It’s time for me to remind you of some information that has been circulated for quite some time. In the process more and more data from scientific studies has supported the role of fish oil and Omega 3’s in Preventing and or/treating cancer. Now you may recall last year at this time a nonsensical study came out suggesting that “higher doses” of fish oil led to prostate cancer. I was shocked at how gullible the scientific community (e.g. doctors) were at accepting the headline without looking at the data.
The study was massively flawed to begin with as anyone who bothered to read it would have seen. I guess that is the lesson: even the experts don’t bother to read. If there was a score card out there somewhere that took note of the name of people who said stuff that was clearly not true versus true and we actually publically called out the people who made these statements, there would be a lot of ‘experts” who would be eating crow or worse right now!
In last summer’s study, the “higher dose” of omega 3 boiled down to a 2% difference which means absolutely nothing. Bottom line: everyone they looked at had very low Omega 3 levels to begin with. The real conclusion should have been that low Omega 3 can lead to prostate cancer.
For more on this you can look at my blog Fish oil and Prostate Cancer More Bad News.
You may have also seen the latest Fish oil no good for Heart Disease info coming out of Canadian Journal of Cardiology. This “study” is a review article not an actual study so bias abounds. Again the above blog pretty much says it all.
If you want to get published these days you better have bad news. In the meantime there is much more good news.
One of the reasons I knew immediately that the prostate cancer stuff was nonsense is that there is a long history of science backing up and embracing the use of omega 3’s and fish oil in every hormonally sensitive cancer out there.
This includes prostate, breast (in men and women!) and most recently endometrial cancer.
There are several different ways that this particular cancer of the uterus may benefit, but in a nutshell, Omega 3’s slow down and inhibit cancer cell growth, reduce spread and induce “apoptosis” the destruction of malignant and sick cells so a healthy population can take their place.
Apoptosis in general is a topic am very interested in form the standpoint of how the body ages. Apoptosis is part of a recycling mechanism that allows you and me to preserve critical parts of our cell structures and reuse them without keeping the bad stuff.
This by the way is why there are only 10 essential amino acids (protein building blocks) instead of 20. You can recycle half of them and reuse them without having to eat them every day!
The same is not true of the two major essential fatty acids in fish oil: EPA and DHA. Your body needs a constant supply. In populations where those 2 essential fats have been kept high there is a lot less disease including all of the cancers mentioned above.
Now I cannot legally tell you fish oil prevents cancer, at least until big Pharma has a patent on it for that purpose. I can tell you most of us do not get nearly enough to benefit the way we should.
I can also tell you there is nothing magic about fish oil’s continued and amazing benefits. It’s not rocket science. It’s just giving your body what it needs and what it uses to stay healthy every day.