Food Nutrition Board recommend consum- ing Omega 3 oils. The American Heart As- sociation and the American Diabetes Association both en- courage eating 2 serv- ings of oily fish like salmon each week. This is because Omega 3 fats reduce inflammation, reduce insulin resis- tance, and improve lipids. All of these are underlying causes of cardiovascular dis- ease and diabetes. Omega 3 fats also favor- ably alter gene expression which reduces the chance a cell will become a cancer cell. This and inflammation are underlying causes of cancer. Surprisingly, the Ameri- can Cancer Society has no mention of eating fish on their website. In other words, based on previous
The article’s conclusion that Omega 3’s cause cancer (tumerigenesis) is speculative at best, and alarmist and confusing at worst.
100% increase in plasma Omega 3 levels. A better test for ongoing effect of essential fats is a red blood cell Omega 3 (RBCO3) analysis, not plasma. RBCO3 reflect intake over the
past several months. “The difference in blood (plasma)
concentrations of omega-3 fatty acids between the lowest and highest risk groups was about 2.5 percentage points (3.2 per- cent vs. 5.7 percent), which is somewhat
Elizabeth Vaughan, MD
larger than the effect of eating salmon twice a week” according to the author Kristal. He did not criticize eating fish. In- stead, Kristal pivoted and condemned taking fish oil supplements. "We've shown
research, we would predict that fish oil and omega 3 fatty acids would be more likely to prevent cancer than cause it. Now let’s talk about the study itself. It
follows an earlier study in 2011 from the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center which suggested that Omega 3 fats con- tribute to prostate cancer. Alan Kristal, Dr.P.H. senior author stated “This (second) study confirms previous reports of in- creased prostate cancer risk among men
with high blood concentrations of LCπ- 3PUFA (omega 3 fats). The consistency of these findings suggests that these fatty acids are involved in prostate tumorigen- esis.”
Dr. Anthony D’Amica, a professor at
Harvard and an internationally recognized authority on prostate cancer, criticized the study saying that “the study really cannot make the conclusion it’s trying to.” The study was not designed to show cause and effect. “They tried.... but they didn’t do it properly.” “At the end of the day (the study demonstrates) an association that at its best is very weak and further weakened by the fact that they didn’t account for the known predictors of prostate cancer.” Dr. Stephen Sinatra points out in his blog the entire conclusion of the study was based on a mere 0.2% difference in the participants' omega-3 levels.
Another concern, the study used
plasma samples which only reflect the Omega 3’s that someone has consumed in the last 24-48 hours. A single fish oil dose (or hearty serving of fish) results in over
Natural Triad Magazine SEPTEMBER 2013 9
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