Fish Oil Health Benefits: Fish Oil Omega 3 or Ibuprofen?
Posted by Michael Byrd on Dec 25 2006 | Tagged as: Fish Oil Health Benefits
“Before Salmon Oil Plus I was taking 800 mg of Motrin (Ibuprofen) twice a day and sometimes three times a day for chronic shoulder, back and hip pain. But after four weeks on Salmon Oil Plus, I no longer need the Motrin.” Sandi
I’m not a doctor and I don’t play one on television, which means I’m not qualified to give you medical advice.
That said, I am qualified to give you my opinion on how to stay healthy. I have a lot of personal experience and I’m quite successful at staying healthy.
We each have a choice of how we take care of ourselves. We can live a healthy lifestyle that prevents diseases or we can wait until we get sick and then try and do something about it.
The first choice requires that you take care of yourself. The second choice requires that you give up that right and accept the choices others make for you, which often includes medications.
Medications aren’t bad – they have their place. But they aren’t to be taken lightly either.
Each medication has “side effects.” These side effects are really a direct result of the medication. We just call them side effects to make the pill easier to swallow.
The funny thing is, most medications are designed to do something that a normal healthy diet already does.
Let’s take ibuprofen for example. It’s part of a class of medications called “nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs” or NSAIDs for short. Their purpose, as the name states, is to help decrease inflammation.
There just happens to be a whole class of nutrients that you can eat that perform the same anti-inflammatory job for you. And if you’re eating these nutrients regularly, your need for Ibuprofen greatly decreases.
For most people, Ibuprofen is very effective, but its effectiveness comes at a price.
Some of the known side effects include an increased risk of heart attack and stroke, chest pains, weakness, shortness of breath and slurred speech, upset stomach and nausea, bleeding or perforation of your stomach or intestines and a sensitivity to sunlight.
Many of these side effects can be avoided if we only took better care of ourselves in the first place. If you need something like Ibuprofen, then use it. But prevention is worth a pound of cure.
Omega 3 fatty acids from fish provide your body with the nutritional factors that regulate your inflammatory process, greatly reducing your need for NSAIDs. And omega 3 fatty acids don’t have any side effects.
Dr. Artemis Simopoulos of the Center for Genetics, Nutrition and Health, reviewed numerous studies dealing with omega 3s and inflammation. Her conclusion, published in the Journal of the American College of Nutrition (Vol. 21, No. 6, 495-505), was, “Many of the placebo-controlled trials of fish oil in chronic inflammatory diseases reveal significant benefit, including decreased disease activity and a lowered use of anti-inflammatory drugs.”
She’s talking about things like Ibuprofen!
The rewards for living a healthier lifestyle are worth more than any trip to the doctor. So eat more fish and supplement daily with a quality fish oil product.
That’s my opinion and I’m sticking to it.
