Omega 3

Scientific evidence of the health benefits of omega-3's are now so firmly established that omega-3 expert Carol A. Locke, MD, with a team of world-renowned doctors, has spearheaded the first ever International Omega-3 Awareness Day on March 3rd, 2010. Learn more at www.Omega3Day.com.

William S. Harris, PhD, Professor of Basic Bio-Medical Science and co-founder of the omega-3 index, joined the Omega-3 Awareness Day team, stating, “Americans eat too much bad fat (saturated and trans fat) and too little good fat(omega-3’s from fish oil). Correcting our omega-3 deficiency could be the single most important dietary change we can make.”

International Omega-3 Awareness Day is needed to help educate both the healthcare profession and the general public about the proven health benefits of this essential nutrient. John Ratey, MD, neuroscience expert at Harvard and another founding member of this respected team, quotes, “I tell every patient when I first meet them that they should be doing two things to help them whatever their problems are and that is: exercise daily and take omega-3's. The scientific evidence for both is without question.”

Besides being essential for normal neurodevelopment, omega-3’s have been shown to increase reading and cognitive scores in certain populations of children and potentially provide help inautism. Over the entire life cycle, omega-3’s offer a wide range of health benefits, including improving brain health and immune function; helping prevent dementia, diabetes,arthritis, stroke, and heart disease; aiding in muscle repair after athletic injuries; andhelping with depression, ADD, bipolar disorder, and overall mood improvement.

William E. Butler, MD, of Harvard Medical School, one of the world’s top pediatric neurosurgeons and another founding member of the Omega-3 Awareness Day team, adds, “There is substantial evidence to suggest that our levels of omega-3 essential fatty acids may be the most potentcardioprotective factors in the human diet. Optimal omega-3 intakes will have a profound effect in safely reducing the risk of cardiac disease and promoting health.” The positive effects of this essential nutrient are clear for men, women, and children of all ages.

The Omega-3 Day team invites people all over the world both within the healthcare profession and in the public to join in this international effort to save and change lives. Carol A. Locke, MD, adds, “People can obtain huge benefits by increasing their intake of omega-3. The only possible side effect is greater health and a longer life. Nothing else in medicine comes close to this.”

Source: www.Omega3Day.com

By Paul Greenberg
Published: December 15, 2009

What's the deal with Fish Oil?

If you are someone who catches and eats a lot of fish, as I am, you get adept at answering questions about which fish are safe, which are sustainable and which should be avoided altogether. But when this fish oil question arrived in my inbox recently, I was stumped. I knew that concerns about overfishing had prompted many consumers to choose supplements as a guilt-free way of getting their omega-3 fatty acids, which studies show lower triglycerides and the risk of heart attack. But I had never looked into the fish behind the oil and whether it was fit, morally or environmentally speaking, to be consumed.

The deal with fish oil, I found out, is that a considerable portion of it comes from a creature upon which the entire Atlantic coastal ecosystem relies, a big-headed, smelly, foot-long member of the herring family called menhaden, which a recent book identifies in its title as “The Most Important Fish in the Sea.”

The book’s author, H. Bruce Franklin, compares menhaden to the passenger pigeon and related to me recently how his research uncovered that populations were once so large that “the vanguard of the fish’s annual migration would reach Cape Cod while the rearguard was still in Maine.” Menhaden filter-feed nearly exclusively on algae, the most abundant forage in the world, and are prolifically good at converting that algae into omega-3 fatty acids and other important proteins and oils. They also form the basis of the Atlantic Coast’s marine food chain.

Nearly every fish a fish eater likes to eat eats menhaden. Bluefin tuna, striped bass, redfish and bluefish are just a few of the diners at the menhaden buffet. All of these fish are high in omega-3 fatty acids but are unable themselves to synthesize them. The omega-3s they have come from menhaden.

But menhaden are entering the final losing phases of a century-and-a-half fight for survival that began when humans started turning huge schools into fertilizer and lamp oil. Once petroleum-based oils replaced menhaden oil in lamps, trillions of menhaden were ground into feed for hogs, chickens and pets. Today, hundreds of millions of pounds of them are converted into lipstick, salmon feed, paint, “buttery spread,” salad dressing and, yes, some of those omega-3 supplements you have been forcing on your children. All of these products can be made with more environmentally benign substitutes, but menhaden are still used in great (though declining) numbers because they can be caught and processed cheaply.

For the last decade, one company, Omega Protein of Houston, has been catching 90 percent of the nation’s menhaden. The perniciousness of menhaden removals has been widely enough recognized that 13 of the 15 Atlantic states have banned Omega Protein’s boats from their waters. But the company’s toehold in North Carolina and Virginia (where it has its largest processing plant), and its continued right to fish in federal waters, means a half-billion menhaden are still taken from the ecosystem every year.

For fish guys like me, this egregious privatization of what is essentially a public resource is shocking. But even if you are not interested in fish, there is an important reason for concern about menhaden’s decline.

Quite simply, menhaden keep the water clean. The muddy brown color of the Long Island Sound and the growing dead zones in the Chesapeake Bay are the direct result of inadequate water filtration — a job that was once carried out by menhaden. An adult menhaden can rid four to six gallons of water of algae in a minute. Imagine then the water-cleaning capacity of the half-billion menhaden we “reduce” into oil every year.

So what is the seeker of omega-3 supplements to do? Bruce Franklin points out that there are 75 commercial products — including fish-oil pills made from fish discards — that don’t contribute directly to the depletion of a fishery. Flax oil also fits the bill and uses no fish at all.

But I’ve come to realize that, as with many issues surrounding fish, more powerful fulcrums than consumer choice need to be put in motion to fix things. President Obama and the Congressional leadership have repeatedly stressed their commitment to wresting the wealth of the nation from the hands of a few. A demonstration of this commitment would be to ban the fishing of menhaden in federal waters. The Virginia Legislature could enact a similar moratorium in the Chesapeake Bay (the largest menhaden nursery in the world).

The menhaden is a small fish that in its multitudes plays such a big role in our economy and environment that its fate shouldn’t be effectively controlled by a single company and its bottles of fish oil supplements. If our government is serious about standing up for the little guy, it should start by giving a little, but crucial, fish a fair deal.

Paul Greenberg is the author of the forthcoming “Four Fish: The Future of the Last Wild Food.”

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: December 18, 2009
An Op-Ed article on Wednesday, about fish oil supplements, misstated the amount of menhaden converted into capsules and other products. It is hundreds of millions of pounds a year, not hundreds of billions.

A version of this article appeared in print on December 16, 2009, on page A43 of the New York edition.

Find out why these polyunsaturated fats are so important to your health.

By Carey Rossi

Staff Writer

October 14, 2009

How important is getting enough omega-3 fatty acids? Very, according to a report in the Public Library of Science Medicine Journal. Harvard researchers looked at twelve dietary, lifestyle and metabolic risk factors such as tobacco smoking and high blood pressure and used a mathematical model to determine how many fatalities could have been prevented if people took control of their health. Amazingly, they found that between 72,000 and 96,000 preventable deaths each year due to omega-3 deficiency. (Danaei G et al. PLoS Med. 2009 Apr 28;6(4):e1000058.)

We think we know why. The scientific community continues to find good stuff that omega-3 fatty acids do for our bodies. Just take the following latest findings that have been published:

Omega-3s Decrease Inflammation

Researchers from the Nutrition, Metabolism and Genomics Group at Wageningen University found that after six months of fish oil intervention, healthy elderly subjects had less inflammation markers in their blood. The study is said to be the first to show that DHA (docosahexaenoic acid) andEPA (eicosapentaenoic acid) can affect gene expression to a more anti-inflammatory status. (Bouwens M. et al. American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. 90:415-424. doi: 10.3945/ajcn.2009.27680.)

Omega-3s Could Save Your Eyesight

Researchers from the National Eye Institute in Bethesda found that a diet rich in omega-3 fatty acids could help prevent age-related macular degeneration. Omega-3s were shown to retard the progression of lesions in a mouse model of age-related macular degeneration. The omega-3s were also associated with an improvement in some lesions. (Tuo J. et al.,American Journal of Pathology. 175: 799-807, doi:10.2353/ajpath.2009.090089.)

Omega-3s Keep You Thin

New findings reported in the British Journal of Nutrition indicate that overweight and obese people have blood levels of omega-3 fatty acids almost one percent lower than people with a healthy weight. (Micallef M., et al. British Journal of Nutrition. Published online ahead of print, doi: 10.1017/S0007114509382173.)

The Anti-Aging Bottom Line: Why become a statistic? Take supplemental omega-3s to keep you living a long and healthy life. In addition to the research presented here, scientists have found that omega-3s also have brain and heart benefits. To make sure that you’re reaping their rewards, take at least 500 - 800 mg of omega-3s daily.