Some good news from the New York Times about children receiving alternative treatments. According to a recent government study, one in 9 children “practices yoga, goes to a chiropractor, takes a supplement like fish oil or uses some other alternative treatment.”
While the article discusses various alternative remedies that children take, one of the researchers makes an interesting comment about fish oil:
???They included fish oil in this survey, but I???ve been asking psychiatrists if they use fish oil and it looks like 80 percent of psychiatrists are recommending it, as are cardiologists,??? Dr. Kemper said.
Why is fish oil so popular for children? Perhaps because fish oil improves school performance for kids, fish oil improves verbal memory and spelling skills and fish oil is more effective for ADHD than Ritalin!
]]>We already knew that fish oil limits the effects of smoking, and is useful for a wide range of respiratory diseases. Now a 2-year study on the effects of fish oil for COPD has found promising results.
People with COPD, who hadn’t smoked in 6 months, were given omega-3 supplements and they were compared to a placebo group. The omega-3 group not only had less inflammation in their lungs, but also walked the farthest in the 6-minute walking fitness test.
The researchers concluded that fish oil supplements were “safe and practical method for treating COPD” conditions such as emphysema and chronic bronchitis.
Source: Fish Oil may treat Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease
]]>Many studies examining fish oil for children have originated from the Durham, including one that found fish oil improves toddler learning skills.
]]>What is Chronic Heart Failure?
Chronic heart failure is a condition that occurs when the heart becomes enlarged and cannot pump blood efficiently around the body.
Omega-3 Fish Oil has proven in a Germany study to be more effective than cholesterol medications for this condition for which there are very few options for treatment:
Italian researchers gave nearly 3,500 patients a daily omega-3 pill, a prescription-formulation pill derived from fish oils … Roughly the same number of patients were given placebo pills.
1,981 of the fish oil group experienced additional heart problems versus 2,053 died on placebos. Compare these results to the group given Crestor, a popular cholesterol medication:
In a parallel study, the same team of Italian doctors gave 2,285 patients the drug rosuvastatin, also known as Crestor, and gave placebo pills to 2,289 people. Patients were then tracked for about four years. The doctors found little difference in heart failure rates between the two groups.
After comparing the studies, the researchers found that the fish oil capsules provided a greater benefit over cholesterol medication for Chronic Heart Failure.
]]>Patients that took fish oil, even at low doses, “showed improvement in blood vessel function and a reduction in cell damaging molecules.” Patients also reported far fewer incidents of “fatigue, joint pain, rashes, mouth ulcers and headaches.”
For his research on fish oil and lupus, Dr. Wright received the Irish Society for Rheumatology’s Young Investigator of the Year Award.
Source: Medic’s Lupus Breakthrough
Related Blogs
- Related Blogs on rheumatology
- Effective treatment with yoga
Two groups of mice were fed a high fat diet, and one group was given 8% fish oil while the other group did not receive the fish oil. The results? The fish oil fed mice gained significantly less weight and metabolized more fat! Specifically, they showed an increase in production of enzymes that metabolized fat.
The researchers wrote:
“These findings suggest that an up-regulation of intestinal lipid metabolism is associated with the anti-obesity effect of [fish oil].”
This isn’t the first time that omega-3 fatty acids have been found to be effective for weight loss, as another study found that fish oil and exercise led to fat loss.
Related Blogs
- Related Blogs on fat loss
- Extreme Fat Loss - How a Calorie Shifting Diet Works Part 1
- Fat Loss for Idiots - How Calorie shifting Works Part 2
- How To Measure Your Fat Loss Successfully
- Related Blogs on metabolism
- The Key To Fast Fat Loss: Better Metabolism
- Increase metabolism with the right food
John Brannan wants to determine if there may be another benefit: combatting asthma.
He???s leading a new study at the Firestone Institute for Respiratory Research at St. Joseph???s Hospital that hopes to confirm a promising University of Indiana study that found high doses of omega-3 fatty acids had a ???profound effect??? in reducing exercise-induced asthma.
24 participants will be examined for two factors, narrowing of respiratory airways and inflammation, following treatment with fish oil or placebo.
John goes on to mention an interesting study in the 1980s in Nova Scotia that “postulated that the low prevalence of asthma, cardiovascular disease and rheumatoid arthritis among the Inuit was due to their high fish diet.”
Related Blogs
- Related Blogs on asthma
- Treat Your Asthma Naturally and Quickly
- Asthma Medicines and Their Side Effects Posted By : Lester Lee
A recent study … examined infants of expectant mothers from families with high risk of allergy and asthma who were given a fish oil supplement from the 25th week of pregnancy until the third month of breastfeeding.
At one year old, the children whose mothers took the supplement had “considerably fewer allergic reactions“. Significantly, they had less than half as many reactions to eggs, which is an early indicator of eczema and asthma.
One of the researchers in the study commented that fish oil worked by relieving inflammation in the mother, and this had an effect on the child’s immune system also.
Source: Fish Oils During Pregnancy Could Prevent Allergies
Related Blogs
- Related Blogs on allergies
- Understanding Food Allergies In Children
- Cat Allergies Making You MEOW?
- Firsts
“This is the first study in lupus patients measuring improvements in blood vessel function,” said presenter and investigator Stephen Wright, MD, “After 6 months we saw evidence confirming the beneficial effects of omega-3 fish oils for improving symptoms of lupus and, also, evidence of a cardioprotective effect in these patients,”
After 6 months of fish oil supplements, there was a statistically-significant improvement in lupus symptoms.
Source: Omega-3 Fish Oil Improves Lupus Symptoms, Shows Possible Cardiovascular Benefits
]]>To examine the effects of Omega-3 supplementation on Diabetes in children, researchers at the University of Colorado began a HUGE study entitled, Diabetes Autoimmunity Study in the Young (DAISY):
The study was conducted in Denver, from January 1994 through November 2006 and included 1,770 children at increased risk for type 1 diabetes, defined as either possession of HLA genotype for a high diabetes risk or having a sibling or parent with type 1 diabetes. The mean age at follow-up was 6.2 years.
Researchers found a very significantly decreased risk in islet autoimmunity (a risk-indicator of Type-1 Diabetes) in children that received Omega-3 fatty acids:
The researchers found that 58 children developed islet autoimmunity during follow-up. Adjusting for HLA genotype, family history of type 1 diabetes, caloric intake, and omega-6 fatty acid intake, omega-3 fatty acid intake was associated with a 55% reduced risk of islet autoimmunity.
In the second part of the study, researchers examined another factor related to islet autoimmunity, the omega-3 content of erythrocyte membranes:
The researchers found that the omega-3 fatty acid content of erythrocyte membranes was associated with a 37% decreased risk of islet autoimmunity.
If you have Diabetes in your family history, you may want to consider giving your children pharmaceutical-grade fish oil!
Source: Omega-3 Fatty Acids Protective for Children at Risk for Type 1 Diabetes
]]>