First, a headline relevancy rant: the headline here is both vague and misleading. "Researcher: 1970s Inuit heart disease fish oil study flawed" maintains the word count of CBC's article while conveying far more information. The headline as chosen is akin to a headline in a Poughkeepsie, NY, newspaper headline "3 killed in house fire" ... where the fire in question turns out to have been in Osaka, Japan. A human tragedy, yes. Likely highly relevant to most in Poughkeepsie? No. Would those with friends or relatives in Osaka be better served by the more accurate headline? Yes. As given the headline is linkbait -- it fails to provide sufficient context to determine whether or not the article is worth reading.<p>Fish oil has been tied to multiple benefits, not just heart disease. Claiming a blanket lack of efficacy for fish oil supplementation presumes that 1) there is no heart disease benefit (all we know is that there are methodological errors in the Inuit study) and that there are no other health reasons for supplementing with fish oil. From the Wikipedia article, identified (all specifically tied to studies).<p>• Cancer<p>• Cardiovascular<p>• Hypertension<p>• Mental health<p>• Alzheimer's disease<p>• Lupus<p>• Psoriasis<p>• Pregnancy
There is a 20,000 person 2x2 randomized controlled trial underway right now looking at how useful fish oil is in preventing disease: <a href="http://www.vitalstudy.org" rel="nofollow">http://www.vitalstudy.org</a> Results will be out around 2017-2020.<p>An observational study from the 1970s and a critique of an observational study from the 1970s will carry little merit compared to a 20k RCT.<p>Knowing that we'll have better data in 5 years, the comment by the researcher is nauseating: "They simply don't do anything for you. The people should know that it doesn't help to prevent heart disease." Since we haven't quite reached an apex in research in fish oil, the comment is short-sighted and is overstating what we know about fish oil to date.
There is a more recent popular fish oil study - a randomized, placebo-controlled trial - showing that fish oil has no effect on CV mortality or morbidity. It's in the New England Journal, no less. <a href="http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa1205409" rel="nofollow">http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa1205409</a>
> "The fish oil capsules I don't think will stand up to a critical review. They simply don't do anything for you," he said. "The people should know that it doesn't help to prevent heart disease."<p>This struck me. For example examine.com has[0] quite good coverage when it comes to supplements like fish oil, and not surprisingly their round-up shows multitude of benefits from fish oil.<p>Okay, perhaps the phrasing was altered to provoke and mislead the reader, but still.<p>0: <a href="http://examine.com/supplements/Fish+Oil/" rel="nofollow">http://examine.com/supplements/Fish+Oil/</a>
No surprise. Most "scientific" studies in the realm of medicine are bullshit. Even many of the ones trying hard not to be bullshit still end up in that bin. For a clear understanding of why, read this:<p><a href="http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/04/28/the-control-group-is-out-of-control/" rel="nofollow">http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/04/28/the-control-group-is-ou...</a>
This is on top of mounting concerns that fish oil supplementation may actually <i>increase</i> a man's risk of aggressive prostate cancer:<p><a href="https://www.fhcrc.org/en/news/releases/2013/07/omega-three-fatty-acids-risk-prostate-cancer.html" rel="nofollow">https://www.fhcrc.org/en/news/releases/2013/07/omega-three-f...</a><p>It's looking more and more like the prudent choice for men is to avoid fish oil supplements.
Popular and consensus opinions in nutrition (including those ostensibly backed by science) are overturned all the time. Just look at historical views on saturated fat, GI, cholesterol, etc. etc. That's why the seemingly anti-intellectual advice of "eat a variety of foods in moderation" is actually quite good advice.
The deeply flawed study that linked less heart disease to fish oil relied on public health records and hearsay. That doesn't seem like such a deep flaw, at least not for fish oil, in light of thousands of other studies that may confirm the hearsay was right or right about something other than heart disease.
They already did meta-studies a couple years ago that found no link between Omega-3s and heart diseases.<p><a href="http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=1357266" rel="nofollow">http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=1357266</a> <a href="http://archinte.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=1151420" rel="nofollow">http://archinte.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=11514...</a>
The America Heart Association's recommendation is based on multiple randomized control studies (<a href="http://circ.ahajournals.org/content/106/21/2747.full#sec-4" rel="nofollow">http://circ.ahajournals.org/content/106/21/2747.full#sec-4</a>), none of which are the study in question.
I take 1800mg of DHA a day and on those days my joins don't hurt. I do martial arts and that takes a toll on my knees but when i take fish oil they feel better.<p>Placebo? Maybe, but it works for me.
Eating fish is much more robustly tied to health outcomes. This is all the result of people absolutely refusing to follow health advice more complex than popping a pill.
The more I know about science, the more I understand that there's so much we don't know that there's very little we can say we know for sure, if any.
This turns my whole world upside down, next they're going to come out and say snake oil won't cure my rheumatism.[1]<p>[1]<a href="http://www.csicop.org/sb/show/peddling_snake_oil/" rel="nofollow">http://www.csicop.org/sb/show/peddling_snake_oil/</a>
Are the newer studies factoring in perhaps that their diets may have changed since the older studies? Do they eat less fish, etc. nowadays and eat more junk food? Consume more alcohol? Other drugs? More sedentary? If that's the case, the new study is deeply flawed.
More evidence that vitamins and supplements are bullshit. While people with specific conditions may benefit AFAIK there is no pill you can take that has actually been proven to improve the health outcomes on otherwise healthy people.<p>All this confusion is the natural result of the combination of profit seeking and the difficulty of medical research. Maybe someday they will find that magic pill just not yet.<p>NY Times had a bunch of good article on the subject at the end of last year such as this one:<p><a href="http://mobile.nytimes.com/blogs/well/2013/12/16/a-challenge-to-vitamins/" rel="nofollow">http://mobile.nytimes.com/blogs/well/2013/12/16/a-challenge-...</a>
As a vegetarian I am pleased to hear that those fish oil supplements are not all that they are cracked up to be.<p>As a child I was made to feel that <i>as a vegetarian</i>, if I did not take these fish oil supplements, then I would probably die. No TV advert or doctor told me that, just ambient peer pressure from good, well-meaning friends and their mothers that indulged in these fish oil things. The fear of god is one thing, scientific evidence from the back of the packet is something else. Looking back it is a miracle that I did not give in to the peer pressure.<p>I am part of the self-selected control group of vegetarians. We exist so any normal people (i.e. in the meat-eating cult) can see if you really need fish, meat or some scientifically proven meat/fish dietary supplement thing. As it happens the vegetarian control group, even if some of them do wear leather shoes, tends to outlive those that are tied to their beliefs about things like eating their fish oils, getting tonnes of protein from beef, eating things because those vitamins can only be found in pigs not celery and so on.<p>Hence I can quietly keep my feelings of "told you so" to myself on this one, rather than go round my friend's mum's house and tell her how wrong she was to try and force feed me that fish oil stuff.