Tuesday, November 24, 2009

Taking Fish Oil Tablets Is A Big Part Of Preventing Bowel Cancer.

By Peter Bertonach

Fish oil tablets contain DHA (docosahexaenoic acid) and EPA (eicosapentaenoic acid) which are the 2 most important essential fatty acids known as omega 3 fatty acids. Over the last 40 years many studies have demonstrated the health benefits of increasing our intake of essential fatty acids and these health benefits include benefits to our heart health and have also demonstrated a link between increasing the intake of fish oil and breast cancer prevention and increasing our intake of fish oil and prostate cancer prevention. Studies are also showing that by increasing our intake of Omega3 fats we can help prevent bowel cancer.

A Scottish study examines the benefits of increasing the intake of omega 3 fatty acids. The results of the study found that by increasing your intake of DHA and EPA you can reduce your risk of colorectal cancer by anything up to around 40 percent. And the study also noted that this result will not be achieved if you increase your intake of ALA (alpha-linolenic acid), a plant-based omega 3 fatty acid.

It was clearly established that people who ate more fish had a reduced risk of colon cancer and that people who ate less fish had a higher risk of colon cancer.

A study in the Netherlands combined the results of a range of other studies on the link between Omega 3 and bowel cancer.-- studies were compared and the conclusion was that there was a clear relationship between eating more fish and lowering the risk of colon cancer. In fact the researchers concluded that eating one meal of fish per week reduced the risk of bowel cancer by around 4 percent, and that each fish meal rediced the risk of colon cancer by another 4 percent.

The average levels of fish intake of people in the US is way below that which would achieve these significant results in helping to prevent bowel cancer.

Of course increasing your intake of fish oil is only a part of an overall strategy to reduce your risk of bowel cancer, but increasing Omega3 intake also offers a wide range of other health benefits including reducing a range of heart problems including heart attack.

The next question is how to achieve these benefits. In the US we don't generally eat a lot of fish. Fish is extremely expensive and it is only certain types of fish that have high levels of DHA and EPA. Combine that with the fact that most of the fish we eat is contaminated to a degree with mercury and other nasty toxins, and that the FDA advise discretion when eating fish for this reason, and it is fair to say that increasing our intake of fish substantially and weekly will be too expensive and can have other problems.

But the best way to get more fish oil into your diet is by way of fish oil tablets. These contain DHA and EPA, and are very cost-effective when compared to eating fish, and can be taken daily. And the best fish oil tablets have no contaminants.

But the quality of fish oil tablets varies widely and in particular the amount of the active ingredients DHA and EPA can vary by a factor of 2 or 3 and for this reason it is very difficult to directly compare the prices of the different brands available.

So it would seem that along with a range of other health benefits including heart health benefits increasing our intake of fish oil by way of taking fish oil tablets daily can be part of an overall strategy to stay healthy and in particular to help prevent bowel cancer.

I have known this for some time and take fish oil tablets every day. To find out which ones visit my website.

About the Author:

No comments: