Fish Oil

General comments: Found a pretty good article today on the benefits of fish oil. Apparently, the same sort of inflammation that occurs whenever we get an infection, a cut, etc., is also occurring constantly in our own blood vessels. While most of our cuts and infections eventually heal, the result of our immune system's response against an external threat, some internal inflammation points have a tougher time "cooling down". Even from a young age, our blood vessels form small lesions, which become inflamed and theoretically healed by our body's immune system. The "cooling down" portion of this inflammation process is caused by Omega-3s, a compound found readily in fish and fish oil supplements. Without an adequate supply of Omega-3s, our blood vessels remain inflamed, with macrophages constantly being deployed and ultimately hardening the vessel wall leading to atherosclerosis.

http://www.bcm.edu/news/item.cfm?newsID=1150

The full journal article is available here:

http://www.fasebj.org/cgi/rapidpdf/fj.08-112201v1.pdf

Many doctors and researchers, including Dr. Barry Sears (The Zone Diet) have touted fish oil and Omega-3s as a miracle drug. It's ability to reduce inflammation can single-handedly reduce many of the country's ailments, from Alzheimer's to biopolar disorder to diabetes. Of course you can't get something for nothing in this country:

http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/ConsumerNews/truth-fish-oil-concerns/story?id=9994049

Many of the fish oil supplements out there are loaded with above-average levels of PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyl compounds), the same junk that polluters were dumping into our nation's waterways. Filter fish would ingest these compounds and PCBs would work their way up the food chain to its ultimate stop: humans.

Be sure to read your labels and do a little research.