Fish oil supplements either good or bad for you ... it depends?!

(Joey) #1

Trying to make sense of these results. Seems counter-intuitive that fish oil supplements would be bad for healthy folks yet good for those with pre-diagnosed heart conditions. Could be possible … but seems like odd findings.

I’d be mostly interested in figuring out what an elevated hazard risk of 1.13 actually means in terms of real percentage risks with vs without fish oil supplements. Not obvious, since that info wasn’t (directly) provided.

One could tease out such info from the figures provided across several tables but I haven’t devoted the time yet. Any takers for that effort?

"Regular use of fish oil supplements and course of cardiovascular
diseases: prospective cohort study" April 2024 BMJ:
FishOilUse-HeartDisease.pdf (624.5 KB)

Thoughts?

(B Creighton) #2

Yes. Fish oil can become oxidized during processing, and usually doesn’t have much, if any, anti-oxidant left. It is also concentrating any mercury in the fish for you. Instead I use calamari oil and krill oil. Krill is where the fish are ultimately getting their oil from anyway, and it usually has the natural astaxanthin antioxidant in it. If not, get a krill oil that does. Fish oil is also harder to digest… I do not burp up krill oil nor calamari oil.

Calamari oil is a cheaper and safer alternative to fish oil. It also typically has more DHA. This is where I get mine: https://www.swansonvitamins.com/p/swanson-efas-super-dha-500-from-calamari-30-sgels

(Bob M) #3

I typically don’t get too excited by hazard risks of 1.13. And, this (I assume) was based on FFQs or something similar.

I’ve been taking fish oil to see if it will reduce inflammation and possibly provide insulin resistance benefits. But I’ve found that you can’t look too hard at RCTs for fish oil, because the results aren’t great. Even for the fancy “official” fish oils they say are great in the article.

(Joey) #4

Granting these downsides, this begs the question as to how it provides protection for those who’ve already suffered from a primary cardiac event?

I struggle with relative risks as very often translating into a virtually meaningless effect on actual outcomes. Perhaps that’s how these findings both favorable and unfavorable ought to be digested?

(Joey) #5

Same here. Although asking whether someone takes fish oil supplements daily is likely going to produce a more accurate response than asking how often someone ate broccoli over the past 4 years.

(Bob M) #6

Are they basing this on only a single sample?

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(B Creighton) #7

I wouldn’t use fish oil, and don’t. I don’t think it provides a ton of benefit, but may cause harm, because I believe it can add to the oxidation load of LDL. I post somewhat frequently about what I believe are the dangers of oxidized LDL on this forum, and fish oil is an easily oxidized oil… Yes, it is mostly omega 3s, but they are just as easily or even more easily oxidized as omega 6s.

Suffice it to say the atherogenic process starts when a monocyte ingests oxidized LDL. That is pretty much a given now. You don’t want to be packing oxidized DHA, EPA, and other fats into LDL particles. That is the opposite of “protection” someone who has suffered a primary cardiac event would be looking for. Natural, fresh or essentially, vacuum-packed fish(I eat Alaskan Salmon) is the preferred source.

(Joey) #8

The presumption is - if they said, yes, they were taking fish oil - that they had kept taking it daily until they had one of those adverse heart events cited or died.

Having said that, if they did not die (the majority of subjects), they still might well outlive those who do not take fish oil … there’s no way to measure that based on the way the study was conducted. Perhaps in another 100 years from now - once all the subjects are dead - that result could be determined?

(Doug) #9

I don’t know…

A couple years ago I was told the pressure in one eye was getting problematically high, like indicating or causing possible glaucoma or other serious stuff. One eye doctor mentioned putting in a tiny little tube, to let intraocular fluid constantly and slowly drain out, thus lessening the pressure.

I read that fish oil was good for regulating eye fluid pressure - Omega-3 fatty acids supposedly bringing that pressure down. I took it every day - three great big gel capsules, big to the point that it was tough to swallow them, even with drink or food.

The next time I had the pressure checked, it was down out of the danger range; it was even the lowest I can remember…

But, I don’t know… I would take it without worry in the future, regardless.

(Bob M) #10

I don’t know. If they only asked them once in 11 years (the least amount of time), that does not seem representative of anything. In the last 11 years, I’ve taken fish oil for two relatively short runs of maybe a few months each. Will likely stop again once this bottle is done.

Does anyone continue taking any supplement for 11 years?

The only supplements I have taken for any length of time (>1 year) are vitamin D and collagen peptides. Even magnesium, I only take periodically. Other than these, I usually quit after a while.

I was even thinking that the people who developed Afib might have actually felt fluttering in their chests and decided to take fish oil based on that. In other words, they might have already had Afib but not an official diagnosis.

I could envision fish oil causing less inflammation and perhaps thinner blood, thereby leading to bleed-through stroke. That might make sense.

I’m taking fish oil for possible anti-autoimmune effects. But fish oil benefits and detriments are all over the map, as illustrated by this study too:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8767101/

I was taking fish oil and two other supplements. As with most of what I do, though, I couldn’t tell a benefit. With Mg, I correct cramps or get less of them. With collagen peptides, my age spots have gotten a ton better. I can’t tell a benefit to Vitamin D, but I assume there is one.

(Joey) #11

Clearly a direct cause & effect … just not the one presumed by the study :wink:

(You've tried everything else; why not try bacon?) #12

Why is that odd? We know that the more calcified plaque we have, the greater our cardiovascular risk. But we also know that statins increase the amount of calcified plaque, and that that’s a good thing, right? I mean, the statin manufacturers say so, and surely they ought to know, right? Right?

(Joey) #13

Help! I’m getting so confused … Make science stop! :grimacing:

(You've tried everything else; why not try bacon?) #14

A relative risk ratio of 1.13 is minuscule. And I would be very surprised if the absolute risk were anything but tiny.

(B Creighton) #15

Surely, they ought to know that as a whole their statins have not been shown to significantly increase life expectancy… Surely, they ought to know that their statins decrease CoQ10 production, but they don’t advise supplementing it… Surely, they ought to know by now that their statins do not address the root cause of heart disease after decades of research… :wink:

And most importantly, surely they ought to know that I will never be taking their statins…
I feel they have a very limited place in treatment regimes… mostly for people with hypercholesterolemia.

(You've tried everything else; why not try bacon?) #16

Shame on you! Studies have conclusively shown that high statin consumption rates cause large pharmaceutical-exectuives bonuses. We all need to do our part! :roll_eyes::roll_eyes::roll_eyes::roll_eyes:

(There really needs to be a sarcasm emoji!)

#17

Technically it’s always good, what’s not good is low end supplements, rancid fish oil, unverified oils, fish oils in bad forms like Ethyl Ester etc.

Try to go for fish oils in triglyceride form, preferably GMP and/or iFOS certified. Krill is also a great one.

(Joey) #18

Perhaps: :crazy_face:
But personally I tend to offer my sarcasm dry.

(KM) #19

:smirk:

(Robin) #20

My fave and most used emoji. Suits most of my input, which is often dubious.