Saturday, June 7, 2008

How to get quality fish oil

How can I ensure I get quality fish oil?

1. Make sure your brand is free of mercury, PCBs and other contaminants.
2. Confirm low oxidation levels in the fish or cod liver oil.
3. Check that your fish or cod liver oil contains vitamin E.

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The Facts About Fish Oil

The Facts About Fish Oil
How this common supplement can improve your mental focus.

Exercise and consume omega-3s.

John Ratey, M.D.

Can this common supplement sharpen your child’s focus? Countless studies have centered on the potential benefits of nutritional supplements as treatment for ADHD. Vitamins, minerals, and even some odd-sounding plant compounds — vinpocetine, a derivative of the periwinkle plant, and yerba mate, derived from evergreen trees in South America — have been studied for their ability to boost mental focus. But so far only one supplement seems to have some evidence supporting its use for ADHD: omega-3 fatty acids.

Found mainly in cold-water, fatty fish, such as sardines, tuna, and salmon, omega-3s are believed to be important in brain and nerve cell function. The body cannot make omega-3 fatty acids by itself, and because the American diet is heavy on beef and chicken — not fish — most people don’t consume enough of them to derive benefits.

“I tell my patients that there are two things they need to do for their health: Exercise and consume omega-3s,” says John Ratey, M.D., associate clinical professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and coauthor of Driven to Distraction (Touchstone).


While omega-3 fatty acids seem to improve anyone’s mental focus, the compounds may be especially helpful to those with ADHD. One study, published in 2003 in Nutritional Neuroscience, showed that omega-3s tended to break down more readily in the bodies of patients with ADHD. Another study, published in 2004 in The Journal of Nutritional Biochemistry, suggested that children with ADHD were more likely to have low blood levels of omega-3 fatty acids than children with no symptoms of the condition. Although both studies were small, the results led scientists to surmise that increasing omega-3s can help control symptoms.

Edward Hallowell, M.D., founder of the Hallowell Center for ADHD in Massachusetts, recommends that all of his patients take omega-3 supplements and notes that “it seems to help most with mental focus, not hyperactivity or impulsivity.” Ratey advises that it may take up to six weeks for patients to begin seeing benefits.

The Facts About Fish Oil
How this common supplement can improve your mental focus.
by ADDitude Editors

Source : www.additudemag.com by John Ratey, M.D.

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Friday, June 6, 2008

Fish oil is good for your mind & health

So many experts believe that taking fish oil (in any form) can help regulate cholesterol in the body, because fish oil has high levels of omega-3 fatty acids. The regulation occurs through effects of the EPA and DHA constituents on Peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor alpha (PPARĪ±). Besides cholesterol regulation, benefits include anti-inflammatory properties and positive effects on body composition.

Studies were conducted on prisoners in England where the inmates were fed seafood which contains Omega-3 Fatty acids. The higher consumption of these fatty acids led to a drop in the assault rates. Another Finnish study found that prisoners who were convicted of violence had lower levels of omega–3 fatty acids than prisoners convicted of nonviolent offenses. It was suggested that these kinds of fatty acids are responsible for the neuronal growth of the frontal cortex of the brain which, it is further alleged, is the seat of personal behavior.

Recent studies have suggested that fish oil may affect depression, and importantly, suicide risk. One such study, took blood samples of 100 suicide-attempt patients and compared the blood samples to those of controls and found that levels of Eicosapentaenoic acid were significantly lower in the washed red blood cells of the suicide-attempt patients.

A 2005 study published in Pediatrics reported that school children given a daily fish-oil supplement rich in omega-3 essential fatty acids (EFAs) for three months showed significant improvements in behavior, reading, and spelling. This finding strengthened the argument for using fish oil to manage the symptoms of ADHD - particularly for improving mental focus.

A study examining whether omega-3 exerts neuroprotective action in Parkinson's disease found that it did, using an experimental model, exhibit a protective effect (much like it did for Alzheimer's disease as well). The scientists exposed mice to either a control or a high omega-3 diet from two to twelve months of age and then treated them with a neurotoxin commonly used as an experimental model for Parkinson's. The scientists found that high doses of omega-3 given to the experimental group completely prevented the neurotoxin-induced decrease of dopamine that ordinarily occurs. Since Parkinson's is a disease caused by disruption of the dopamine system, this protective effect exhibited could show promise for future research in the prevention of Parkinson's disease.

The American Heart Association recommends the consumption of 1g of fish oil daily, preferably by eating fish, for patients with coronary heart disease.

According to a study from Louisiana State University in September 2005, fish oil may help protect the brain from cognitive problems associated with Alzheimer's disease.

A study from the Orygen Research Centre in Melbourne suggests that omega-3 fatty acids could also help delay or prevent the onset of schizophrenia. The researchers enlisted 81 'high risk' young people aged 13 to 24 who had previously suffered brief hallucinations or delusions and gave half of them capsules of fish oil while the other half received fish-tasting dummy subtitute. One year on, only three percent of those on fish oil had developed schizophrenia compared to 28 percent from those on the substitute - a very impressive result.

A recent meta-study by the Canadian Medical Association Journal found fish oil supplementation did not demonstrate any preventative benefit to cardiac patients with ventricular arrhythmias.

Source : http://en.wikipedia.org

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About Fish Oil

Fish oil is oil derived from the tissues of oily fish.

Fish oil is recommended[citation needed] for a healthy diet because it contains the omega-3 fatty acids, eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA), and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA), precursors to eicosanoids that reduce inflammation throughout the body

However, fish do not actually produce omega-3 fatty acids, but instead accumulate them from either consuming microalgae that produce these fatty acids, as is the case with prey fish like herring and sardines, or, as is the case with fatty predatory fish, by eating prey fish that have accumulated omega-3 fatty acids from microalgae. Such fatty predatory fish like mackerel, lake trout, flounder, albacore tuna and salmon may be high in omega-3 fatty acids, but due to their position at the top of the food chain, these species can accumulate toxic substances (See biomagnification). For this reason, the FDA recommends limiting consumption of certain (predatory) fish species (e.g. albacore tuna) due to high levels of toxic contaminants such as mercury, dioxin, PCBs and chlordane.

Source : http://en.wikipedia.org

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