Known and Suspected Risks of Omega-3 Fatty Acids

The following are excerpts from “www.wikipedia.org - free encyclopedia” :

In its letter dated from the 1970's the U. S. Food and Drug Administration Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition, Office of Nutritional Products, Labeling, and Dietary Supplements noted that the known or suspected risks of omega-3 fatty acids may include:

• Increased bleeding times,
• The possibility of hemorrhagic stroke,
• Oxidation of omega-3 fatty acids forming biologically active oxidation products,
• Increased levels of low density lipoproteins (LDL) cholesterol or apoproteins associated with LDL cholesterol among diabetics and hyperlipidemics,
• Reduced glycemic control among diabetics.
• Suppression of immune and inflammation responses, and consequently, to decreased resistance to infections and increased susceptibility to opportunistic bacteria
• Inducing Omega 6 deficiency, which could worsen the condition for which it is used.

However, in the thousands of studies done on the effects of Omega-3 in human biology, none of these negative findings have been found to be scientifically conclusive.

Perhaps the greatest risk of fish oil Omega-3 supplementation is heavy metal poisoning by the body's accumulation of traces of heavy metals heavy metal poisoning, in particular; mercury, lead, nickel, arsenic and cadmium, and other contaminants (PCB's, furans, dioxins) which may be found in less refined fish oil supplements.

The solution to safe supplementation with fish oil is to ensure that the oil is pure.

For more information, go to: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omega_3