fish oil question

[levani]

can you be deficient in it like other vitamins ? i'm guessing humans don't produce fish oil (ha-ha) but i'm also guessing too much can be bad for you so what's your take on it ?

Edited November 22, 2020 by levani

[The0Self]

Contradictory evidence on it. Much of the positives seem linked to clear snowball effects and dogmatic beliefs about it that are rooted in industries that stand to gain financially from fish oil being considered healthy by the public.

Fish oil (EPA/DHA) does seem to counteract some of the negative health effects of other polyunsaturated fats.

Fish oil weakens the immune system slightly.

Fish oil can slightly increase muscle mass and decrease fat mass, via increasing fat oxidation -- not necessarily healthy.

When I take it, I get very energetic but also somewhat OCD-like. It's psychoactive for me.

[levani]

@The0Self weakens the immune system wth ?

[The0Self]

@levani Certainly does. Powerful anti-inflammatory effects though.

[Opo]

3 hours ago, levani said:

can you be deficient in it like other vitamins ? 

Kinda. 

You need to have a balance of omega-3 and 6 fats ideally 1 to 1.

The problem with the standard diet is that people consume too much omega-6 so they can have a ratio of 15/1 in that case you would have increased inflammation and who knows what else. 

So you could say that they are deficient in omega-3.

3 hours ago, levani said:

 but i'm also guessing too much can be bad for you so what's your take on it ?

Yea it can thin out your blood if you take more than 5000 mg of omega-3. 

For brain health you need 2000. 

For lower inflammation 3000-4000.

And that not 5000 mg of fish oil but of omega-3 (epa and dha combined). 

[Eren Eeager]

@Opo what about the common dose of 1000 mg? Is it enough?

[Opo]

27 minutes ago, Eren Eeager said:

@Opo what about the common dose of 1000 mg? Is it enough?

Usually it's 1000 mg of fish oil not ever omegas 3.

Idn where they got that number but it's too little. 

The numbers I gave are backed by studies for those purposes. 

Oh I remember their number is for heart health. 

[PurpleTree]

i seem to have a problem with the choline in fish oil sometimes, it tends to give me brain fog kind of symptoms maybe i'm more sensitive to it

 

and that's actually a thing for a small portion of the population, you can google "fish oil fatigue or choline reddit, brain fog etc", and there are people talking about it.

Edited November 22, 2020 by PurpleTree

[Eren Eeager]

@Opo what would be best to balance omega 6 and prevent inflammation?

[Opo]

@Eren Eeager Take 3000-4000 mg of omega-3. 

Cut out foods high in omega-6 like corn, soy, peanuts...

Oils like sunflower, corn and soybean oil and replace them with butter, olive and coconut oil. 

If you can't process milk proteins in butter make ghee. 

Fats from animals fed on grains have a lot of omega-6 so try to eat leaner meats or grass fed. 

Don't eat too much nuts and if you really want to work on inflammation walnuts have the best omega-3 to 6 ratio. 

Edited November 22, 2020 by Opo

[Michael569]

9 hours ago, levani said:

can you be deficient in it like other vitamins ? i'm guessing humans don't produce fish oil (ha-ha) but i'm also guessing too much can be bad for you so what's your take on it ?

The reason fish oil is taken is the so-called "long-chain fatty acids" of the Omega 3 family of fats (fatty acids). There are two that are crucial: 
1. Eicosapentaenoic Acid (EPA) a 20 Carbon chain with 5 double bonds. 
2. Docosahexaenoic Acid (DHA) a 22 carbon chain with 6 double bonds

This is because a standard diet is practically devoid of these and even when they are present (e.g. fish ) they are destroyed by the heat processing and turned into oxidised fats that are harmful especially to cardiovascular system & prostate. 

So the idea of Fish Oil is to replenish these. They indeed have powerful antiinflammatory effects but the risk is that they can be contaminated. At the moment there is no legislation anywhere in the world (I might be wrong on this) that regulates supplemental companies to display results of heavy metal testing on fish oils....and as such most of them don't do it. Since heavy metals have a high affinity for fats and lipid-rich tissue this risk can be quite extreme if you use fish from contaminated sources. Now, are there heavy metal-free fish oils? Yes, I think so....there are highly conscious companies out there but most people do not make the effort to seek them out and just buy whatever in Walmart (or any supermarket in Europe) because these are usually cheaper. 

So if you want to ensure that the fish oil is clean, seek out highly reputable products, clean from wild-caught fish that is tested for lead, cadmium, mercury, PCBs, POPs (btw POPs are even bigger problem than heavy metals), microplastics and other form of garbage. I don't know any such company (nor have I ever looked) which is why I'm staying away from fish oil and advise all my clients to do the same (when I see that they are ready to move on, not everybody is). 

Luckily there is an alternative in form of Algal Oil. Algae do not take in heavy metals because they do not have the same type of organic tissue as animals. They are easy to grow in controlled environments and are far more economical & sustainable than harvesting bodies of dead fish. 

Having said all that here are 2 types of oils you can combine if you don't want to consume fish oils but want to ensure the benefits of long-chain fatty acids: 

• 1. flaxseed oil - either from capsules (again should come from a reputable source) or coming from dark glass bottles, store in the fridge. 
• 2. Algal Oil - that contains around 300mg of DHA

I wouldn't supplement lomg term as a guy as there is some evidence of high intake of PUFAs and Prostate growth but I believe this is because they are often rancid such as when eating fried fish. 

On the top of that you may consume 2 tablespoons of ground flaxseeds (or chia) every day. 

In terms of fish the only ones I'd probably eat is sardines & mackerel or salmon caught in wild pacific waters, the type of dark red not the orange, nothing else is safe. The bottom dwellers like crabs, lobsters or shells contain low mercury but they can be highly contaminated with microplastics.

 There are also Omega 3 eggs that come from chickens fed flaxseeds that already do the metabolic conversion of EPA & DHA for you. 

Hope that helps 

[The0Self]

4 hours ago, Eren Eeager said:

@Opo what would be best to balance omega 6 and prevent inflammation?

300mg DHA + 300-600mg EPA is more than enough.

More seems to be wasteful and possibly harmful. Certainly more than 900mg DHA is unfounded. You want EPA to be higher than DHA. Evidence for high doses being healthy often seems arrived at based upon bad assumptions and financial incentives. Lowering triglycerides is not necessarily a good thing — may just signify liver stress.

[The0Self]

3 hours ago, Opo said:

replace them with butter, olive and coconut oil. 

This^^

And grass fed animal products.

[levani]

@Michael569 how about the solgar ones ? they are dark glass bottles but not kept in the fridge

Edited November 22, 2020 by levani

[Michael569]

@levani you're in UK right? There are bunch of excellent supplement companies around here so see what they have on their websites. In my opinion, the top brands in here are: Viridian, Cytoplan, Allergy Research, Biocare, Nutriadvanced. I heard Willey's have a good fish oil so see what they say about their testing. I don't like Solgar tbh, they sell all over Holland & Barrets which are the shittiest types of supplements on the market imo. See what the other brands have to offer. Cytoplan is my personal favourite, they offer variety of wholefood products and their price range is good as well. They have a nice ALgal Oil as well 

[levani]

gonna give Cytoplan a go then, thanks bro!

[Blackhawk]

There isn't enough really good studies which have proved that fish oil is good. So I've recently stopped taking it.

[Dingo]

Bought algae oil on Mind Nutrition (UK based nootropics eshop)... did around 5 of 200mg DHA gels per week for a month and definitely felt improvements - better cognitive functions (focus) as well as wellbeing (I just felt good).

I can though see now, that their product range has shrank and they no longer openly provide pollution lab tests on their products (maybe upon request).

[The0Self]

Fish oil is hilarious; it’s the ultimate crapshoot. Search for its benefits and you’ll be overjoyed. Search for its dangers and you’ll be overjoyed. What a substance; probably super safe! ?