Krill Oil - what you need to know
- Published in Diet, Nutrition & Supplements
Krill oil is becoming increasingly popular, and many people use it as an alternative to fish oil, since both provide the long-chain “marine” omega-3 fatty acids EPA and DHA.
In addition, krill oil has some unique properties, and marketing claims about krill oil’s purported superiority over fish oil abound, centering on the following:
- Krill oil provides some of the EPA and DHA in phospholipid form, which has been suggested to be absorbed more effectively.
- Krill oil contains astaxanthin, a carotenoid with health promoting effects.
- Krill oil contains the essential nutrient choline.
- There are supposedly fewer contaminants in krill oil than fish oil.
- Krill oil supposedly does not cause any fishy burping or other gastro-intestinal side effects.
In this article I will summarize the research on each of these points, and critically evaluate the related marketing claims...
Fish Oil for Fat Loss - can it really help you get in shape?
- Published in Diet, Nutrition & Supplements
Fish oil is most known for its beneficial heart and cardiovascular effects, and continues to top the list of health promoting supplements. Fish oil is unique in its ability to protect against heart disease and promote cardiovascular health in all people, regardless of age or baseline health status [1, 2].
Fish oil improves the blood lipid profile and is especially effective at lowering triglycerides (a.k.a. blood fats).[3] It also has beneficial effects on blood platelet activity, blood thickness, as well as blood vessel (endothelial) function [4-11], blood vessel elasticity [12], and blood pressure [13, 14], among other things.
In 2004 FDA approved a prescription fish oil preparation for treatment of high triglycerides (hypertriglyceridemia) [3, 15, 16]. Accumulating research shows that fish oil also has other beneficial effects, which are more visually notable… notably, fat loss!
Fish Oil for Muscle Growth and Prevention of Muscle Loss with Aging
- Published in Diet, Nutrition & Supplements
A key hallmark of aging is a progressive loss of muscle mass, which occurs independently of health status.[1] Exercise and nutrition are the two main anabolic stimuli for muscle growth and its maintenance throughout the life course.[2-11]
It is clear that maintaining high physical activity and exercise levels throughout ones lifespan reduces aging related loss of muscle mass and function, compared with living a sedentary life.[12-19]
However, even active older adults and master elite athletes still experience some loss of muscle and physical performance with advancing age.[8, 13, 20]
When it comes to nutrition, high protein intake [2, 3, 10, 21] and creatine supplementation [4-8, 22] are two of the best documented interventions, which together with resistance exercise training, result in greater increases muscle mass and strength in both young [21-23] and older people [2-8, 10], and prevent its loss with aging. Here I will present the relatively unknown effevts of fish oil (most well-known for its cardiovascular health promoting effects) on muscle growth (anabolism) and its possible contribution to prevention of aging related loss of muscle mass and function...
Omega-3 fat intake for prevention of skin aging
- Published in Diet, Nutrition & Supplements
Photoaging is the process of aging of the skin due primarily to regular and long-term exposure to ultra-violet radiation. The long-chain omega-3 fatty acids (EPA and DHA) have been implicated in modulating inflammatory processes associated with the skin, and supplementation with 3 g EPA+DHA for 6 months has been shown to reduce both UVB-erythemal sensitivity (i.e. sun induced skin reddening) [1], sunburn and sun induced itchy rash.[2]
A recently published study in Journal of Dermatological Science [3] investigated the associations between daily omega-3 fat intake and the severity of skin photoaging...
Fish oil supplementation - benefits for young healthy adults
- Published in Diet, Nutrition & Supplements
Fish oil is well known for protecting against development and progression of cardiovascular disease in high risk individuals, mostly middle-age and older.[1-4] A notable recent study shows that fish oil supplementation also confers health benefits in young healthy adults.[5]
Young healthy males, aged 21-24 years, were given a fish oil supplement providing 2 g EPA and 1 g DHA per day for 3 months. It was found that the fish oil supplementation significantly reduced fasting blood triglycerides (i.e. blood fats) by a whopping 38% (from 86 mg/dL to 54 mg/dL) and also improved the total cholesterol/HDL ratio, by reducing it from 3.25 to 3.05.
Relevance of blood triglycerides and the total cholesterol/HDL ratio for cardiovascular disease
