Fish Oil and Omega 3 Health Benefits

In the past 25 years, childhood asthma has more than doubled where now nine million children are affected. Asthma is responsible for almost 13 million missed school days and hundreds of thousands of emergency hospital visits.

But there’s good news for all these children.

A recent study at the University of Sydney in Australia found eating omega-3 rich salmon or other fatty fish such as sardines, herring or tongol tuna two or three times a week reduces the risk of childhood asthma by as much as four times. (Medical Journal of Australia, Vol. 164: 137-40)

That’s huge difference!

Asthma triggers are not the same for each child. Some are allergic to specific foods – eggs, wheat, milk, soy and nuts, while others are affected by airborne dust particles, mold and pollen. Tobacco smoke, certain weather conditions and exercise are also common triggers.

But what all these triggers have in common is that they cause an increase in inflammation that brings on the coughing, wheezing and shortness of breath associated with asthma.

And that’s why eating fatty fish comes to the rescue. Omega 3 fish oil fatty acids DHA (docosahexaenoic acid) and EPA (eicosapentaenoic acid) are nature’s most potent and safest anti-inflammatory agents.

Over the last thirty years, fish oil has been found in thousands of studies all over the world to be highly effective at relieving the inflammation of arthritis, bursitis, colitis and migraines, as well such respiratory conditions as emphysema, cystic fibrosis and asthma.

The University of Sydney study wasn’t only childhood asthma research in the news recently. Another research team from the University of Montana recently published a report showing that supplementing children’s diets with fish oil omega 3 DHA and EPA fatty acids significantly reduced the severity of asthma symptoms in over 40% of their patients. (American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, Vol. 65: 1011-17)

These are pretty amazing results. All your child has to do is to eat salmon or sardines two or three times a week and/or take a good quality fish oil supplement and they might be able to get asthma relief without medication.

Wouldn’t it be great if they didn’t miss so much school and didn’t have to be rushed to the emergency room as often? Sounds pretty good, don’t you think?

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Fish oil omega 3 fatty acids combined with exercise can reduce body fat. (American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, may 2007) Australian researchers, in a study of overweight adults, found fish oil supplements improved cholesterol levels and blood vessel function. They also found that fish oil combined with exercise reduced body fat.

The study participants who took omega 3 fish oil supplements, either alone or with exercise, experienced their good HDL cholesterol going up and their triglyceride levels going down.

These results were in line with many previous studies showing fish oil’s positive effect on lowering blood pressure and triglycerides, reducing risk of blood clots and improving vessel function.

There’s also been some evidence from test tube studies that show fish oil affecting metabolism in a way that could reduce body fat. The research on humans, however, had conflicting results.

Dr. Peter R. C. Howe and a team of researchers from the University of South Australia decided to test the hypothesis. They randomly assigned 75 overweight adults to four different groups: one took fish oil, one took fish oil and walked three days a week for 45 minutes, one took sunflower oil and the fourth took sunflower oil and walked.

After a twelve week period, Dr. Howe and his team discovered those participants who were on the omega 3 fish oil supplements had significantly better improvements in their blood fats than those on the sunflower oil capsules.

And those participants on fish oil supplements who exercised also had significant improvements in their body fat ratios.

Eating fish and/or taking fish oil supplements has been proven over and over again to be one of the best things you can do for your heart. That’s why the American Heart Association recommends everyone eat fatty fish such as salmon, sardines, herring or tongol tuna at least two or three times a week.

But now Dr. Howe’s findings show that fish is not only good for how you feel, but it’s also good for how you look. So if you want to look and feel your best, eat lots of fatty fish and/or take a good quality omega 3 fish oil supplement.

After 12 weeks, the researchers found, volunteers who were taking fish oil showed greater improvements in their blood fats and blood vessel function than those who took sunflower oil.

What’s more, exercise and fish oil each helped reduce body fat.

“Increasing intake of (omega-3 fatty acids) could be a useful adjunct to exercise programs aimed at improving body composition and decreasing cardiovascular disease risk,” Howe and his colleagues write.

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Having sardines for lunch or salmon for dinner is not only good for your heart. It also puts you in a better mood.

That’s the conclusion of Dr. Sarah M. Conklin and her team of researchers at the University of Pittsburgh. They found omega 3 fatty acids, which are primarily found in fatty fish, affect the area of the brain associated with emotion. They recently presented their findings at the American Psychosomatic Society’s annual meeting in Budapest, Hungary.

This is not the first time scientists have found a relationship between omega 3 fish oil DHA (docosahexaenoic acid) and EPA (eicosapentaenoic acid) fatty acids and proper brain function.  To begin with, these long chain polyunsaturated fatty acids, which are only found in salmon and other fatty fish, are the main building blocks of the human brain. That’s what makes fish “brain food.”

Fish oil DHA and EPA have been proven to make you mentally and emotionally healthy. Deficiencies of DHA fatty acid, for example, have been linked to ADD, ADHD, PMS, depression, bi-polar disorder, schizophrenia, suicide, violence, age-related memory loss and Alzheimer’s disease. Think about that!

In a previous study, Dr. Conklin’s team found people with lower blood levels of omega-3 fatty acids tended to be more negative and impulsive. On the other hand, people with higher levels of omega-3 seemed to be more agreeable and less moody.

So they decided to see if eating more fish had any actual affect on the amount of gray matter in the part of the brain associated with mood. Using MRI brain scans, that’s exactly what they found. People who ate the most fish also had larger volumes of gray matter in the area of the brain linked to the regulation of emotion.

Maybe that’s why so many of your neighbors are grumpy and disagreeable. Most Americans are seriously deficient in omega-3 fatty acids. Surveys show that nearly 20% eat so very little fish test methods are unable to detect any DHA and EPA in their blood.

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