The BEST Fish Oil Supplements (New study)

[Nozza]

Here are two LEGIT sources debunking the fish oil prostate cancer link. These came up after a quick google search.

http://www.foxnews.com/health/2014/...lements-really-increase-prostate-cancer-risk/

http://www.drweil.com/drw/u/QAA401331/Does-Fish-Oil-Cause-Prostate-Cancer.html

Fox New is a legit source? I take it you're being sarcastic?

The prostate cancer risk is not the only study showing possible downsides and the fox article doesn't "debunk the link", it just points out that they've not proven the direction of causation. The link remains. How the link works isn't proven.

 

[scottm]

Fish oils are one of the few supplements that are proven to be beneficial.

http://www.webmd.com/vitamins-suppl...ngredientId=993&activeIngredientName=FISH OIL

Wrong. Fish oil has never been proven to be beneficial to health, through long term supplementation, in healthy individuals.

WebMd? You might as well quote Dr. Mercola.They are a for profit media organization with direct ties to big pharma, and the site is permeated with pseudomedicine and subtle misinformation.

 

[scottm]

We are not discussing cider vinegar, we are discussing fish oils so that is irrelevant. Out of all the supplements out there fish oils are one of the best. Quite frankly, if you disagree you do not know what you are talking about.

 

[Backstreet21]

Fish oils are good for you. If you don't think so you are an idiot.

 

[Nozza]

We are not discussing cider vinegar, we are discussing fish oils so that is irrelevant. Out of all the supplements out there fish oils are one of the best. Quite frankly, if you disagree you do not know what you are talking about.

Is it really too hard for you to understand the point I was making about the vinegar? It's an example of why you should not be quoting those WebMD articles as evidence of anything. Can you not understand that?

You claiming I "do not know what you are talking about" isn't an argument worth replying to.

Try providing all the wealth of evidence that shows that taking supplementary fish oil over the long term is a beneficial to healthy people.

 

[Nozza]

Fish oils are good for you. If you don't think so you are an idiot.

So you believe. You've made that clear.

Now back it up with evidence of what this "good for you" actually means to healthy people in the long term.

 

[Backstreet21]

So you believe. You've made that clear.

Now back it up with evidence of what this "good for you" actually means to healthy people in the long term.

You are in the minority here if you do not believe fish oils are good for you. The onus is on you to provide they are not good for you.

 

[scottm]

Fish oils are good for you. If you don't think so you are an idiot.

There's that ability to have a logical, data driven, intelligent discussion we've been waiting for.

 

[Nozza]

You are in the minority here if you do not believe fish oils are good for you. The onus is on you to provide they are not good for you.

Oh OK. So people making scientifically testable claims need not back them up with evidence as long as plenty of people believe them?

I wasn't aware that was how science works. Thanks for the heads up.

 

[scottm]

People so often fail to realize that extracting a single supplement from something intended to work synergistically with other compounds may not garner the same response. I.E. extracted fish oil loses the benefit of natural antioxidants like astaxanthin and additional micronutrient content which brings us right back to the danger of lipid peroxidation.

Fortunately we have people like Seriously Dead that have a background in research and biology, who can look at the correct assimilation of data and provide analysis through scientific method ...
http://forums.sherdog.com/forums/f15/great-fish-oil-pufa-debate-2197493/

 

[Seriously-Dead]

Fish oils are good for you. If you don't think so you are an idiot.

Okay, well I will just leave these here:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12571649
Fish oil capsules increased the likelihood of suffering a cardiac event

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8911273
Fish oil increases susceptibility of LDL oxidation, and increases monocyte adhesion

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20694407
N-3 supplements increased LDL, insulin resistance, and fasting glucose (but decreased triglycerides... bad trade-off imo)

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9168460
N-3 supplements increased lipid oxidation values, and MDA (this is not a good thing) despite vitamin E supplementation.

I could keep going for a while if I wanted to waste the time.

Really, the only people who may benefit from fish oil are people with an inflammatory disease, elevated trigs, and maybe people who suffer from cardiac arrhythmias. Adel Moussa has written a few articles recently on fish oil that are worth a read (don't have the links handy, but just go check out Suppversity).

 

[Nozza]

People so often fail to realize that extracting a single supplement from something intended to work synergistically with other compounds may not garner the same response.

This is something I've been thinking about since reading Michael Pollen's In Defence of Food which is a interesting book discussing how the modern, health-conscious westerner is in the habit of breaking food down into smaller and smaller nutrients and so effectively stop eating food and just hit nutrient targets. People aren't enjoying a good steak, they're hitting their protein macros etc.

And the food companies are part of this and hence can sell naive parents almost pure refined carbs as a "healthy breakfast" for their kids because having removed all nutrients from it, they add some back as vitamin powder or fibre complex.

People are focussing on individual nutrients as if you can create a diet by building it from the bottom up which wouldn't be so laughable if we understood how nutrients all reacted with each other and with the body but it's insanely complex and we don't.

 

[airic_15]

"An equally glaring problem with the study is that the researchers did not give subjects omega-3 supplements, or even a diet high in fatty fish like salmon. All they did was take old data from previous studies, look at the level of omega-3 fats in the patients' blood, and run selective statistics to show that there was a relationship to the rate of prostate cancer. It did not determine how the levels were increased—very slightly increased—and yet the lead author jumped to the wild conclusion that omega-3 supplements are harmful."

"At the same time they were concluding that omega-3 fats somehow increased the risk of cancer, their stats indicated that men who smoke have a significantly lower risk of prostate cancer than non-smokers.

They also "discovered" in the new study that the men who had the highest blood levels of trans fat had a 50 percent reduction in the risk of prostate cancer! "

http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/ask-the-supplement-guru-does-fish-oil-cause-prostate-cancer.html

Dont worry guys if your taking fish pills just start smoking and eating fast food and it will lower your chance of prostate cancer

 

[Nozza]

Dunno why people are obsessing about this prostate cancer study. It's not central to the point being made here, which is that the supposed benefits for fish oil supplementation for healthy people are not showing up in studies.

 

[Seriously-Dead]

"An equally glaring problem with the study is that the researchers did not give subjects omega-3 supplements, or even a diet high in fatty fish like salmon. All they did was take old data from previous studies, look at the level of omega-3 fats in the patients' blood, and run selective statistics to show that there was a relationship to the rate of prostate cancer. It did not determine how the levels were increased

 

[Sinister]

FWIW - Requiring evidence to back up a point is perfectly fine.

What's not fine is believing misinterpretations of poor "evidence" of any point, even ones that sound really smart.

 

[Badger67]

FWIW - Requiring evidence to back up a point is perfectly fine.

What's not fine is believing misinterpretations of poor "evidence" of any point, even ones that sound really smart.

Just going to agree with this.

 

[TrueBias]

Okay, well I will just leave these here:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12571649
Fish oil capsules increased the likelihood of suffering a cardiac event

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8911273
Fish oil increases susceptibility of LDL oxidation, and increases monocyte adhesion

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20694407
N-3 supplements increased LDL, insulin resistance, and fasting glucose (but decreased triglycerides... bad trade-off imo)

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9168460
N-3 supplements increased lipid oxidation values, and MDA (this is not a good thing) despite vitamin E supplementation.

I could keep going for a while if I wanted to waste the time.

Really, the only people who may benefit from fish oil are people with an inflammatory disease, elevated trigs, and maybe people who suffer from cardiac arrhythmias. Adel Moussa has written a few articles recently on fish oil that are worth a read (don't have the links handy, but just go check out Suppversity).

When I attended UF, our neuromuscular aspects prof wanted us to use pubmed a lot, but none that were too old. The only one that I would give credit to is the 2010, but the subjects had ailments. Im on a phone looking, but are there other current studies?

 

[hardheart]

Really if your trigs aren't elevated and you have no inflammatory issues then the point of taking fish oil eludes me. There might be an argument for sporadically taking it to get some hormetic benefit but I dunno.

Fish itself is yummy tho.

Fallacious. You're appealing to the probability that there is only one proven benefit of fish oil. First, we don't know if there is only one proven benefit as neither you nor I have read all of the material as, much of it has never and will never be published. Second, your assumption is based on the idea that there never will be any other proven benefits to fish oil.

I do agree, however, eating fish is a more appropriate way to gain the benefits of a fish rich diet.

edit1:
And, for what it's worth, the human benefits of EPA & DHA are well known and documented. What's also documented is the problem is that EPA & DHA are very easily oxidized thus drawing bio-availability into question.

Also, I assume you're only including the human based studies in your statements/assumptions or are you including rodent based studies?

 

[drabon74]

Here are two LEGIT sources debunking the fish oil prostate cancer link. These came up after a quick google search.

http://www.foxnews.com/health/2014/...lements-really-increase-prostate-cancer-risk/

http://www.drweil.com/drw/u/QAA401331/Does-Fish-Oil-Cause-Prostate-Cancer.html

Just my personal experience. After a few knee surguries and being 41 years old, i began taking fish oil, buying vitacost brand as well as taking a DHA supplement. I had been on this regimine for approx 2 years when i began having ussues urinating. I went to my doctor who did a PSA test, the test came back @ 9.8 , meaning i was at risk for having prostate cancer. I quit the fish oil and 2 months later my PSA was at 2.7, 6 months after that it was at 0.7 which is pretty much normal for my age. I also began consuming loads of spinach in that time frame and only eating real salmon, no fish oil supplements. I asked my urologist about the fish oil debate and he said the jury is still out, it is something a lot of urologists are now tracking.