Fish Oils and Metabolic Syndrome

Many blogs and articles extol fish oil for the heart, hypertension, and the assistance on helping control lipids. And rightly so, as there are many benefits from fish oil and I take the fish oil capsules for these reasons also, and more. While many recommend eating the fresh fish, I have to look at the economics of the fish oil capsules vs the fish I would need to consume. I do eat some fish, just not the quantity to equal what I take in fish oil capsules.

So for this blog, I want to focus on some of the other benefits of fish oil. For those of us with diabetes, insulin resistance and inflammation are two of the benefits. More studies point to fish oil helping with reducing insulin resistance and the biggest advantage is the reduction of inflammation which affects our diabetes and risk of cardiovascular disease.

Metabolic syndrome unfortunately is a contributor to type 2 diabetes. It also contributes to many of the problems associated with diabetes, fatty liver disease, microalbuminuria (the leaking of protein into the urine), depression, obstructive sleep apnea, polycystic ovary syndrome, increased risk of dementia with aging, and cognitive decline in the elderly. Fish oil works to help all of these, but the total benefit is still being studied for some of the diseases and syndromes. There is also some disagreement in the definition of metabolic syndrome.

While fish oil is a great source of omega 3 which works to improve insulin resistance, inflammations and assists with reducing other problems, especially fatty liver disease. It is the omega 6 that needs to be reduced. David Mendosa has some very informative articles about the relationships of omega 3 and omega 6 and how to increase omega 3 and reduce omega 6. Many of us do not realize how much omega 6 is in our cooking oils, especially soybean, corn, canola, and cottonseed.

There are many sources for this information and I urge you to read more about metabolic syndrome and fish oils. I have just listed a few of the articles by David Mendosa, but there are other good writers on these topics as well. Use any of the key words above on the search engine on David's site to read more.

Sites not included above.

Site 1. A recent article in Diabetes in Control issue 538 about a yet unpublished study praising omega 3 and fish oils improving diabetes control.

Site 2. A good listing of studies of fish oils and its benefits for those suffering from depression.

Site 3. A good five page article about metabolic syndrome