowl2• 17 years ago

Ah, it's a private company that does all the fishing and books all the profit. As in, catches 90% of the fish. Apparently they don't need any special license to do this.

Your point was...?

kingkongreveng_2• 17 years ago

Is it really going over your head that the issue here is the fishing rights are public? Tragedy of the commons, all that?

gojomo2• 17 years ago

It's possible the stocks would be better protected if Omega Protein were sold exclusive 100% rights in perpetuity.

Confusion• 17 years ago

His point was that fishing rights aren't privatized: any company, or individual, could step in and compete. Your point is that a single company should not be allowed to abuse its fishing rights. You two are talking about different things and are missing each others' point.

ghshephard• 17 years ago

Agreed - I read that sentence and asked myself "How are they privatizing federal waters? Fences? Guard Boats? Exclusive Fishing Licenses?"

It read like the resource was still public. I wonder though, if we can consider it a "Tragedy of the Commons" when a single player is doing most of the (alleged) damage to this resource.

techiferous• 17 years ago

Walnuts.

silentbicycle• 17 years ago

The deal with fish oil is walnuts?

light3• 17 years ago

'Walnuts are also an excellent source of omega-3 fatty acids': http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walnuts

moe• 17 years ago

Walenuts.

ptuzla• 17 years ago

The discussion about flaxseed oil holds for walnuts, too. The type of omega-3 in walnuts is called alpha-linolenic acid, or ALA which is widely believed to be not as beneficial as EPA and DHA for the human body.

alexyim• 17 years ago

A lot of fish oil is made from other sources of fish, such as sardines and anchovies.

MikeCapone• 17 years ago

Indeed. My bottle (bought from costco) cites those two fishes as ingredients.

jseifer2• 17 years ago

While this isn't directly about the article, anyone who regularly takes fish oil should read "The Great Fish Oil Experiment" by Ray Peat at http://raypeat.com/articles/articles/fishoil.shtml.

That linked article goes in to way too much depth to really paste anything useful here but he basically says that while there are short term benefits to fish oil, it could actually be quite harmful to take it in the long term.

msluyter• 17 years ago

As someone who recently started taking fish oil (prescribed my my doctor) due to low HDL levels, I find this highly frustrating. And it's not like I could just eat fish; it seems most of our fish sources are contaminated. The more I learn about nutrition, the more uncertain I become about what to eat, and the angrier I become towards our entire agricultural industry.

DavidMcLaughlin• 17 years ago

I was a one-time subscriber of Men's Health and let me tell you something: everything, absolutely everything is potentially bad for you.

In one issue they could say that drinking a beer a day in moderation can prevent certain cancers and taking too much health supplements can cause irreversible, long-term damage to your liver. Then six issues later they could say to get the dream abs you've always wanted, you must take these same health supplements every day and cut out all beer.

They can provide facts and statistics to sell you any nutritional scare story, and the whole game is this: they want you to think that you NEED them, so that you will continue to buy their magazine. Most people take one story or more from this type of scare tactic and run with it. Every diet has its secret. Every nutritionist has his angle to keep you living for longer or to get results in the gym faster. No wants makes money on the obvious: eat equally from every food group and without bias, exercise regularly (cardiovascular and weight training) and most importantly - have a bit of luck on the way - and you'll be fine.

michaeljung• 17 years ago

Indeed, if we would listen to every message abt food wish is contaminated with gen altering stuff, traces of lead through the tins and coating, pesticides on fruits, and contaminated soil, ... we couldn't eat anything.

Still, from what I read, effects show up only long-term. I might get impotent because of these plastic altering stuff, which makes plastic softer (ie bottles) but this stuff leaks into the fluid/food - alter genes, increase cancer risk, and act like estrogen.

travisp• 17 years ago

I read a lot of the citations quoted by this guy and they seem to be saying different things than he does.

For example he says that fish oil has toxic effects on the liver and cites Ritskes-Hoitinga, et al., 1998. The actual paper says that fish oil may have hepatoxic effects in herbivorous animals and that therefor when using herbivorous animals to study the effects of fish oil on atherogenesis, the effects on these animals livers may need to be excluded (because it's not observed in other animals).

pmikal• 17 years ago

Not so much in the long term, but in higher quantities and when oxidized.

http://www.marksdailyapple.com/fish-oil-health-benefits/

jseifer2• 17 years ago

I'm not sure if he mentions it in the article I linked but there's a podcast (http://eluv.podbean.com/2008/10/10/eluv-live-interview-with-...) where he talks extensively about oil (coconut in particular) and he touches on fish oil and what happens when oxidized.

tremendo• 17 years ago

That was my take also. It oxidizes easily being poly-insaturated and it may negate benefits of Vitamin E. Elsewhere I've read what we need is not really the quantity but the balance between O-3 and O-6 which nowadays is consumed disproportionately (from vegetable oils mainly)

delackner• 17 years ago

From your link I ended up reading a lot of Ray Peat's content and it is very very dense. There are so many levels of different interactions he describes that my instinct is to run away screaming and want to repeat the mantra: just eat what the oldest living people eat, lots of vegetables, many root vegetables, and a little fish and a bit of meat.

I was particularly intrigued by his discussion of how different fats impair or are required for mitochondrial functioning, but I barely understood it.

3dFlatLander• 17 years ago

Hempseed has good levels of omega 3, 6, and 9 fatty acids, with whole seeds are especially nutritious.

pierrefar• 17 years ago

The omega-3/cardiovascular disease prevention is a weak link at best. From this Cochrane Collaboration meta review: http://www.cochrane.org/reviews/en/ab003177.html

It is not clear that dietary or supplemental omega 3 fats alter total mortality, combined cardiovascular events or cancers in people with, or at high risk of, cardiovascular disease or in the general population. There is no evidence we should advise people to stop taking rich sources of omega 3 fats, but further high quality trials are needed to confirm suggestions of a protective effect of omega 3 fats on cardiovascular health.

There is no clear evidence that omega 3 fats differ in effectiveness according to fish or plant sources, dietary or supplemental sources, dose or presence of placebo.

skmurphy• 17 years ago

This is from 2004, there has been serious criticism of their conclusions. See for example http://www.issfal.org.uk/index.php/lipid-matters-mainmenu-8/... two key paragraphs (but they list several other concerns as well):

The null conclusion of the Cochrane report rests entirely upon inclusion of one trial, DART 2 2. This was a randomized dietary trial with clinical endpoints testing the effects on total mortality of either giving advice to eat fish or providing fish oil capsules to men with angina. Surprisingly, while total mortality was not statistically different in the two groups, there was less sudden death in the control group than in the intervention group. Upon exclusion of DART 2 from the meta-analysis, the overall decrease in relative risk with omega-3 consumption became similar to that reported in a previous meta-analysis by Bucher et al: 0.83 (95% confidence interval, 0.75 to 0.91) 3

In our view, the weight of the evidence available in May of 2006 is sufficient to conclude, even in light of the Cochrane analysis, that EPA and DHA reduce risk for cardiovascular diseases. Not only do we feel so, but also the American Heart Association/American College of Cardiology 15 , the European Society for Cardiology 16 , a systematic review conducted for the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality at the NIH 17 , the Harvard Center for Risk Analysis 18 , and a number of other national and international bodies 19-22

miked• 17 years ago

There is no clear evidence that omega 3 fats differ in effectiveness according to fish or plant sources, dietary or supplemental sources, dose or presence of placebo.

There are effectively no plant sources, except for algae.

25,000 years ago we consumed omega-3 and omega-6 precursors in a 1:1 ratio. Today, thanks to the widespread consumption of cereal grains and few sweetbread meats, that ratio is about 1:20. That has drastic implications for the production of essential lipids like EPA that the body cannot create on its own.

cpach• 17 years ago

I've been planning to get fish oil for quite some time and today I finally bought some capsules. Thank you frankus for the reminder :)

EDIT: Hm. Maybe I've should've RTFA before I commented. I hope that the product I bought is one of the 75 that do not deplete the menhaden stock. Maybe a certificate for this would be nice?

What's the Deal with Fish Oil?

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