Fish Oil
 

Does anyone take fish oil supplements? Everywhere you look there are articles on this subject, always sounds like a miricle cure for everything.

I take it...only cause I'm on a very low fat diet and its a very healthy form of fat.
And yes, there are lots of pages on the net touting it as a miracle cure. Its not.
It can help improve some conditions, mainly inflammatory conditions, but you have to take a lot of it.

Here's a good oil supplement

Flax oil (or ground up flax seed) is a better balance of omege 3's and omega 6's. It is ideal to receive these two fatty acids in the correct ratio (I don't know that number off hand). Flax is MUCH closer to the correct ratio than fish oil is.

Most people take fish oil for the omega 3's so I find it better to use flax instead.

Americans already get more than enough n-6 fatty acids in their diet. There is absolutely no need to supplement this. Flax seed contains short chain n-3 fatty acids which the body has to convert to longer chain 20 & 22 carbon fatty acids to get the most bio active molecules. This conversion only happens to about 10-15% of the intake, leaving a lot wasted...taking fish oil provides the 20 carbon eicosapentanoic acid (EPA) and the 22 carborn docoshexanoic acid (DHA) that can be used by the body without conversion.
That being said, Flax seed oil is still a good supplement, but it does not replace fish oil.

I took Fish Oil 3 times a day for one year to try to lower my cholesterol. I started the year with a level of 232. After one year I tested again and I was 233.

I stopped taking it. I also hated the nasty aftertaste fish burps.

+1

Fish oil provides a safe way to get Omega 3 fatty acids without eating the amount of fish (and mercury) potentially required to reap the benefits of improving the ration of 6-3s.

Also, for a recent discussion of flax and fish oils, as it relates to sports, see: http://www.slate.com/id/2175474/

it's been shown,

that a hostess cupcake

and vitamin a as fish oil

is all a body needs

I was tried taking those fish oil caplets for a few weeks but it made me burp and the burps tasted like a cat's breath smells. I couldn't take it. Seriously.

2 years ago I was living with my friend in the dorms. One weekend his dad comes up and takes us grocery shopping. In what I later learned was regular form, he stocks up on cold medicines, vitamins, etc for my friend. So we're browsing through the medicine aisle, and it's starting to take a while. So I spot the fish oil pills, and say something like, "Fish oil? Gross. Who the hell would take that." And my friend's dad says that HE takes it, and how it's supposed to be good for you. That made me shut up for a while.

My friend says his dad still brings that up whenever they talk about me. The guy loves me, though--he freaked out when he learned my friend wasn't gonna live with me this year..."Where's Mike going to live?!"

He's kind of a funny guy, though. Big Nigerian professor with a thick accent who loves Tom & Jerry, always listens to reggae in the car, and ended up buying us a couple packets of macadamia nut cookies on that same trip because he likes them. And whenever he comes up we go out for Thai.

If you freeze the fish oil caplets they will dissolve after they leave the stomach so you wont suffer fish burps.

Vegetarian alternative:

I eat 3 omega enriched eggs every day. They feed the hens ground up flax seed. As far as omega's go, 1 enriched egg = 1 oz salmon. 3 gives me my daily amount.

Vegan alternative:
Flax seed oil. Some people don't care for the taste.

Also, they had an interesting study on fish oil supplements and heart murmurs, that indicated that after 6 weeks, heart beats got more steady. I've never eaten fish all my life, and have always had a bit of an irregular heart rate. It made me wonder if there was a correlation. After just a couple weeks of the eggs, I swear my heart rate is more steady when I listen to it.

I take fish oil to raise my good cholesterol.

Does anyone cook with it? Where can you get some good fish oil? I heard there are more than a few varieties.....

Awesome idea. I'm going to give it a try.

I take 1g twice a day, of a distilled flavorless variety. No fishy burps. Also a handful of walnuts once in a while. I don't like the flavor of flax seed oil, but it can be okay mixed in with some dishes and I keep a bottle in the fridge. None of these are great for cooking, expecially flax seed oil burns very easily. I like grape seed oil for cooking, which has a very neutral or perhaps slightly nutty flavor.

I've been taking fish oil for the past year to get my Omega 3 fatty acids, Im also a big fan of flaxseed oil. I get both of them from Optimum Nutrition, they are a solid company.

I tried it, but it made my chain smell real bad and now I get chased by more cats than dogs.

ya know
trader joes flaxseed pasta is the shiznat

There is a product I take called Coromega. It's fish oil/Omega 3 in the form of a flavored pudding-like consistency in one-dose small individual packets. It's very tasty. My fave is orange with a hint of chocolate.

My miracle supplement - Dr. Sears Zone Omega/Rx - each tablet contains 1600 mg EPA and 800 mg DHA. I take 4 tablets per day. Pharmaceutical grade with no bad taste creeping back up. Available at www.zoneliving.com

Diet does not affect HDL. Pretty much the only thing one can do to raise it is to exercise or lower one's testosterone level.

The major reason to supplement with fish oil is to balance out the negative affects of too much Omega-6 in the typical diet and avoid eating fish. Too much Omega-6 can cause cardio problems (Ryan). Apparently O-6 is a blood thickener while O-3 is more of a blood thinner.

Since the meat providing animals are now corn fed vice grass fed, the O-3 content of their meat is down to nothing while the O-6 is high. Farm fed fish are also fed corn instead of their natural diet and they too are deficient in O-3. Sources are Ryan's Sport's Nutrition for Endurance Athletes and Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma.

Fish are not only contaminated with Mercury, but PCB's and pesticides. The particular fish oil I use (Carlson) claims to test using AOAC protocols at an FDA approved lab for potency and freedom from detectable levels of mercury, cadmium, PCB's and 28 other contaminants. It all sounds good and I hope they are honest. It appears that the process used for making/extracting the oil effectively rids the oil of mercury.


Al

I take 2g fish oil/day. As far as I can tell, it does absolutely nothing, but it sure is cheap, so why not.

Reviving an old thread.:p

I take 4000 mg of fish oil a day. I have never experienced these alleged "fish burps" though.

I take a handful of vitamins daily

In the morning I take:

2000 of fish oil (omega 3's)
mens multi vitamin
Vitamin C
B Complex Vitamin
B12
Saw Palmetto (prostate health)
Green Tea Extract
Calcium tablet (might do away with the calcium pill.....I drink 2.5 gallons a skim milk a week)
Fiber tablet (helps with the poo)

And then at night I take:

Vitamin C
200mg Fish Oil
Saw Palmetto


I also eat a scoop of flax seeds daily in my recovery shake when I get home to get the Omega 6's and 9's.

The fish burps are real and disgusting. However, switching to enteric coated caplets eliminates them entirely.