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You are here: Home / Archives for Parkinson’s

The Silent Inflammation That Afflicts 3 Out of 4 Americans

February 6, 2015 By Sherri

carotenoids as natural astaxanthin

Story at-a-glance+

By Dr. Mercola – July 12, 2011

Scientists long ago discovered that a class of naturally occurring pigments called carotenoids held powerful antioxidant properties that are crucial for your health.

Carotenoids are the compounds in your foods that give you that vibrant cornucopia of color—from green grasses to red beets, to the spectacular yellows and oranges of bell peppers—as well as all of the beautiful flowers in your garden.

There are more than 700 naturally occurring carotenoids, but most people are familiar with only a few. Right now, you probably have about ten different carotenoids circulating through your bloodstream.

Only recently has one particular carotenoid jumped to the front of the line in terms of its status as a “supernutrient,” becoming the focus of a large and growing number of peer-reviewed scientific studies.

This carotenoid is called natural astaxanthin.

Synthetic (laboratory-made) astaxanthin is now commonly used worldwide to supplement fish feed lots in order to help them obtain the desired pinkish to orange-red color. You really should avoid synthetic astaxanthin because it’s made from petrochemicals.

Not only does natural astaxanthin carry potent antioxidant abilities, but as it turns out, it is also a powerful anti-inflammatory, which will be the focus of this article. Other carotenoids are easily obtainable through a good diet rich in fresh organic produce. However, this powerful carotenoid is harder to come by.

Astaxanthin Is in a League of Its Own

Astaxanthin is produced only by the microalgae Haematococcus pluvialis when its water supply dries up, forcing it to protect itself from ultraviolet radiation. It’s the algae’s survival mechanism—Astaxanthin serves as a “force field” to protect the algae from lack of nutrition and/or intense sunlight.

Astaxanthin is now thought to be the most powerful antioxidant found in nature.

There are only two main sources of astaxanthin—the microalgae that produce it, and the sea creatures that consume the algae (such as salmon, shellfish, and krill).Astaxanthin is now thought to be the most powerful antioxidant found in nature.

This pigment is the most commonly occurring red carotenoid in marine and aquatic animals and is what gives salmon their characteristic pink color. Astaxanthin is far more powerful than beta-carotene, alpha-tocopherol, lycopene and lutein, other members of its chemical family. It exhibits VERY STRONG free radical scavenging activity and helps protect your cells, organs, and body tissues from oxidative damage and inflammation.

What Makes Astaxanthin Special?

There are many properties that make this carotenoid unique. Here are the main differences:

  • Astaxanthin is by far the most powerful carotenoid antioxidant when it comes to free radical scavenging: astaxanthin is 65 times more powerful than vitamin C,1 54 times more powerful than beta-carotene, and 14 times more powerful than vitamin E.
  • Astaxanthin is far more effective than other carotenoids at “singlet oxygen quenching,” which is a particular type of oxidation. The damaging effects of sunlight and various organic materials are caused by this less-stable form of oxygen. Astaxanthin is 550 times more powerful than vitamin Eand 11 times more powerful than beta-carotene at neutralizing singlet oxygen.
  • Astaxanthin crosses the blood-brain barrier AND the blood-retinal barrier (beta carotene and lycopene do not), which brings antioxidant and anti-inflammatory protection to your eyes, brain and central nervous system and reducing your risk for cataracts, macular degeneration, blindness, dementia, and Alzheimer’s disease.
  • Astaxanthin is soluble in lipids, so it incorporates into cell membranes.
  • It’s a potent UVB absorber and reduces DNA damage.
  • It’s a very potent natural anti-inflammatory.

And how about some more great news?

There have been no adverse reactions found for people taking astaxanthin. Before I go into how astaxanthin works as an anti-inflammatory, let’s review what inflammation is and how it can cause devastating disease.

What You Need to Know About Inflammation

Inflammation is a necessary and important biological process that allows you to survive. It’s your body’s response to fighting infection and repairing damaged tissues—in other words, it’s part of your natural healing process. If you didn’t have inflammation, you’d never heal from any infection or injury.

When a foreign bacterium or virus enters your body, your inflammatory body kicks in to eliminate it. If you sprain your ankle, your inflammatory system activates to begin repairing damaged tissues.

There are five classic signs and symptoms of inflammation:

  1. Redness
  2. Pain
  3. Warmth
  4. Swelling
  5. Loss of function

Even sunburn is a sign of inflammation—when UV rays begin to damage your skin cells, the inflammatory “machine” turns on, making your skin red and warm. Mast cells are the key initiators of inflammation, activating potent “mediators.” The mediators attract white blood cells, and activate cells that produce additional mediators.

Mediators come in many forms, including:

  • Histamines
  • Tumor necrosis factor-alpha
  • Nitric oxide
  • Hydrogen peroxide
  • Interleukins
  • Prostaglandins (produced from arachidonic acid and the COX-1 and COX-2 enzymes)

Although having a red, swollen and painful sprained ankle is a clear sign you are experiencing inflammation, you may have an undercurrent of inflammation in your body and not even be aware. And silence can be deadly.

Chronic Inflammation: Silence Is Deadly

Inflammation comes and goes in your body as part of the normal healing process. However, prolonged inflammation can be devastating. Many people are experiencing ongoing, low-level inflammation without even knowing it—and this is a crucial factor behind chronic disease.

This systemic or “silent” inflammation is the evil twin of oxidation, and where you find one, you nearly always find the other. But this type of inflammation doesn’t cause you any pain—it lives “under the radar,” quietly lingering for years and even decades, where it silently injures your heart, brain, and immune system.

Left unchecked, systemic inflammation can lead to anything from asthma to rheumatoid arthritis to Alzheimer’s disease. In fact, the number of diseases linked to chronic inflammation is staggering:

  • Heart disease, atherosclerosis and stroke
  • Diabetes
  • Alzheimer’s disease
  • Parkinson’s disease
  • Multiple sclerosis
  • Rheumatoid arthritis
  • Ulcers, irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), and colon cancer
  • Allergies

There are many, many more. Unfortunately, Americans have the highest levels of silent inflammation in the world, with over 75 percent of people afflicted.

Why?

Two words: diet and lifestyle. Some of the largest contributors to chronic inflammation are smoking; a diet high in sugar, fried foods and trans fats; inadequate exercise; stress; and vitamin D deficiency. There are a couple of ways to measure how much inflammation is silently occurring in your body.

One blood test measures a substance called C-reactive protein (CRP), which might actually be a better predictor of your heart attack risk than lipids. Another test is called Sed Rate (or ESR for “erythrocyte sedimentation rate”), which is especially helpful in monitoring rheumatoid arthritis and other autoimmune diseases.

CRP is produced in your liver and coronary arteries, then released into your bloodstream when your body is fighting inflammation. In one study, natural astaxanthin was found to reduce CRP levels by 20 percent in just eight weeks. Another study found astaxanthin caused 43 percent of people with high CRP levels to drop into the average-risk range.

Clearly, this powerful agent has a remarkable ability to cool down the inflammatory process, thereby decreasing your body’s need to produce CRP.

By decreasing inflammation, astaxanthin can help prevent, and treat, a number of problems that result directly from inflammation, including rheumatoid arthritis, tennis elbow, carpal tunnel syndrome, and other repetitive stress injuries, which I will talk more about shortly.

Anti-Inflammatory Drugs Are Definitely NOT the Answer

Anti-inflammatories have earned a bad reputation. This is due to the fact that most of the compounds people commonly recognize as anti-inflammatories are DRUGS, rather than natural agents. Natural anti-inflammatories, on the other hand, can be very beneficial and lack the adverse side effects of anti-inflammatory drugs.

As a quick review, let’s review the truth about some anti-inflammatory drugs:

  • Aspirin can cause your stomach to bleed (acts on both COX-1 and COX-2)
  • Tylenol (acetaminophen) can damage your liver
  • Vioxx and Celebrex (non-steroidal anti-inflammatories, or NSAIDS) can cause heart problems (act strongly on COX-2 only)

In 1999, the New England Journal of Medicine stated that NSAIDS have caused as many deaths as AIDS. Vioxx alone has killed more than 60,000 people! I urge you to avoid these dangerous anti-inflammatory drugs since they have the potential to cause very serious side effects and even death. But astaxanthin is a different story and will not harm you.

Astaxanthin affects a wide range of mediators, but in a gentler, less concentrated manner and without the negative side effects. And it works for 4 out of 5 people. In one study,2 more than 80 percent of arthritis sufferers improved with astaxanthin.

Folks, that is four out of five people, that is impressive.

How Astaxanthin Tells Your Inflammation to ‘Chill’

A great deal of research has been done into how astaxanthin reduces inflammation. As is true for many antioxidants, its anti-inflammatory properties are related to its powerful antioxidant activity.

Astaxanthin suppresses a variety of inflammatory mediators—including tumor necrosis factor alpha, a major prostaglandin and a major interleukin, nitric oxide, COX-1 and COX-2 enzymes. It takes longer to produce effects than NSAIDS, but this means it doesn’t result in the dangerous side effects.

As G. Cole, UCLA Professor of Medicine and Neurology, reported to Newsweek Magazine in a Special Summer Issue in 2005 (pages 26-28):

“While anti-inflammatory drugs usually block a single target molecule and reduce its activity dramatically, natural anti-inflammatories gently tweak a broader range of inflammatory compounds. You’ll get greater safety and efficacy reducing five inflammatory mediators by 30 percent than by reducing one by 100 percent.”

So, what sorts of conditions can astaxanthin treat?

Astaxanthin May Help You Be an Athlete Extraordinaire or Weekend Warrior

The evidence is very positive for astaxanthin’s effects on a variety of inflammatory disorders. Let’s take a look at the human clinical studies related to four common inflammatory complaints: tennis elbow, carpal tunnel, rheumatoid arthritis, and exercise-related joint soreness.

    1. Tennis elbow (tendonitis): Caused by inflamed tendons, tennis elbow results in pain and decreased grip strength when gripping something with your hand.

A study by the Health Research and Studies Center involved giving tennis elbow sufferers an eight-week course of astaxanthin. The treatment group showed a 93 percent improvement in grip strength, as well as decreased pain.

    1. Carpal tunnel syndrome (CTS), aka “repetitive stress injury”: CTS is a debilitating disease of the wrist that manifests as numbness, pain, and even paralysis.

A study by the above group found eight weeks of astaxanthin supplementation resulted in significant pain reduction, both in terms of severity and duration, leaving researchers concluding that astaxanthin might be a viable alternative to surgery.

    1. Rheumatoid arthritis: RA is a painful and disfiguring autoimmune disorder.

After receiving astaxanthin for only eight weeks, RA sufferers showed a 35 percent improvement in pain levels, as well as a 40 percent improvement in their ability to perform daily activities. [Journal of the American College of Nutrition. 21(5):Oct, 2002.]

    1. Post-exercise joint soreness: Can astaxanthin be of benefit to you if you are healthy and have no disease or affliction?

In 2001, Dr. Andrew Fry of the University of Memphis studied the effects of astaxanthin on healthy people who trained with weights and who would typically experience exercise-induced joint soreness. He gave young male subjects astaxanthin for three weeks, while they performed strenuous workouts, and then evaluated them for knee pain.

The placebo group experienced post-training knee soreness, lasting up to 48 hours after their workouts. But the treatment group showed no increase whatsoever in knee joint soreness following workouts. [Fry, A. (2001) “Astaxanthin Clinical Trial for Delayed Onset Muscular Soreness.” Human Performance Laboratories, The University of Memphis, Report 1, August 16, 2001.]

So it appears that this amazing nutrient can help you, whether you are a top athlete or a weekend warrior, whether you have mild overuse symptoms or a major inflammatory illness—it truly seems to have benefits for anyone and everyone!

Make Sure Your Astaxanthin Is the Natural Variety from Marine Algae—NOT Synthetic

Some aquaculture companies are beginning to use natural astaxanthin instead of synthetic, even though it costs more, because it’s better for the health of the animals, and it’s far superior for pigmentation. Animals fed fish food with natural astaxanthin have higher survival rates, better growth rates, better immunity, fertility, and reproduction. Unfortunately, synthetic astaxanthin still dominates the farmed salmon industry worldwide.

If your salmon label does not read “wild” or “naturally colored,” you’re probably going to be eating a coloring agent somewhat closer to motor oil than antioxidant. Natural astaxanthin is more than 20 times more powerful as an antioxidant than synthetic astaxanthin.

Wild salmon are 400 percent higher in astaxanthin than farmed salmon, and 100 percent of their pigment is natural astaxanthin, rather than synthetic. Plus, wild salmon have much higher levels of omega-3 fatty acids than the farmed version.

But even if you are successful in purchasing genuine wild salmon, there is the problem with high levels of mercury and other unwanted toxins, not to mention the skyrocketing prices.

Final Recommendations

You may recognize the name astaxanthin because I have mentioned it in reference to krill oil, my favorite source of animal-based omega-3 fatty acids. One of the reasons I am such a fan of krill is that itnaturally contains astaxanthin. And our krill oil has the highest concentration of astaxanthin of any krill oil on the market today.

But, as high as it is, new research suggests you could enjoy even MORE benefits by further increasing your astaxanthin, even if you are already taking a krill oil supplement.

If you decide to give astaxanthin a try, I recommend with a dose of 8-10 mg per day. If you are on a krill oil supplement, take that into consideration; different krill products have different concentrations of astaxanthin, so check your label.

 

krill oil vs fish oil infographics

Learn why krill oil is a safer and smarter choice than fish oil through the Fish Oil versus Krill Oil: The Cold, Hard Facts infographic. Use the embed code to share it on your website or visit our infographic page for the high-res version.
<img src="https://media.mercola.com/assets/images/infographic/krill-oil-vs-fish-oil.jpg" alt="krill oil vs fish oil infographics" border="0" style="max-width:100%; min-width:300px; margin: 0 auto 20px auto; display:block;"><p style="max-width:800px; min-width:300px; margin:0 auto; text-align:center;">Learn why krill oil is a safer and smarter choice than fish oil through the <a href="http://www.mercola.com/infographics/fish-oil-vs-krill-oil.htm"><strong>Fish Oil versus Krill Oil: The Cold, Hard Facts</strong></a> infographic. Visit our infographic page for the high-res version.</p>

Filed Under: Thoughts for the Day Tagged With: allergies, Alzheimer's, anti-inflammatory, antioxidants, aspirin, astaxanthin, blindness, blood-brain barrier, blood-retinal barrier, brain, c-reactive protein, carotenoids, cataracts, celebrex, central nervous system, colon cancer, dementia, diabetes, eyes, heart, IBS, inflammation, irritable bowel, macular degeneration, multiple sclerosis, NSAIDS, pain, Parkinson's, rheumatoid arthritis, tylenol, ulcers, vioxx, vitamin d

Your Practical Guide to Omega-3 Benefits and Supplementation

January 23, 2015 By Sherri

By Dr. Mercola

Omega-3 in SalmonTime and again, I have emphasized that omega-3 fats are essential to your overall health. And I am not alone – other health experts stress the same, and decades of research have been devoted to discovering the many health benefits of omega-3. Omega-3 comes from both animal and plant sources, most notably from krill oil and fish oil. They have become a multibillion-dollar business, with Americans spending about 2.6 billion dollars on nutritional supplements and foods fortified with omega-3 fats.1

Get the lowdown on omega-3 – its different types and sources, the omega-3 and omega-6 balance you should strive to achieve, and how to know if you are getting the highest-quality omega-3 fats for the wealth of health gains.

Types of Omega-3 Fats

Omega-3 fats are acquired from both animal and plant sources, but there is a lot of confusion when it comes to what type you should take to get the best omega-3 benefits.

Marine animals such as fish and krill provide eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) anddocosahexaenoic acid (DHA), which are mostly promoted for their protective effects on your heart. Flaxseed, chia, hemp, and a few other foods, on the other hand, offeralpha-linoleic acid (ALA). 2

You would want to choose an animal-based variety – most of the health benefits linked to omega-3 fats are linked to the animal-based EPA and DHA, not the plant-based ALA.

Furthermore, ALA is converted into EPA and DHA in your body at a very low ratio. What this means is that even if you consume large amounts of ALA, your body can only convert a relatively small amount into EPA and DHA, and only when there are sufficient enzymes.

Remember, though, that plant-based omega-3 fats are NOT inherently harmful or should be avoided. Ideally, what you want to do is include an animal-based form in your diet. For instance, you can combine flax and hemp in your diet with animal-based omega-3s.

A Rundown of Omega-3 Benefits

Omega-3 ranks among the most important essential nutrients out there today.3 In 2008, the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition4, 5, 6 published three studies investigating the role of EPA and DHA omega-3 fatty acids in elderly populations.

Low concentrations of EPA and DHA resulted in an increased risk of death from all causes, as well as accelerated cognitive decline. The studies also suggest that a higher intake of omega-3s may bring certain health benefits that short-term supplementation cannot give.

Here are other evidence of omega-3 benefits:

    1. Omega-3 benefits your heart health. An Italian study (GISSI)7 of 11,324 heart attack survivors found that patients supplementing with fish oils markedly reduced their risk of another heart attack, stroke, or death. In a separate study, 8 American medical researchers reported that men who consumed fish once or more every week had a 50 percent lower risk of dying from a sudden cardiac event than do men who eat fish less than once a month.
    2. Omega-3 normalizes and regulates your cholesterol triglyceride levels.Compared to a statin, both fish oil and krill oil are more efficient in doing this. According to a study comparing the efficiency of krill and fish oils in reducing triglyceride levels,9 both oils notably reduced the enzyme activity that causes the liver to metabolize fat, but krill had a more pronounced effects, reducing liver triglycerides significantly more.

Fasting triglyceride levels are a powerful indication of your ability to have healthy lipid profiles, which can be indicative of your heart health.

Studies have also shown that omega-3 fats are anti-arrhythmic (preventing or counteracting cardiac arrhythmia), anti-thrombotic (prevents thrombosis or a blood clot within a blood vessel), anti-atherosclerotic (preventing fatty deposits and fibrosis of the inner layer of your arteries), and anti-inflammatory (counteracting inflammation – the heat, pain, swelling, etc).

    1. DHA affects your child’s learning and behavior. Do you want to maximize your child’s intellectual potential? A study published in Plos One in June 201310 linked low levels of DHA with poorer reading, and memory and behavioral problems in healthy school-age children. In another study published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition in August 2013,11 children who consumed an omega-3 fat supplement as infants scored higher on rule learning, vocabulary, and intelligent testing at ages 3 to 5.

Previous research also found that children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and related behavior or learning disabilities are more likely to have low omega-3 fat levels.

Omega-3 has such great impact on your brain health – EPA and DHA keep the dopamine levels in your brain high, increase neuronal growth in the frontal cortex of your brain, and increase cerebral circulation.

Omega-3 has been found to save the lives of children going through short bowel syndrome (SBS)
    1. Omega-3 has been found to save the lives of children going through short bowel syndrome (SBS), which is uncommon but impacts thousands of people in the United States. SBS can occur from birth (when a portion of the intestine fails to develop) or due to an infectious inflammatory disease striking premature newborns. In adults, it can be caused by surgery for Crohn’s disease or injury.

Alarmed by the situation, Dr. Mark Puder, surgeon at Children’s Hospital Boston,12 said that they knew most of the children with SBS were going to die. Then the physicians noted that when the kids were given the nutritional supplement Omegaven (made of fish oil), they began to improve drastically.

The fish oil treatment was given to 112 children at the hospital, where more than 90 percent of the children with SBS are still alive. There has been striking results that the fish oil supplement is also made available at 70 hospitals worldwide.

Omega-3 benefits cover many areas of health, from mental and behavioral health to preventing premature death from disease, including the following:

Coronary heart disease and stroke Essential fatty acid deficiency in infancy (retinal and brain development) General brain function, including memory and Parkinson’s disease
ADHD Autoimmune disorders, e.g. lupus and nephropathy Osteoporosis
Crohn’s disease Cancers of the breast, colon, and prostate Rheumatoid arthritis

You May Be Running Low on These Beneficial Fats

Omega-3 Deficiency Affects the HeartMost people fail to consume sufficient amounts of omega-3 fats, which makesomega-3 deficiency likely the sixth biggest killer of Americans. This deficiency can cause or contribute to serious mental and physical health problems, and may be a significant underlying factor of up to 96,000 premature deaths each year.

In fact, dietary fat intake has been among the most widely studied dietary risk factors for breast and prostate cancers. Two studies from 2002 explain how omega-3 can protect against breast cancer. BRCA1 (breast cancer gene 1) and BRCA2 (breast cancer gene 2) are two tumor suppressor genes that, when functioning normally, help repair DNA damage, a process that also prevents tumor development.

Omega-3 and omega-6 fats have been found to influence these two genes – omega-3 tends to reduce cancer cell growth, while highly processed and toxic omega-6 has been found to cause cancer growth.

Considering that omega-3 deficiency is a common underlying factor for cancer and heart disease, it is no longer surprising for statistics to show that this deficiency may be responsible for nearly 100,000 deaths every year.

Special attention should also be given to the fact that most women have major deficiencies of omega-3. A 1991 study at the Mayo Clinic focused on 19 “normal” pregnant women consuming “normal diets,” and it showed that all were deficient in omega-3 fats. Another study compared Inuit (Eskimo) women to Canadian women, and it revealed omega-3 deficiency in the milk of the Canadian nursing moms.

Animal cells cannot form omega-3, so a fetus must obtain all of its omega-3 fatty acids from its mother’s diet. A mother’s dietary intake and plasma concentrations of DHA directly influence the DHA level of the developing fetus, impacting the child’s brain and eye health.

So remember that if you are pregnant, your baby is dependent on the omega-3 from your diet via breast milk. It is then crucial that you maintain adequate omega-3 supply.

The Omega-3-Omega-6 Balance You Should Maintain in Your Body

omega 3 capletsOmega-3 and omega-6 are two types of fat that are essential for human health. However, the typical American consumes far too many omega-6 fats in her diet while consuming very low omega-3 levels.

The ideal ratio of omega-6 to omega-3 fats is 1:1. Our forefathers evolved over millions of years on this ratio. Today, however, our ratio averages from 20:1 to 50:1 – this spells serous dangers to your well-being! In fact, mainstream media has finally reported that lack of omega-3 is among the most serious and pressing health issues plaguing our world.Omega-6 is primarily sourced from corn, soy, canola, safflower, and sunflower oils. These are overabundant in the typical diet, which accounts for excess omega-6 levels.

Omega-6 fats predominate the diet in the US, and this encourages the production ofinflammation in your body. Many scientists believe that one reason there is a high incidence of heart disease, hypertension, diabetes, obesity, premature aging, and some cancer forms today is this profound omega-3-omega-6 imbalance.

Sources of Animal-Based Omega-3 Fats

Perhaps you are wondering what animal-based omega-3 options are available for you. Here are the primary ones:

    • Fish – In a perfect world, fish can provide you all the omega-3s you need. Unfortunately, the vast majority of the fish supply is now heavily tainted with industrial toxins and pollutants, such as heavy metals, PCBs, and radioactive poisons. These toxins make eating fish no longer recommended.

About the only exception are wild-caught Alaskan salmon and very small fish like sardines. The highest concentrations of mercury are found in large carnivorous fish like tuna, sea bass, and marlin. You may need to be especially cautious canned tuna as well, as independent testing by the Mercury Policy Project found that the average mercury concentration in canned tuna is far over the “safe limits” of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

It is also important that you avoid farmed salmon, which contains only about half of the omega-3 levels of wild salmon. It may also harbor a range of contaminants, including environmental toxins, synthetic astaxanthin, and harmful metabolic byproducts and agrichemical residues of GMO corn- and soy-based feed they are given.

    • Fish oil – Fish oil is among the primary ways that people enhance their intake of omega-3 fats. High-quality fish oils can certainly provide many health benefits. However, this oil is weak in antioxidants. This means that as you increase your omega-3 intake through fish oil consumption, you actually increase your need for added antioxidant protection.

This happens because fish oil is a bit perishable, and oxidation leads to the formation of harmful free radicals. Antioxidants are therefore necessary to ensure that the fish oil doesn’t oxidize and become rancid in your body.

    • Cod liver oil – I no longer recommend this because of the potential for problematic ratios of vitamins A and D.
    • Krill oil – This is my preferred choice for animal-based omega-3 fats. Its antioxidant potency is 48 times higher than fish oil. It also contains astaxanthin, a marine-source flavonoid that creates a special bond with the EPA and DHA to allow direct metabolism of the antioxidants, making them more bioavailable.

Krill Oil BenefitsKrill – or “okiami” as the Japanese call it – are small, shrimp-like creatures that are a cherished food source in Asia since the 19th century or earlier.

Krill harvesting is a completely sustainable and one of the most eco-friendly on the planet. Krill are the largest biomass in the world and can be found in all oceans. Antarctic krill, by far the most abundant, is under the management of an international organization of 25 countries known as the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR).

Antarctic krill biomass is using strict international precautionary catch limit regulations, reviewed regularly to assure sustainability. No shortage of krill has ever been forecasted by CCAMLR.

Fish oil and krill oil are the two major players in the realm of animal-based omega-3 fats. But I have plenty of reasons to believe that krill oil offers superior benefits. In fact, two studies illustrate this:

  • A January 2011 study in Lipids13 found that the metabolic effects of the two oils are “essential similar,” but krill oil is as effective as fish oil despite containing less EPA and DHA.
  • Another data, still unpublished in that year, suggests that krill oil is absorbed up to 10 to 15 times as well as fish oil. Its molecular composition14 is said to account for this better absorbability.

This Mercola infographic will provide a summary of why I choose krill over fish oil.

Giving Omega-3 Fats to Your Child

From the time of your pregnancy through your child’s later life, omega-3 fats DHA and EPA have a radically important role in her brain health and other functions. I recommend supplementing with krill oil before and during pregnancy, and while you breastfeed. Babies receive DHA through your breast milk, so continuing breastfeeding through the first year will give your child a great headstart for health and success.

As soon as your child can safely swallow a capsule, she can start taking a high-quality krill oil supplement, which should be kid-sized or about half the size of a regular capsule. The supplement should also be odor-free, making it easy and palatable for children to swallow.

Final Recommendations

Make sure that you and your children get the right type of omega-3 fats. Go for a pollution-free, eco-friendly, and highly sustainable source, like krill oil. The good news is that krill oil appears to work at a lower dose, and this results in major cost savings, making it more affordable than fish oil.

I always emphasize making healthy, wholesome food choices to get all the nutrients you need. In this case, supplementing your diet with a high-quality source of omega-3 fats, such as real krill oil, is a surefire way to help optimize your health.

 

Filed Under: Thoughts for the Day Tagged With: ADHD, ALA, breast, cancer, cholesterol, colon, Crohn's, DHA, Dr. Mercola, EPA, essential fats, fish, heart, inflammation, krill, memory, nutrition, omega 3, Parkinson's, prostate, rheumatoid arthritis, stroke, triglyceride

About Me

About Me

I am a singer, dancer, actress, model. ... Oh wait! That was my life BEFORE Lyme Disease, Multiple Sclerosis, Traumatic Brain Injury and Chemical Injury. Join me on my pursuit to find joy in the midst of loss and pain! The one thing I certainly still have in this life is my humor! I hope you enjoy my blog full of information about living with disabling illness, pain and loss, as well as counting my blessings and just being plain silly!

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