Dr. Joseph Mercola
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Issue 624

March 30, 2005

Bread: The Half-Baked Truth

Vitamin E Increase Risk of Heart Failure?

Side Effects of Toxic Drugs

An Energy Bar

FDA Screws Up Again

Use Omega-3s in Fish Oil

Young Hearts Beware!

Achieving Prostate Health!

Prostate Cancer, Antioxidants and Your Genes

Infant Formula Fortification Protocol

Aggressive Drug Marketing

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Use Omega-3s in Fish Oil Not Drugs to Fight Inflammation


Relying on natural sources, rather than drugs, has been proven to be the safest, effective way to treat inflammatory conditions such as arthritis, according to scientists. In fact, it was discovered that a diet high in oily fish might be the most beneficial, as a key anti-inflammatory fat in humans is derived from a fatty acid found in fish oil.

The anti-inflammatory fats are resolvins, specifically made from the omega-3 fatty acids found in oily fish. Through studies, scientists found resolvins control inflammation by:

Stopping the passage of inflammatory cells to inflammation sites
Turning on other inflammatory cells

However, one form of resolvins in particular, known as E1, is thought to play a critical role in inflammation.

COX-2 Inhibitors' Influence On E1

One upside to the study was that it highlighted the dangerous COX-2 inhibitors, a class of anti-inflammatory drugs associated with increased cardiovascular risks. Scientists suspect that taking COX-2 inhibitors, though involved in producing the beneficial E1 resolvin, may actually disrupt the body's ability to synthesize the fat. Therefore, the very drugs designed to reduce inflammation have been found to prohibit one of the body's most prominent methods for tackling the same feat.

Thus, based on these findings, it is recommended people suffering from arthritis should eat two to three portions of oily fish a week, or take 1,500 mg of fish oil capsules each day.

Journal of Experimental Medicine March 2005;201(5):713-722

BBC News March 13, 2005


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Dr. Mercola's Comment:

Yes folks, you can change the oil in your diet and have a radical improvement in the amount of inflammation that is present.

Many of you have heard of GLA (gamma linolenic acid). It is typically found in evening primrose oil and borage oil. It is also widely promoted. One of the primary ways it works is by the conversion of the GLA into the potent anti-inflammatory prostaglandin E-1. Many people use borage oil as a source of GLA as it is far less expensive. I have always recommended evening primrose oil rather than borage oil as it seemed to work far better.

I recently learned that the reason evening primrose oil works better is that far higher levels of the GLA in evening primrose oil are converted into prostaglandin E1 than that in borage oil. So if you struggle with inflammatory conditions please consider trying a healthy dose of evening primrose oil. You can use as much as 5,000 mg per day.

The next issue you will want to address is not adding an oil in your diet but actually taking some oils out. Of c