Now fish oil is bad

[eytonxav]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dawg52 I'm loading up on lard. Lard: The New Health Food? | Food & Wine

Message approved by Paula Dean?

[jollystomper]

Please heed this warning....

EVERYTHING CAN KILL YOU!

Have a nice day.

[Texas Proud]

Quote:

Originally Posted by nash031 Fish oil + vitamin D is the ticket. Given that prostate cancer is relatively easy to detect and treat these days, I'll take my chances with that in lieu of heart issues, inflammation, joint problems, eye problems, and the ~400 other things Fish Oil and its associated Omegas help with. JMO. Otherwise, yes, eat real food (but a lot of the real food you probably eat doesn't have the right O-3 to O-6 profile, so... fish oil is beneficial).

+1... this is exactly what I was thinking....

The link between the benefits of fish oil on a lot of things have been shown by many studies.... the problem is in only one....

I like my chances with taking fish oil....

[jclarksnakes]

Who can you trust for solid health information? Apparently nobody.

[Chuckanut]

Quote:

Originally Posted by jclarksnakes Who can you trust for solid health information? Apparently nobody.

One of the saddest effects of the current situation is people do not know whom they can trust anymore. Politics and special interests (spelled M-O-N-E-Y) make it hard to know if the information and recommendations are unbiased.

Add to this the honest disagreements between knowledgeable people with the credentials to speak with authority on medicine/health/diet and the public is really confused.

[boatfishandnature]

Quote:

Originally Posted by bjorn2bgy There is more to this story for those who would like to read further. The forbes article says fish oil capsules were not used in the study cited - Link To Prostate Cancer Brings More Bad News For Fish Oil Story - Forbes and there is this from Dr Geo - Something is Fishy about Omega 3′s causing aggressive Prostate Cancer | Dr. Geo's Natural Health Blog And the JNCI abstract - Plasma Phospholipid Fatty Acids and Prostate Cancer Risk in the SELECT Trial

Dr. Geo's article above is a fact-based, great critique of the study. Don't miss it!

[bjorn2bwild]

Quote:

Originally Posted by jclarksnakes Who can you trust for solid health information? Apparently nobody.

Sensationalized drive-by journalism like the NBC and a lesser extent the Forbes article do not help in this regard.
At the very least, they should have made it more clear that the aforementioned studies were not specifically designed to discover whether or not taking fish oil supplements contribute to prostate cancer risk and why that is important. Also a link to the full study, and peer critique should have be included.
The fish oil/prostate cancer link is a good question to ask.

[BigNick]

Quote:

Originally Posted by DFW_M5 Honestly, we are all suffering from study overload and they each contradict each other, so pick your own poison

The first part of that statement is fairly true. The second isn't really. The problem is mostly with what the reporting does to the study. Very few studies actually show *anything* very formally, but ever since we finally accepted that smoking is bad (which took *lots* of studies over many years, with Big Tobacco fighting every step of the way), the paradigm has been "scientists can tell us what to eat". In most cases the research shows small effect sizes and there are lots of potential confounding factors. If you read the studies, they generally point all this out, but the reporters (and the promoters of the supplements) are looking to push a definite "magic bullet" solution, and lots of consumers are looking to buy such a solution.

For the OP to give up fish oil on the basis of this report would exactly as rational as his or her decision to start taking fish oil in the first place.

[Texas Proud]

Quote:

Originally Posted by BigNick The first part of that statement is fairly true. The second isn't really. The problem is mostly with what the reporting does to the study. Very few studies actually show *anything* very formally, but ever since we finally accepted that smoking is bad (which took *lots* of studies over many years, with Big Tobacco fighting every step of the way), the paradigm has been "scientists can tell us what to eat". In most cases the research shows small effect sizes and there are lots of potential confounding factors. If you read the studies, they generally point all this out, but the reporters (and the promoters of the supplements) are looking to push a definite "magic bullet" solution, and lots of consumers are looking to buy such a solution. For the OP to give up fish oil on the basis of this report would exactly as rational as his or her decision to start taking fish oil in the first place.

One of the big problems is that usually they do not tell us actual risk....

So, if there is a risk of .0000001% and it goes up to .000001%, that is a
10X increase in your risk.... but do we really care

[harley]

I was able to find this old study I remember from college. It pretty well explains my feeling about these studies.

Two Denver Doctors Get in Their 10 Cents' Worth Against the F.D.A.'s Cancer Warnings : People.com

[SJ1_]

Quote:

Originally Posted by JoeWras My doc thinks the stuff does wonders for everything, especially joint health. So I've been popping one a day. It is just fish oil, what's the harm? Now a new study says it is a prostate cancer risk. I think I give up. Just going to go back to my one a week salmon serving. Fish oils may raise prostate cancer risks, study confirms - NBC News.com

..the study found, “…the committee found no consistent evidence to support an association between sodium intake and either a beneficial or adverse effect on on most health outcomes.”..

And not getting enough might be bad for you

?The report warns that reducing our salt intake below 1 tsp per day could actually be a negative?

I remb. when eggs were bad for you and how my 96 yr old grand father loved eggs and poured tons of salt on them..

CDC Admits There Is No Benefit In Reducing Salt | WREG.com

[ER Eddie]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Texas Proud One of the big problems is that usually they do not tell us actual risk.... So, if there is a risk of .0000001% and it goes up to .000001%, that is a 10X increase in your risk.... but do we really care

Yeah, with a big enough sample size, you can find statistically significant effects in just about anything. Whether those statistically significant effects are actually significant in real world terms is another issue...

As for these studies ... seems like this has been going on for as long as I can remember. One of the lessons I've learned is to never take a single study very seriously. It is the overall pattern of results from multiple studies that matter. Journalists get all excited about the results of a single study ... and then the next study (which contradicts the first) ... etc. It's kind of a circus.

[Chuckanut]

Here is another article:

Study: Omega-3 fatty acids linked to higher risk of prostate cancer | Q13 FOX News

I heard an interview with a researcher from the same center, thought it may not be the person quoted in the above article. His recommendation: Eat real fish.

[rbmrtn]

Kristal was interviewed on cnbc friday Fish oils may raise prostate cancer risks, study confirms

The study did not look at supplements specifically. If fish consumption is bad that would seem to go against population studies that show low PC with high fish consumption, like much of asia.

This study seems to have an opposite conclusion A 22-y prospective study of fish intake in relation to prostate cancer incidence and mortality

[slaternuthink]

Well then, at least half the population can continue to take fish oil supplements with a clear consciense.

[bjorn2bwild]

Quote:

Originally Posted by slaternuthink Well then, at least half the population can continue to take fish oil supplements with a clear consciense edit - reckless abandon.

Not so fast.
If you sift through enough studies with a fine enough filter you will find that no one is safe from this menace.

[RAE]

Quote:

Originally Posted by boatfishandnature Dr. Geo's article above is a fact-based, great critique of the study. Don't miss it!

Several others have refuted the study also. Here is one from Dr. Barry Sears:

fish oil | Zone Diet | Dr. Barry Sears

[jflynn4]

Studies have shown that worrying about something killing you leads to higher death rates from stress.

[Chuckanut]

Here is an article critical of the study that started this thread.

Experts slam omega-3 link to prostate cancer as 'scaremongering'

According to this article if one believes the study, men should not only reduce Omega-3 consumption, but also start smoking. And drink more alcoholic beverages.

No sure what women should do.

[CoolChange]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chuckanut Here is an article critical of the study that started this thread. Experts slam omega-3 link to prostate cancer as 'scaremongering' According to this article if one believes the study, men should not only reduce Omega-3 consumption, but also start smoking. And drink more alcoholic beverages. No sure what women should do.

Finally, a bit of this study that does seem like a reasonable health plan for me.