Clarification on fish oil dosing (and stuff cont'd from supplement thread)

[Benko]

1.  The active ingredients of fish oil are EPA/DHA.  So any discussion of fish oil doses should be in terms of how much total (EPA+DHA) per day is recommended.*

Capsules vary in potency and saying x number of grams of fish oil doesn't (as far as I know)  specify how much EPA + DHA one is getting since 3 grams of fish oil brand A and 3 grams of fish oil brand B may yield differences in EPA +DHA totals

2.  Continuing from the supplement thread, the ultra low omega 6 diet being put forward by e.g. Kresser, etc is great if one can live by it, but that is not real world for many/most.  So you're left with either:

A. having way too much omega 6 vs omega 3 in your body, OR
B. consuming e.g. fish oil. 

My general recommendation is 1000 mg (EPA + DHA) fish oil per day (except on days you eat fatty fish).  You could cut this down to 500 mg perhaps.  I would argue that is a reasonable dose for many/most people and is not the mega doses that I suspect Gumby/Kresser were arguing against.

AGAIN, this refers to healthy, non-obese people.  Using higher doses to treat various issues is another discussion.

3.  Everything we do in life (including inaction) has risks.  The question is whether the benefits outweight the risks.  I would argue that for most people in this country the benefits outweight the risks.

Gumby linked to the examine.com article on the prostate cancer issue.

4.  It bears repeating the whenever possible it is best to get nutrients from foods not supplements.  However that does not work for everything and there are many substances e.g. Vit D, EPA/DHA, vitamin K  as well as

lipoic acid, Coenzyme Q-10, and others e.g. "pseudovitamin" listed on examine.com
http://examine.com/supplements/Pseudovitamin/

will be beneficial for many.  Surprisingly examine.com also has reviews of many chinese/ayurvedic herbs.

*The discussion of EPA VS DHA is another story.

[Reub]

My doctor recently prescribed a large, therapeutic dose of B vitamins for me to combat elevated homocysteine levels so I guess that some vitamins are helpful and not harmful when they come from the script of certain hands and not others. Of course, the vitamin form that she prescribed has been shown to increase cancer risk so I switched to a better, safer form on my own.

[ns2]

I'll repeat my own anecdotal evidence as I did on the other thread on supplements that 1000mg of fish (actually krill) oil had an observable effect on me in the form of easy bruising and purpuras on my forearms. I will never take it in that large of a dose again.

[Benko]

I'll repeat my own anecdotal evidence as I did on the other thread on supplements that 1000mg of fish (actually krill) oil had an observable effect on me in the form of easy bruising and purpuras on my forearms. I will never take it in that large of a dose again.

Krill=/fish oil .

Actually if you read the krill propaganda, they will tell you that that much krill is equivalent to much larger dose fish oil (which I'm not sure makes sense).

[Gumby]

Good stuff, Benko.

[Reub]

I'll repeat my own anecdotal evidence as I did on the other thread on supplements that 1000mg of fish (actually krill) oil had an observable effect on me in the form of easy bruising and purpuras on my forearms. I will never take it in that large of a dose again.

I'm taking 6000 mgs a day of fish oil with none of those side effects. But I do have urges to take long ocean cruises.