<p>I started taking Lovaza after my H’s heart incident. We had been buying the regular, otc fish oil pills, but found it much easier to swallow the more concentrated fish oil capsules. The Lovaza never smells fishy, nor does it give the “fish burps”. H takes only 1 a day per his cardiologist’s directions; I take 2. I figure, maybe naively, that they may have minimized the risk of too much Hg. But I don’t know. </p>
<p>Like idad, I can’t say for sure that they do anything. I take them as a preventative measure. After seeing the trouble H went through after a heart incident, I’d like to avoid being in the same boat. I don’t think fish oil can hurt. But I do have a history of heart disease in the family–for the men and women. For the record, my last blood lipid panel triglyceride value was 63. Glucose, 89. HDL nice and high. I take a lot of other preventative measures: exercise, pretty darned healthy diet low in sugar and refined carbs, keep at a low BMI, a bit of red wine, enough but not too much calcium–with vitamin D…AND I cross my fingers!</p>
<p>Yes, all we can do is to cross our fingers. All this hopla about supplements and calcium specifically is way overrated. One thing that is NOT overrated is importance of moving and NOT sitting on our b—ts for whole day. Our body is not design to stay still for long periods, we got to move. The rest is just an opinion, everybody has his/her own. Another story, if you decide to supplement what is naturally falling becuase of age, then it seems to be working. As an example, if energy level has fallen because of age, Q10 seems to be working. Is it a good idea to take it for the rest of your life? I do not know. It depends on a tolerance level. some people cannot tolerate low level of energy, other might be OK with it.</p>
<p>Based on the advice of his new online food guru(Dr. Greger), my BIL is switching from fish oil to eating 7 walnuts per day to control his cholesterol. Anyone heard of this.</p>
<p>I have actually watched some of the videos on this guy’s website and a some have been enlightening - though most are about eating plant only foods.</p>
<p>Sardines are low risk for mercury, and relatively low cost (both monetary and in terms of environmental impact or overfishing, if you are concerned about that). Wild Alaska salmon is also low risk; it is relatively low cost canned, but more expensive otherwise.</p>
<p>Walnuts do contain significant amounts of alpha-linolenic acid (ALA), an omega-3 fat which is an essential fat (although essential in such tiny amounts that deficiency is rare). In the human body, it is converted inefficiently to omega-3 fats EPA and DHA, though consuming EPA and DHA directly (as in from fatty fish) tends to produce a better supply of such.</p>
<p>ALA is also found in vegetables, but vegetables generally have so little total fat that one has to consume a lot of vegetables to get significant amounts of ALA (then again, consuming a lot of vegetables is generally a good thing for a healthy diet).</p>
<p>I don’t think the mercury thing is a anything actually.</p>
<p>We don’t do the fish oil supplements. They are kind of gross to swallow.</p>
<p>Best thing for concentrated Omega-3 is canned wild salmon with the bones, skin, etc all pressure cooked and quite tasty in a big salad or on good bread. Couple times a week.</p>
<p>I don’t like the capsules either, I use Carlson’s lemon flavored liquid. It’s good for preventing hot flashes too! (Your bones & skin concoction sounds gross to me.)</p>
<p>I do believe mercury is a thing! A bad thing.</p>
<p>Canned salmon and sardines include the skin and bones. The bones are edible and help provide calcium to go along with the vitamin D. People worried about osteoporosis take note.</p>
<p>I am trying to avoid consuming fish daily, although I would love to have it every day. Hey, looking forward to my valentine present. I asked for 2 smoked mackerels (yes, the whole fish with head) instead of regular roses. Yumm, I will splurged. I believe though that I possibly eating more than I should, mercury is a real concern and usually we are not even aware of the real dangers. Like all this ads for Silk instead of Milk. Please, investigate before you change any of your diet or new supplementation. Get many different opinions, compare them, and evaluate pros and cons. Yes, even consumption of soy may not be as desirable as it looks in commercials. I never believe in taking Calcium, as one example. I have not had milk for about 50 years, not much of milk products either. It does not appear that my bones density is affected by this. From what I understand at my ancient age, bones density depend on weight lifting and being outside in a day light.<br>
There are many examples like this, fish oil is one of them.
Anyway, canned anything is not that good. It is so full of salt, it is OK to have it sometime, but not on any regular basis. This, of course, include my favorite smoked fish, but at least it taste great…and sushi, yumm, but again, after you dunk it into soy souce, of course, it is full of salt.</p>
<p>If I find that Son of a Gun Dr. Oz, I swear I will stuff his deceitful product down his…-beep-…! He made me live in a delusional world for God knows how long!</p>
<p>Just stop listenning, investigate on your own, compare different opinions, make your own conclusion and also rely on your own life experiences. The life experiences are dealing with your own body, which is not exactly the same as others’. I listen to my own body much more than to others’ opinions. You might not process certain foods / supplements / drugs as other people. I also learned it hard way rasing my children who happened to have very unusual reactions to some very common things few times in their lives. I am talking about extreme life threatenning situations. However, the very slow, tricle type of effect of any food / product that we put in our mouth is much more common than those critical situations and to rely on opinion of one person is not what you want, more so TV celebrity. He is not there to help us, he is there to make money. We are completely 100% responsible for our own well beeing or sick being, nobody else, and sometime it is pure unpredictable bad luck (which has happened to me more often than I would prefer)</p>
<p>I think the way to approach this is to ask your doctor. You are unlikely to be able to get really good, up-to-date info from the Internet or from TV. Your doctor, if he or she is any good, will be keeping up with real, peer-reviewed professional literature on these kind of subjects. I think, from what I’ve heard, that fish oil may be about to go the way of niacin, but I’m not sure. The best you can do is find somebody you trust and take their advice.</p>
<p>The risk of mercury poisoning from eating a lot of fish is very real. I personally know two people, both fish lovers, who were diagnosed with mercury poisoning. One was a woman at work who loved sushi. In addition to feeling rotten, her hair started falling out!</p>
<p>The FDA has alerted people to the problem and issued recommendations. It is especially dangerous to children and pregnant women. For fish high on the food chain, such as swordfish, they recommend you avoid it altogether:</p>
<p>I wish that were true. Unfortunately, MDs don’t get much nutrition training in med school. And, a lot of the official public health recommendations are outdated, if not just plain wrong. Docs don’t have much way of keeping up and I’m sure that many are frustrated that the advice they are trained to give doesn’t seem to work.</p>
<p>Although, an even worse place to turn for nutrition advice would be a registered dietician! :)</p>
<p>Okay. If mercury in fish is such a big deal then name a country that is water surrounded and derives most of its protein from fish with a big deal problem. Or show me an actual patient in the US with mercury poisoning from fish!</p>
<p>And do realize the alarmists and charlatans looking to sue every poor Talapia Farmer for every cent they have!</p>
<p>I actually think a great many well educated types (aka CCers) in their heart of progressive hearts just don’t like to eat fish and want an excuse not to eat fish and so latch onto this myth.</p>
<p>I know fish scientists in high places – like the CDC and the fishing industry. pm me if you disbelieve.</p>
<p>On second thought – believe away. There isn’t that much really good quality wild fish out there and I’d rather not have to compete with every health conscious bloke for it.</p>