In a message dated 4/2/04 4:09:49 PM Eastern Standard Time,
[log in to unmask] writes:
The health of native peoples who
rely heavily on long chain omega 3 fatty acid rich food is real life
evidence of their benefits.
Eskimos have virtually no heart disease but a relatively high rate of
hemorrhagic strokes (bleeding in the brain).  Just do a google search on eskimos and
hemorrhagic stroke -- I don't have the reference for this handy.   I'm not
saying never eat oily fish -- I'm saying I think it's not prudent to gulp down
tons of fish oil supplements.  There are pros and cons to virtually all foods.
I'm not surprised you didn't find much on the cons of fish oil in pubmed
because fish oil is currently the darling of the medical community.  These days,
it's next to impossible to get funding or articles published that express
viewpoints that go against the grain (no paleo pun intended.) Go to thincs.org for
lots of rejected articles that go against the cholesteral/heart disease
hypothesis.  On Grove's site, there is a section where he asked one of the Oxford
researchers who was using fish oil to suppress the immune system for research
purposes (they used to use veggie oil but found that fish oil did an even better
job at supressing the immune system) why scientists and researchers didn't
speak out about this when fish oil supplementation was being pushed as an
anti-inflammatory, and the fellow said something along the line of that to speak out
against it would basically guarantee one being discredited in their field.
This is not surprising -- think of how many paleo and low carb advocates are
called crack-pots and discredited by the heart healthy low-fat high starch comm
unity (American Heart Association, American Diabetic Association) who refuses to
take a  look at evidence contrary to their views. It's intellectually
dishonest science.

Ultimately whether or not to supplement with fish oil is a personal choice.
I certainly don't have all the answers and neither does anyone else.  However,
before deciding to supplement with fish oil or anything else, I think it's
best to hear arguments pro and against and then just make your decision.  If you
are not persuaded that there could be a downside to fish oil, then go for it.
 At least you took the time to research it a bit and made an informed
decision.