Articles by Dr. Erdman are for informational purposes, and are not to be taken as specific medical advice.
The headlines of the last week read, “Doctors now recommend
against taking vitamin supplements.” Really? Our food and diet is that good? Of
course, that is from the corporations and FDA that want to regulate vitamin and
herb production in this country. They have as their goal to make vitamins and
supplements prescription only! So, the same guys that poo-poo vitamins want to
regulate and dispense them. C’mon man!
Now I can go on to this weeks article with that off my
chest.
Most people have heard of supplementing with fish oil for various health deficiencies. It was reported to be good for heart health and help lower triglycerides and cholesterol. I am going to show you why you should kick the fish oil to the curb, and start taking krill oil instead. It’s not that fish oil is necessarily bad for you, but krill oil is much better for the job at hand.
Most people consume far too many fats from processed foods
and grains. These are omega 6 fatty acids. They promote inflammation in the
body, causing and promoting diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis, high blood
pressure, diabetes and other auto immune disorders. The ideal diet ratio of
omega 6 to omega 3 is 1:1, which none of us is close to achieving. Since our
diet is so poor, supplementing with a good omega 3, krill oil, is essential.
Historically, the standard in comparing fish oils has been
to look at the amount of EPA and DHA in each capsule. The more there is the
better. In fish oil, the EPA/DHA content is numerically higher than krill oil.
But, krill oil is absorbed 10 to 15 times better than fish oil. Why? Fish oil
is a triglyceride molecule that must be broken down in your gut to its fatty
acid base of EPA/DHA before it is usable. Krill oil is already in the correct
form in the capsule, so your body uses virtually 100 percent of it!
Additionally, krill oil contains the powerful antioxidant
astaxanthin which prevents perishable EPA/DHA from going rancid. According to a
recent study, the majority of fish oil sold off store shelves is actually
rancid before you even open the bottle, because it doesn’t have the protective
antioxidant, astaxanthin.
Our genes have “switches” that can turn them on or off.
Nutrients control those switches. Your liver plays a large part in how your
body uses carbs and fats, utilizing omega 6 and omega 3 fats to sense your
nutritional state and influence gene expression. Krill oil has been shown to
influence your metabolism and genes to improve. Both fish oil and krill oil
have omega 3 fats in them, but they differ greatly in how they affect gene
controlling metabolism!
For example, krill oil enhances glucose metabolism in the
liver, fish oil does not. Krill oil promotes fat metabolism, fish oil does not.
Krill oil helps regulate the mitochondrial respiratory chain and decreases the
production of cholesterol, fish oil does not. So, krill oil will help lower
your triglycerides and cholesterol levels and increase your energy production.
The long held belief that fish oil helps lower cholesterol
may not even be true, according to the most recent research. Krill oil has been
shown in the most recent studies to favorably alter the expression of genes
regulating hepatic glucose metabolism. So, those people struggling with obesity
and type 2 diabetes should be supplementing with krill because it has been
shown to promote glucose uptake by tissues other than the liver, which
significantly lowers blood triglyceride levels.
Krill oil has been shown to protect the brain. Low levels of
EPA/DHA accelerate cognitive decline and increase your risk for mood swings and
mood disorders. Those suffering from depression have been found to have lower
levels of omega 3 in their blood. A 2007 study found that EPA/DHA in krill oil
can lessen a variety of brain and mental disorders, including autism and
dyslexia. DHA also protects your genes from mutation which can lead to
Parkinson’s and some forms of Alzheimer’s.
Krill oil is anti-inflammatory. GreenMedInfo.com now lists
more than 25 different diseases krill may help prevent or reverse. Some include
coronary heart disease and stroke, Crohn’s, Rheumatoid arthritis, cancers of
the breast, colon and prostate, hypertension and preventing premature delivery
of babies.
In an ideal world we would get our omega 3 fats from eating
fish regularly. Unfortunately, most food sources of fish oil are now
contaminated with mercury and other heavy metals. Most bottled fish oil, even
if it says “mercury free”, may have other heavy carcinogenic metals in them.
Krill oil does not have this problem. Krill do not live long enough to
accumulate toxins, plus when they are harvested in the Antarctic, they are from
as clean an environment as any place on earth.
To wrap it up, krill oil is better because the antioxidant
potency is 48 times higher than fish oil and it also contains astaxanthin. It
is directly metabolized without the need to be broken down into usable pieces,
called bioavailability. The ORAC value on krill as an antioxidant is 300 times
that of vitamin A and E, 47 times that of Lutein, and 34 times that of CoQ10 or
ubiquinol. Krill oil doesn’t go rancid, and should not be refrigerated like
fish oil must. Krill is a more environmentally sustainable source than fish
oil. And krill oil is not likely to be contaminated as fish oil can.
Switch to krill oil today. It is better for you than the old fish oil standard. Look
for genuine Antarctic krill oil which is cold processed. Make sure the company
does not use hexane to extract the oil from the krill, which is the most common
method. Hexane is a dangerous chemical. It should also be free of heavy metals,
PCB’s, dioxins and other contaminants. Krill should cost you less than a dollar
a day to take.