Tuesday, August 28, 2007

Doctors recommend Omega 3s and CoQ10

My RSS reader has been monitoring a blog from "Rebuild from Depression" (http://www.rebuild-from-depression.com/). I'll admit I don't actually read it often but the beauty of Real Simple Syndication (RSS) is being informed when new content is added. This one did catch my eye and I clicked the link to read the full article. Why? I usually get depressed reading about depression so it had to be something else. As you can tell from my Credible Evidence listings to the right of my blog, my larger interest is health issues related to the heart and diet. So, why is that not depressing? Guess I'm just wierd - though not depressed - even though some might think I have reason to be (see my previous post).


The new content that caught my eye began as follows:


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"Best Omega 3 Food: Fish and Seafood

Every day it seems that there is new evidence that Omega 3 fatty acids can alleviate depression, heart disease, Alzheimer’s, and improve overall health. The Omega 3 supplement industry has soared.

Clinical trials on depression use high doses of Omega 3 fatty acids and find that people struggling with depression get some relief. Omega 3s are important in brain function generally and the western diet has been rather deficient in the fat for the last century.

What your best strategy is to improve your Omega 3 fatty acid status is to take an Omega 3 supplement and to add foods to your diet high in Omega 3 and low in Omega 6."
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I added the emphasis by italicizing, bolding, & bluing "heart disease" above.

I encourage you to read the full article at http://www.rebuild-from-depression.com/blog/2007/08/best_omega_3_food_fish_and_sea.html



Well Omega 3s have gotten a lot of press in the heart disease circles. I was even asked to begin taking fish oil supplements by my cardiologist several years ago. However I'd already been taking it for sometime but not on any of my doctor's advice as they mostly seemed to prefer statin drugs for what ails me and almost anyone else. And being advised to partake of FAT by a cardiologist who is mostly interested in your cholesterol levels (rather than your health), and the fact that Omega 3s have been shown to increase serum cholesterol in clinical trials, is a bit surprising. You may detect a bit of cynicism in my voice (or typed words). And it's true. I'll admit it. It's there. My parenthetical dig above, "rather than your health", is not entirely fair. In fact it was a stent toting cardiologist who I can thank for initiating my interest in what was to me, the good doobee patient, out of the box thinking which then led to my ongoing research into things good for my 'ticker'. What did he do or say? Well, after shoving a non-drug eluting stent up my groin into my heart to smash the nasty, gooey, fatty substance back out of the way of oxygen carrying red blood cells that were sorely needed (pun intended) by my suffering heart muscles, he suggested that I might look into taking a supplement called CoQ10 since I complained of statin myalgia (statin induced muscle soreness).

Anyway fish oil (not the same as snake oil), CoQ10, and many other interesting things have come from my search. Maybe one or more of my findings will be of interest to you as well.

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