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Bleg: Cranberry Omega 3
Monday, March 16th, 2009So because there’s some heart disease in my family, and my last checkup showed some mildly high blood pressure and cholesterol, I’ve been taking a fish oil Omega 3 supplement.
The other day at Costco, they were handing out samples of an Omega 3 supplement made from an extract from the seeds of cranberries. The stuff was delicious (you only take a fluid ounce per day), and has the advantage of not making my mouth taste like fish for half the day.
But something about it set off my scam alarm. Anyone out there know if the stuff is legit? The first 10 or so pages of Google seem to be from companies selling some version of the stuff.
I don’t know myself, but it is funny that healthy+tasty = scam alarm. I do the same thing!
Look for peer-reviewed clinical studies pubished in major scientific journals proving its efficacy in that particular formulation.
Good luck. You’ll need it.
Try the etermic(sp?) coated fish oil, it dissolves slower and doesn’t give you that fish oil taste. It’s a bit pricier but worth it.
I don’t think there is anything fishy about cranberries.
Don’t know about cranberry seed oil, but it could be legit.
Some veggie/seed oils are high in Omega 3, such as flax seed.
From what I’ve read, not all Omega-3s are created equal. In other words, the supplement you took may be 100% legit, but that doesn’t mean you are getting the same benefit from it as from other sources. here is some info I found, you be the judge.
http://www.fatsoflife.com/are-all-omega-3s-the-same.php
http://www.clo3.com/special_reports/are_all_om3s_same.pdf (from the cod liver oil foundation, I’m sure there is no agenda there, lol)
http://www.drmirkin.com/nutrition/Omega3s_from_plants.html
Don’t know about the cranberry thing, but if you put your fish oil in the freezer and take it before bed it cuts down on the nasty fish burps. Works for me.
At the very least, you need to check what kind of omega-3s the pill contains. See this post by Dr Davis (a cardiologist and specialist in heart disease prevention) for what you want.
http://heartscanblog.blogspot.com/2008/12/getting-your-dose-of-fish-oil-right.html
If you really want to decrease your risk of heart disease, I would strongly recommend that you read Gary Taubes’ excellent survey of nutritional science: “Good Calories, Bad Calories.” The government is fattening and killing us with its wholly unjustified low-fat, high-grains dogma.
I don’t know anything about cranberries but good fish oil should not taste fishy. Try a bottle of Carlson Cod Liver Oil. I’ve been using this one for years and have never had a bad batch.
I think pills tend to go rancid before you use them.
Cranberry seed oil does contain Omega 3 fatty acids, but it shouldn’t taste like cranberries unless there is flavoring and sweetener added to the oil.
I’m a veg, so I get mine through flaxseed oil. Tastes fine on its own and is easy to incorporate into a variety of foods if so desired.
I write on medical topics for a client, and just finished an article on plant source Omega-3s, and I’m with Lloyd. There’s research that plant source Omega-3s work as well as fish oil, and can be found in flax seeds and some nuts. No mention of cranberries, that I can find (and I’m not looking all that hard) which doesn’t mean it’s not there. It may just mean that the research either isn’t complete or hasn’t made it to the web.
Cranberries are good in a lot of ways, though, and finding the DHA and FHA that are the active fats in Omega-3s isn’t tough, so it seems to me like it would be a short-lived claim to say they’re in cranberries if they weren’t. I tend to believe assertions that could be easily disproven, after they haven’t been disproven, so I think I’d believe it.
Plus, fish breath is nothing to sneeze at.
Used to take fish oil capsuls purchased at the pharmacy, but they didn’t work for me. Then I switched to the good stuff:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000YJ1YFM/theagitator-20/
I chase it with a swallow of OJ every morning, and this stuff is so pure there is no lingering fish taste. I tried everything to get through the Minnesota winters and crushing SAD, and this is the only thing that worked.
My wife started having us take this stuff: http://www.salba.com/
No possible fishy taste and supposedly much better for you than your typical Omega-3 pills. Though a drink does sound like the easiest way to get Omega-3s.
Hemp seed oil is the way to go.
i think i remember reading an article comparing pill forms versus actual liquid. Something about the timing of absorbtion. I would probably not buy anything in liquid form if it were a supplement on a variety of reasons, but most notably, that one.
I’ll second the notion, Take your fish oil at night. It’s nasty but I can usually be asleep before I start to burp.
Just stop eating cheese, butter, and milk with fat in it. I have family histories also, but I cut back on those things and dropped my cholesterol by almost 40 points (from 205 to 165) in 6 weeks.
don’t put things into your body when you should be getting things out.
Whatever you find out, keep drinking your cranberry juice. It’s healthy and curative in so many ways, you’ll be healthier almost by accident.
I wonder if your body takes the Omega-3 the same if it comes in pill form or if it’s ingested as part of a whole food.
The reason I ask this is because it’s recently been proposed that taking such supplements as vitamins and calcium via supplements isn’t nearly as effective as taking them from their whole sources because your body doesn’t absorb them the same.
For example, in the study I saw, it took 5 times more vitamin C taken as a supplement to be absorbed in your body than what is absorbed from an orange (i.e. 5 times more vitamin C than is found in an orange to get the same amount in your body). The reason is that certain compounds aid your body in absorbing them and these can be found in the whole foods, but not in the supplements.
Or something like that.
Ah – a topic near to my heart!
Many seeds and nuts have Omega 3 so I don’t see why cranberry pits would be any different. In general, the ratio of Omega 3 to Omega 6 is now thought to be more important than the total level of omega 3 (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12442909) so you’d want to evaluate supplements by choosing which had more 3s and less 6s, regardless of the source of the fat (cod,flax,hemp,salba aka sage seeds et all) – that is, unlike most fruits and vegetables which have unique antioxidents (a tomato can’t substitute for a blueberry), what we are looking for here is a good source of a specific fat, which is found in some amount in all foods, not something healthy inherent to Cod.
With fish oil, another concern is mercury and enviromental toxins, which larger fish build up in their fat. There are production methods that try to circumvent this, but the easiest way is probably just to use a plant based oil like flax.
#15 makes a good point. We americans in general are pronourished – we eat too much. Reducing your cholesteral consumption will lower your readings. You don’t need to forswear the Roquefort exactly, but try switching to Soy Milk with your cereal.
My #1 take away based on all my nutritional readings is that we should be eating more vegetables – as many vegetables as possible! And French Fries don’t count. I’m talking leaves. The Okinawans among many other long lived cultures eat a shocking number of vegetable servings everyday. The centarians there eat 7 to 10 servings of veggies daily. That’s why I am trying to incorporate as many flax salads and steamed chinese cabbages into my daily routine as possible.
It’s “enteric” and delays the dissolution of the capsule until it passes your stomach, roughly.
I would point out that Omega-3 oil is fairly unstable and goes bad fast.
If you’re going to use supplements for it, buy the best. Expeller pressed, in brown bottles, and refrigerated is best. Anything cheaper is probably bad before it leaves the production facility.
And eat your vegetables as uncooked as possible. Evolution at the bio chemical level was pretty much done with us well before cooking was invented.
I’ve used several kinds of fish oil including Costco’s. I like the liquid a lot better, less burping, but too much can cause constipation, or gas, or worse painful sharting. (urban dictionary if you don’t know)
As you probably know, hemp oil is also beneficial and closest to fish oil if your concerned about mercury, but this too can cause digestive problems.
The fish oil capsules can cause burping, especially if they burst in your stomach before moving to the intestines. Getting the coated ones can help. Your best bet is to actually supplement your diet with whole food sources instead of popping pills. If that isn’t an option start with small doses until you work up to your largest tolerable dose.
I’ve googled up some research, and here are the relevant Omega 3: Omega 6 ratios,
Cranberry 1:1 (according to this pdf study, which found statistically insignificant changes after 8 weeks of cranberry oil supplementation. http://www.uwstout.edu/rs/2008/23lipid%20profiles%20for%20publication.pdf)
Hemp 4:1
Flax 7:2
Salba (sage/chia) 3:1
Corn 0:8
Soy 1:7 (aka “vegetable oil”)
Cod 3:1
Albacore 3:1
Mackeral 2:1
“Farm raised fish are fed some combination of vegetable and fish oils. A study (Norwegian, 2004) found that omega-3 was very low in salmon on pure vegetable oil. On the other hand, dioxins & PCBs tend to concentrate in oil, so feeding fish oil to fish can raise levels significantly above those in wild populations.”
(http://math.ucsd.edu/~ebender/Health%20&%20Nutrition/Nutrition/oil_good.html)
Since our goal is to increase Omega 3 consumption while limiting the increase of Omega 6 (because of Beef, Chicken, Milk, Cheese, Corn, Soy, Wheat etc, the average American intake of O3:O6 is 1:15 versus traditional cultures ratio of 1:1) – Cranberry Oil is not a good candidate by this metric. Although it can easily be part of a healthy diet, we are trying to counteract the high levels of Omega 6s we are likely already ingesting. Thus we see that Flax, Hemp, Salba, Cod and many (but not all) other fish are good choices.
By eating fewer land animals and deep fried foods, and adding a small amount seeds/nuts/fish, it is likely that we could greatly improve our longevity and health. Cranberry oil may have other benefits, but it’s ineffective as a supplement for Omega 3. The marketing behind it comes from its origin as the stuff left over when you press cranberry juice.
How about if I just smoke the hemp and leave the seeds in?
“Just stop eating cheese, butter, and milk with fat in it.”
I think I’d rather die young, thank you.
“Evolution at the bio chemical level was pretty much done with us well before cooking was invented.”
Not true. #1) Lactose tolerance developed rather quickly as we began to depend on diary products as a primary source of protein. http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/11/science/11evolve.html
#2) I defy you to show me a vegetable found at any market that existed in its current form before cultivation and selective breeding took over. We don’t eat anything closely resembling what our ‘cave man’ ancestors did.
http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/article//evo_30
#17 – I would wonder if studies showing that supplements aren’t as healthy as whole foods is skewed.
If you are getting your omega-3′s from a big piece of fish, that implies that you ate fish for dinner which is definately healthier than eating a cheeseburger + omega-3 capsules. No reason to doubt the study but seems like it would be a tough thing to prove.
No doubt that whole foods are healthier but it seems like it would be easy to believe that it’s healthier than supplements because your replacing something bad.
Radley:
The Three Critical Supplements. Summary: D3 in oil gelcaps, not tablets; K2 (MK-4) in gelcaps; and omega-3 fatty acids.
Vitamin D2 vs D3. Summary: D3 (the animal form, and what your skin produces under sunlight) is far superior and necessary. D2 may have separate benefits, but it’s no substitute.
To #15 an others – this isn’t a universal solution. I swore off fats and cut my sugars in half, and my carb intake increased somewhat as a result. Even working out 5 days a week (3 aerobic, 2 lifting), I only lost 9 pounds in 5 months with no change in cholesterol.
I have history of heart disease and diabetes (with obesity) in my family, so I cut out carbs Atkins-style and ate a heavy protein diet with no regard to fat content. I lost 40 pounds in 6 weeks and my cholesterol again did not change much. Since I’m more concerned with weight and blood sugar, that’s actually a better short-term result. I also take fish oil supplements for Omega3, as Atkins explicitly suggests that in his book.
From the world of Wiki:
Milk and cheese from grass-fed cows may also be good sources of n?3. One UK study showed that half a pint of milk provides 10% of the recommended daily intake (RDI) of ALA, while a piece of organic cheese the size of a matchbox may provide up to 88%”.
So, have some cheese in moderation and you get plenty is what I take from that. Looks like many seed oils contain the Omega-3s, as well as some whole nuts.
If there has been a head-to-head comparison of cranberry derived omega-3 supplements to fish oil derived ones in a peer-reviewed journal, I can’t find it on Pubmed. There have been some studies comparing fish oil to flaxseed oil, most of which suggest that the fish oil is better at lowering serum triglycerides (and a few that suggest flaxseed actually raises them). But I wouldn’t assume that cranberry pits = flaxseed.
Long story short: the science is far from settled on the specific question you raise.
All of that said, you should be able to find a fish oil supplement that doesn’t leave you with such a nasty taste.
I have been taking Double strength fish oil for the last couple of years, six per day. The freezing deal works fairly well, as does always taking it with a meal. But the TRUE secret is that HEB brand concentrated fish oil smells and tastes like coconut oil, has this text on the label: “Clear Enteric Coating/No Fishy Aftertaste” the other thing that showed up on blood tests was, no change in LDL or HDL readings at all.
So much for natural methods, at least in addition to Lipitor. Check out Bill Sardi’s recent article in Lew Rockwell.com on statin drugs and cholesterol, calcium and Vitamin D3. (And then get Bio-Tech Pharmaceuticals 5000 iu D3, or if you get leg cramps from high vitamin D sources, get “30 minutes of Sunshine” (5000 units of vitamin D3, magnesium, calcium, B6, and Ferulate from rice bran. from Lifespan (Notice: this is run by LUCY SARDI, Bill’s wife, and if you think the last name is a coincidence, I have a bridge in Brooklyn I’d like to sell you!)
Anyway, 30 Minutes of Sunshine is a special formulation, to Lifespan’s order, but the 5000 iu capsules are just about as effective (I have been taking 10000 iu/day for a few days now, and it seems to make the muscle aches and pains that came to me with Lipitor, go away, gradually) and they are a lot cheaper. Note the CHEAPEST SOURCE of High dose Vitamin D3, is the 50,000 unit capsules, 100/bottle and taken once a week, $30 FRNs. The 5000 iu capsules are 250/ capsules/bottle $17. Take them once a day after you get your Vitamin D levels up to healthy normal. The low levels of vitamin D are associated with muscle pain, joint pain, more colds/flu, failure to absorb and process calcium, and on and on.
I am not a doctor, and this is NOT a prescription or medical advice, blah blah blah. You pays your money and takes your chances. This is worth every bit you paid me for it. (That it may in fact be true and is the best advice I can give you after 12 years of bone and joint pain, caused by a shortage of Vitamin D in my system , due, I feel, to taking Lipitor, may weigh more heavily than anything else, I think.)
Vitamin D is cheaper than Fish oil, too.
A quick Google, limiting the search space to .gov and .edu to get rid of the commercial crud, threw back this http://www.uwstout.edu/lib/thesis/2007/2007enom.pdf , which suggests the effects are real, although it’s not a large enough study to prove statistical significance. The article abstracted at http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=GatewayURL&_method=citationSearch&_uoikey=B6T6R-4D982JN-J&_origin=SDEMFRASCII&_version=1&md5=4b2bbe763bf43f44d7d8e4589046aabb suggests that there is at least a mechanism that seems plausible.
There’s several more articles which may be relevant listed here – http://berryhealth.fst.oregonstate.edu/health_healing/research_articles/berryantioxidants.htm#_Antioxidants_and_Phenolics_of_Cranb – and you might want to drop one or more of the researchers an email to get their view on the question.
I wouldn’t buy any supplements at costco (except my emergen-C). Get yourself some fish oil gel-caps. theyre lemon flavored and you can barely taste them at all. Nordic Naturals has the best quality product according to my distributor.
I’ll echo Mike at 27 about the grass-fed meat, and/or game meat, which has higher levels of O-3s and lower levels of saturated fats. Agri-industry cows are fed corn and chinese newspapers, and are most likely diabetics themselves when slaughtered. What do you think that meat does in your body? You need fat in your diet, the key is the keep some variety. In addition to gras-fed meat, add some coconut oil (unrefined), safflower oil (unrefined), etc. Fat is good.
My family also has a history of heart disease. But every blood pressure and cholesterol test comes back well with acceptable ranges. I put it down to not worrying about “Omega 3″ or other nutrients, exercising five times a week, and not eating shit.
(I am in my mid 30s – my 40 year old brother who does worry about ‘omega 3′, doesn’t exercise, and eats awfully had his first heart attack a few months ago)
Stop eating cheese? Like Zeb, I’d rather die young.
Especially when it’s a libertarian obligation:
http://www.theagitator.com/2009/03/15/save-the-roquefort/
With any luck, the red wine will cancel it out.
Look in to Niacin (flush free). Make sure you consult your Doc…
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The upside to cooking food is that it makes it more digestible. The downside is that the heat destroys some of its nutrition.
Consider investing in a heavy duty blender(Vita-Mix, Blendtec).
Blending food makes it more digestible without the damaging heat of cooking. Although, there is some concern that the oxygen whipped into food by blending may do some damage to its nutrition. Besides, sipping your fruit and vegetables through a straw is a lot easier than chewing all that fiber.
Well…not only can you eat it you can now bathe in it too Radley!
I saw the advertisement on T.V. tonight for “Cranberry” Dial Antioxidant body wash! Now you can smell like a cranberry instead of fish…lol.
I don’t believe vegetable sources of Omega-3s are as effective as fish oil. The latter are long-chain Omega-3 acids.
Not sure if you’re still following this thread, but add a bowl of oatmeal to your daily intake. Just adding that dropped my cholesterol by about 15 points (back into the safe range).
Try chia seeds. You know the chia pet stuff. High in Omega-3s. Some empirical evidence that it lowers BP up to 10 pts.