Great Fish Oil Experiment
Reading medical journals and following the mass media, it's easy to get the idea that fish oil is something any sensible person should use. It's rare to see anything suggesting that it could be dangerous.

During the recent years in which the U.S. government has gone from warning against the consumption of too much of these omega-3 oils ("to assure that the combined daily intake of two fatty acids that are components" "(i.e., eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA)) would not exceed 3 grams per person per day (g/p/d)") to sponsoring biased industry claims, there has been considerable accumulation of information about the dangers of fish oils and omega-3 fatty acids. But there has been an even greater increase in the industry's promotional activities.

The US government and the mass media selectively promote research that is favorable to the fish oil industry. The editorial boards of oil research journals often include industry representatives, and their editorial decisions favor research conclusions that promote the industry, in the way that editorial decisions in previous decades favored articles that denied the dangers of radiation and reported that estrogen cures almost everything. Marcia Angell, former editor of the NEJM, has observed that the "significant results" reported in published studies can be properly interpreted only by knowing how many studies reporting opposite results were rejected by the editors.

One way to evaluate published studies is to see whether they tell you everything you would need to know to replicate the experiment, and whether the information they provide is adequate for drawing the conclusions they draw, for example whether they compared the experimental subjects to proper control subjects. With just a few minimal critical principles of this sort, most "scientific" publications on nutrition, endocrinology, cancer and other degenerative diseases are seen to be unscientific. In nutritional experiments with fish oil, controls must receive similar amounts of vitamins A, D, E, and K, and should include fat free or "EFA" deficient diets for comparison.

In declaring EPA and DHA to be safe, the FDA neglected to evaluate their antithyroid, immunosuppressive, lipid peroxidative (Song et al., 2000), light sensitizing, and antimitochondrial effects, their depression of glucose oxidation (Delarue et al., 2003), and their contribution to metastatic cancer (Klieveri, et al., 2000), lipofuscinosis and liver damage, among other problems.

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"Houston-based Omega Protein Inc.'s bottom line may get a little fatter.

The publicly traded company, which produces an Omega-3 fatty acid product called OmegaPure, has signed an agreement to provide its fish oil in school lunches in 38 school districts in South Texas beginning this month.

The 500-person company, which has ties to former President George Bush's Zapata Corp., will distribute the product through an agreement with Mercedes-based H&H Foods.

Although the dollar amount of the contract between Omega Protein and H&H Foods hinges on future sales, the company is poised to cash in as school administrators and parents refocus their attention on the nutritional content of student diets.

Omega Protein President and CEO Joseph von Rosenberg says the company's recent investment of $16.5 million for a fish oil refinery in Reedville, Va., scheduled for completion in May, and an increased awareness of the benefits of Omega-3 in human food, positions Omega to capitalize on predicted demand."

Jenna Colley
Houston Business Journal