RE: Attn: Bruce Fife

[Guest guest]

Dear Bruce,

Is Carlson's Norwegian Cod Liver Oil a good brand of cod liver oil to buy?

Love,

Pamela

Re: Re: cholesterol and fish oil

Lil,

Fish and cod liver oils provide the highest quality EFAs you can get. The

advantage that cod liver oil has over fish oil is that along with the EFA it

contains vitamins A and D. Vitamin D is especially important. Most people

are deficient to some degree in this vitamin. Our primary source of vitamin

D is from sunlight. However, during the winter most of us don't get enough

sunlight to produce the amount we need. The diet provides very little

vitamin D and it is virtually impossible to get enough from the diet alone,

if you don't eat liver. Foods that has the highest amount of vitamin D other

than liver are eggs and animal fat. But the amount of vitamin D in eggs and

animal fat is determined by the amount of sunshine the animals receive each

day. If they are locked up in pens inside buildings then they do not provide

any appreciable amount of the vitamin. They must be outside every day. But

even in winter they don't get much sunlight either. The best way to get

vitamin D during the winter is from cod liver oil.

If you take cod liver oil you must also get an adequate amount of saturated

fat in your diet to protect the fragile and easily oxidized EFAs. Coconut

oil is ideal for this. If the primary source of fat in your diet is coconut

oil it will protect the EFA to some degree from oxidation.

Wilderness Family Naturals has the best quality cod liver oil on the market.

It is probably the only natural cod liver oil available in the US. Other

brands of cod liver oil are highly processed, refined, fractionated, and

manupilated with vitamins taken out and some synthetic vitamins added. Most

brands of cod liver oil are mixtures of cod liver oil and any number of

other fish oils. So they are not pure cod liver oil. The vitamin content is

adjusted to mimic cod liver oil by adding synthetic vitamins. Annette

Fischer has a good description of this process on her website.

Bruce

Re: Re: cholesterol and fish oil

> Bruce,

>

> You have said that you do not take any polyunsaturated oils. For one,

> they lead to more skin wrinkles and possibly other skin problems. Also,

> someone on this forum mentioned that her LDL cholesterol went up from

> using fish oil - whether that is the cause or not.

>

> We have many seniors including myself who are taking high quality fish

> and cod liver oils in winter. This is due to studies showing positive

> benefits to the heart, veins, brain, eyes, etc. What do you think of

> these studies then? Would you advise not to take the fish oils?

>

> I also regularly use vco, as I feel it adds stability to the poly and

> monounsaturated fatty acids in my cellular tissues. The more vco I take,

> the more fish oil I believe I could take. Vco provides more protection

> from free radicals. Some people take extra vitamin E.

>

> Could you comment with your thoughts on the pros or cons of fish oil?

>

> Lil

>

>

>

> Bruce Fife <bruce@...> wrote:

> ,

>

> For the most part, doctors and nurses don't understand the cholesterol

> issue. They are brainwashed by the educational material and continuing

> education seminars sponsored by the pharmaceutical industry. Also keep in

> mind that medical journals get all of their money from advertising from

> these companies. Consequently, these companies have an enormous influence

> in

> what medical journals choose to publish and not publish. I know of

> instances

> where journal editors were threatened with the loss of advertising for

> publishing articles on an herbs that competed with drugs sold by some of

> the

> journal's advertisers. This is why there appear to be many pro cholesterol

> theory studies published and why researchers twist their data to fit the

> " politically correct " dogma. If they don't, then they don't get published

> and their careers suffer.

>

> Research is very competitive. The grants they get from sponsors pays their

> mortgage and food bills as well as funds their studies and advances their

> careers. If they produce results that are unfavorable to the sponsor and

> publicize these results they will not get funded again by the sponsor or

> anyone else in the industry because they will be labeled a troublemaker.

> Essentially killing their career. It wasn't always like this. Years ago

> most

> researchers were concerned about finding and publishing the truth

> regardless

> of the consequences. Not nowadays. This situation has gotten worse over

> the

> past 30 years or so. Just in the past few weeks I've read articles in the

> newspaper where two totally unrelated groundbreaking studies that have

> been

> widely accepted have proven to be totally bogus. The researchers made up

> or

> twisted the data to promote their careers. These were high profile cases

> because their studies had enormous significance, but many other

> researchers

> working on less dramatic issues are doing the same thing. It is very

> common

> now. If you really want to know what a study has found you must read the

> study in detail and even redo the math to check their calculations and

> statistics. This is why researchers never accept the results of one or two

> studies but require many studies from various researchers to verify the

> results.

>

> Bruce

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