Fish Oil BAD? Huh?
Fishin around the 'nets I found this here:
https://www.chrisbeatcancer.com/my-high-fat-diet-and-why-i-dont-take-fish-oil/
Four Reasons Why I Don’t Take Fish Oil:
1) Fish oil is not natural
Fish don’t have oil glands. They are jammed into giant juicing machines to crush them with enough force to squeeze oil from their flesh. Then this oil is heavily processed. According to Udo Erasmus, author of
Fats That Heal, Fats That Kill, “Fish oil Omega-3s (EPA and DHA) are about 25 times more sensitive to damage done by light, oxygen, and heat than omega 6-containing nut and seed oils.” As a result, most fish oil is filtered, deodorized, bleached, molecularly distilled, subjected to high heat, and treated with caustic soda and resin. This is not an acceptable substitute for eating wild-caught fish.
The
denatured fatty acids in fish oil can be as bad or worse for you than hydrogenated vegetable oils!
2) Fish oil is toxic
Most fatty fish are contaminated with industrial pollutants like mercury, PCBs, dioxin, and chlordane; and most fish oil supplements do not disclose the source of their fish oil. There are only a few
nutraceutical grade fish oil supplements that I would trust. One is
Biotics Research Biomega-3. The majority of fish oils supplements on the market are toxic, low-quality garbage. Throw that stuff out!
3) Fish oil does not contain Parent Omega-3 (Alpha-Linolenic Acid).
Fish oil is nearly 100% Omega-3 Derivatives EPA and DHA. These derivatives are certainly beneficial to the body. EPA is needed to help regulate cell metabolism, and DHA supports your brain, vision, heart and is anti-inflammatory. The body converts 5-36% of Parent Omega-3 into the derivatives EPA and DHA
depending on how much it needs. (Men do not have difficulty converting, women simply convert more because they need more). The majority of Parent EFAs are used to build every cell and tissue in your body. This is why it is more important to make sure you are getting Parent Omega-3 and Parent Omega-6 Essential Fatty Acids. These are the highest quality cellular building blocks.
4) Fish oil can impair your immune system
Excess consumption of fish oil was actually shown to decrease immune system response and increase harmful infection from bacteria.
“…Studies indicate that at the levels used, fish oil decrease a wide range of immune cell responses (natural killer cell, cytotoxic T lymphocyte activities, lymphocyte proliferation and production of IL-2 and IFN-y)…”
“…relatively low levels of the long chain omega-3 fatty acids (EPA or DHA)…are sufficient to bring about some of the suppressive effects”
“…This decrease (of inhibited lymphocyte proliferation and natural killer cell activity) causes increased cellular bacteria [infection] and impaired tumor cell killing”
That was reported at the International Society for the Study of Fatty Acids and Lipids 4th Congress June 4-9 2000, Tsukuba, Japan. From the article “Omega-3 Polyunsaturated Fatty Acids, Inflammation and Immunity” by Philip C. Calder, Institute of Human Nutrition, University of Southampton, UK.
What about all the fish oil studies?
“Dozens of randomized, controlled trials have tested the effect of fish oil supplementation and increases in the intake of fatty fish on total and cardiovascular mortality. Virtually all of them have been conducted in people with established heart disease taking drugs such as statins and aspirin, and most of them have lasted fewer than two years. In 2004, the Cochrane Collaboration published a massive review and meta-analysis of these trials. The authors pooled the data from forty-eight trials lasting longer than six months, the only effect that could be distinguished from chance was a reduced risk of heart failure.
Fish oil provided no reduction in total or cardiovascular mortality.
Trials lasting less than one year were most likely to show positive results, while the only trial lasting more than four years, “The Diet and Reinfarction Trial #2 (DART 2)” showed a 15 percent
increase in total mortality and a 30 percent
increase in cardiovascular mortality. (“Increase in mortality” means more people died.)
DART 2 used dietary advice to increase fatty fish intake in addition to fish oil supplementation, so could not be placebo-controlled or double-blind, and funding problems led to interruptions of the recruitment process in the middle of the trial. Nevertheless, with over three thousand participants it was one of the largest fish oil trials ever conducted and, with over four years follow-up, it was the longest fish oil trial ever conducted. Thus, we should not casually dismiss the findings of this trial.
None of these trials provided any evidence that healthy people benefit from taking fish oil or that doses higher than one gram of omega-3 fatty acids per day provide any benefit over smaller doses.
The results of the DART 2 trial are particularly concerning because, they suggest that high intakes of Poly-unsaturated fatty acids from PUFA’s (fish or fish oil) may increase the risk of morbidity and mortality when consumed over the course of many years.”
-Chris Masterjohn Sept 22 2010 from his article
www.westonaprice.org/know-your-fats/precious-yet-perilous