I take this every day for the joints but i've just read on here that they can contain amounts of toxins...any comments or alternatives? my nan swears by this stuff!
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I take this every day for the joints but i've just read on here that they can contain amounts of toxins...any comments or alternatives? my nan swears by this stuff!
The air you breathe can contain toxins! Anything more specific?
Don't worry about it. The benefits probably outweigh the risks.:)
Oot o'the East
There cam a wee hard man ...
Consider a drop of extra virgin olive oil each day, a little more natural than capsules.
A doctor i saw once told me they where a waste of money - along with vitamin tablets/
Please can I say NO NO NO and just incase you don't get the message NO
Please read the small print when using Flax seed or (Hemp seed)
Although there can be benefits to the heart it can cause heart iregularities. With in 5 days of taking these tablets i was very ill for week with regular severe heart palpatations and it took nearly a month before all the systoms went. I'm sure they are ok for the majority but I wouldn't wish that week on any one.
whats wrong with fish and chips? plenty of oil in them :D
Mr B,
Don't worry about the toxins for goodness sake, most fish we eat are farmed stock anyway, so all the antibiotics they are fed on are bound to carry over into your body and fight the toxins - natures balance!
Just eat fish a couple of times a week, and you'll be right.
Sorry to hear about your experience Ian.
I have been taking 2No capsules per day that contain a mixture of Flaxseed oil (Linseed oil) and Starflower oil (Borage oil) day for around 4 years now with no ill effects. I used to take cod liver oil capsules but all they did was repeat on me all day.
I have just read the small print and it states
“Contains ALA, EPA & DHA which play’s an important role in the maintenance of cell formation, brain health, joint mobility and a healthy heart and circulation. Also contains GLA which is important for regulating the body’s hormone balance.”
You may be the 1 in a 100 that suffers from a side effect from this type of product.
They work for me.
I bust my hand during a fight some years ago. If I stop taking the capsules I find that within a couple of weeks my hand starts to ache, if it’s cold it really aches.
When start taking the capsules again the aching starts to subside after a week or so and then goes completely after around a month:cool:
I take a high quality 'fish oil' rather than cod liver oil. I think the idea is that it is extracted from the meat of the fish rather than just the liver. Anyway - it's supposed to have more of the good amino acids, less toxins, and doesn't really taste that fishy. My kids (ages 8,5,3 and 1) all take it without complaint, so it can't taste too bad.
I can't remember the brand, and it's not cheap but like most things, you basically get what you pay for.
Edit - memory jogged by quick google search - it's Higher Nature Lemon Fish Oil
Talking to someone last night who used to work in one of the well known fish food manufacturers.
He said whatever doubts you have about claims like "100% cod" they would be unfounded.
.
.
The fish were gutted and evrything else went in, so yes, you got 100% cod :D
We tried to do this and it's a minefield. You shouldn't eat too much of large oily fish like tuna because of heavy metals being concentrated in them. You can't eat too much of some smaller oily fish because they are caught in ways that harm dolphins or albatroses. :(
Some fish is being fished too much, so we read an article that said something like you should only eat this if you are sure it came from X and was caught using X technique. Fish fingers don't normally tell you how the fish was caught. :confused:
Some river and farmed fish are similarly dodgy because of fears of widespread chemical use on them, and the environmental impact of the farming.
In the end, we said "stuff it". Last night's tuna steaks were lovely.
Wd 40.
Sorry. I'm a science geek.
Small sample but a properly controlled test:
A double blind, placebo controlled trial was carried out to assess the efficacy of cod liver oil as an adjunct treatment to non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) in the management of osteoarthritis in general practice. Eighty six patients were given 10 ml of either cod liver oil or olive oil placebo daily as a supplement to their regular NSAID treatment for 24 weeks. Patients were assessed by their general practitioner at four week intervals for joint pain/inflammation, overall interference with activities, and unwanted effects of treatment. Patients recorded on visual analogue scales their daily pain and the extent to which arthritis interfered with everyday activities. There was no significant benefit for the patients taking cod liver oil compared with those taking placebo.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1004637/
I was told 20 years ago by a knee surgeon that my runnng days were over. I have been taking Glucosamine and Chondroitin ever since and although my knees give me some gip from time to time I am still running and racing. Now Im not saying that these tablets are the reason for my still be able to do our sport but I will keep taking them just in case. I know lots of other runners that take them too.
So where can you buy them placebo tablets?
Along with Marty Mcfly's comments, good sensible advice based on science/ current evidence, rather than hocus pocus from quacks, uncontrolled trials of one, misinterpretations of the placebo effect, and a lot of other nonsense based on unsubstantiated opinions.
And no, its not necessarily safe, too much vitamin A&D can be harmful, of course if you're ancient with a lousy diet & never see the sun some D might help your osteoporosis. Perhaps these vitamins are the toxins you're referring to? Probably the bit of you that suffers most though is your wallet.
The science does not so far support it doing any good for your joints, or getting the kids better GCSE's, or cutting the grass while you're out at work, or picking the kids up from school for you. The joint stuff keeps getting press, but any supporting evidence has been a long time coming (see below). It's looks like fish oils (not as cod liver oil though) may reduce your risk of a second heart attack though, you're still advised to get them by eating fish if possible though. Pollen's book below has some interesting stuff to say about omega 3's, also sensibly suggests we should "eat food" (not daft supplements).
From a toxin point of view there are high mercury levels in Tuna, (but the fish oils have gone West in canned Tuna because it's heated too much, apparently tinned salmon isn't so they're still present), Cod isn't high enough up the food chain to accumulate the mercury to that extent.
One person or indeed several alleging that they feel better taking a substance is not evidence of either safety or efficacy (so that's a load of forumites & someones Granny dissed, sorry), many good books to read about such issues, try Ernzt & Singh. And now glucosamine and chondroitin have been chucked into the equation, I'm thinking of getting a covered wagon a monkey and an organ and flogging snake oil to the gullible at races, there's clearly good money to be made here.
I will get my coat and seriously leg it now :D.
http://www.healthcarerepublic.com/ne...Infarction-MI/
http://www.arc.org.uk/news/pressrele.../codliver2.asp
http://www.badscience.net/2005/08/publish-or-be-damned/
Micheal Pollan: In Defence of Food
Ernzt & Singh: Trick or Treatment
Well I can't say anything about the effect of fish oils on joint/arthritis, but I take it simple because I'm one of them wussy veggie types (though clearly not a very strict one - yes, I am aware that fish aren't vegetables:o) and my diet would be generally lacking in the long chain omega-3 amino acids that our bodies are not very efficient at synthesising themselves.
Well the toxins I was referring to (which seems to have kicked off this little discussion :)) were PCBs and dioxins which get bioaccumulated up the food chain. The Cod clears them into its liver but cannot break them down any more. These days due to overfishing the average age of a fish being caught is getting lower and lower. The toxins probably dont get much time to migrate to its body so taking fish oil is a lot less toxic than taking fish liver oil. The toxins get into the water from the air and then either directly or through smaller marine organisms into the cod.
Some fish farms have fed their fish with fishmeal obtained from marine sources (unwanted catches) which increases this bioaccumulation effect.
I pretend that Smarties are placebo tablets, works a treat;)
What colour is best?
I'm not trying to be confrontational mate ;) i'd just be more inclined to trust the test if it didn't envolve folk with arthritis, a long term trial between runners who did and didn't take it would be more plausible to me personally but that's just my opinion. :)