How does fish oil help fat loss?

There are 5 different ways that fish oil helps you lose weight:

One: by turning off the fat storage genes and turning on the fat burning genes. When you are healthy, 80% of your food intake gets burned off as energy, 15% goes to your liver and 5% is stored as fat. However, the typical high carb diet - combined with poor quality fats - means that 80% of your food gets converted to body fat, 15% goes as energy and 5% goes to the liver. Taking a heavy dose of fish oil for a few month helps reverse this.





Two: by increasing serotonin in the brain, making you feel calmer, leading to fewer cravings. Cravings for food are caused by brain imbalance due to various stressors – poor diet, excessive exercise, not enough exercise, poor lifestyle and stress.
Serotonin is just one of many neurotransmitters in the brain – and is probably the best known. Fish oils are a good source of tryptophan, the precursor to serotonin and is found in some foods, so taking a good dose of fish oil will not only improve your mood, it will also help gain control over food choices.

Three: by inhibiting the adrenal activation of the stress hormones adrenalin and cortisol.

Most stress we meet on a day-to-day basis is hardly life threatening – but, due to our unrelieved stress, a huge problem we have is that the body over reacts to quite simple stresses, blowing them out of all proportion. When the body perceives it is highly stressed, it can drive you to eat excessive amounts of carbohydrate. High carbs increase serotonin – that calming neurotransmitter. So by modulating the activation of the stress hormones you will cope with stress better and, again, have more control over food choices.

Four: by turning on the carnitine enzymes. Now these wonderful things are responsible for the metabolism of fat – they burn it up. So taking fish oils with something like acetyl-L-carnitine really gets that body burning up its stores of body fat like billy-o.

Five: They also block sugar absorption. When you eat a meal, your blood sugar rises. High blood sugar is dangerous for the brain, so the body produces insulin to rapidly reduce the blood sugar. Insulin is extremely good at its job, so after a little while, your blood sugar has dropped so low - which is also bad for the brain – that you are driven to eat something sugary (and this can be a bag of crisps or a sandwich as well as the more obvious sugary things) to rapidly raise blood sugar. And so the seesaw goes on. By taking fish oils and blocking sugar absorption, your blood sugar does not rise as much leaving you less hungry and satisfied for longer. Also when you do come to eat, you will make a better food choice because your blood sugar is not driven so low by excessive insulin. Therefore you eat less and you eat well.

What is interesting is that a high carb diet raises serotonin, which makes you feel very happy. But by constantly pushing the body to produce large amounts of insulin, eventually type 2 diabetes will develop (if other diseases don’t get there first caused by the poor nutrition of a high carb diet) and then the person is unhappy. So with a little will power and the aid of fish oils, it is possible to turn away from the sugar high that the high carb meal/snack gives again gaining real control over food choices.






But before you rush off to Boots to go and buy some fish oil it is important to consider why the government quite rightly recommends restricting the consumption of oily fish.

APPENDIX

Genes: when we are born we all have different genes and not all of them are good genes. It is a common misconception that just because you have inherited, for example, one of the breast cancer genes you are going to go on to develop breast cancer. These problem genes have to be triggered by things like poor lifestyle, poor food choices, unrelieved stress, toxicity caused by exposure to heavy metals/pesticides/plastics etc. Now someone with very good genes may well live to a ripe old age having smoked, drunk, never exercised in their life and lived on tuna fish sandwiches. Another person living like this will be lucky to get to 50. So it is that some people have a predisposition to gain more body fat than others– and current food fashions (and the sheer easy availability of food) lead these people to trigger the gene that leads to gaining excessive body fat. Fish oils help reverse this gene. So not only can genes be triggered, they can also be turned off again.

Why the government is right to recommend restricting the intake of oily fish.

Toxicity is a huge subject because it is so omnipresent in our lives. And it is injurious to good health. But here the subject is fish oil, oily fish and just why they can be so toxic. Oily fish is sort of good for you and certainly is a very good source of omega 3. However since toxins are stored in fat, some oily fish are best avoided. These are tuna, swordfish and shark. They very big fish and are highly contaminated. The smaller the oily fish, the lower the levels of contamination, so essentially any oily fish salmon sized or smaller is OK. If salmon is to be eaten for the omega 3 content, however, source wild salmon since farmed salmon is not eating its natural food and so is not a good source.

To get enough omega 3 from the diet would entail eating an awful lot of fish, so it is easier to take a fish oil supplement. The problem is that it is very expensive to clean it properly and most companies take short cuts. Currently there are some big companies being sued for having PCBs in their fish oil (more on PCBs soon). To be sure your fish oil has been fully cleaned with non-toxic cleaners, check that the country of origin is either Norway or California. In these places, the oil has to be good by law. If there is no country of origin on the label, it is very advisable not to buy it until that is found out.

A common measure for baseline toxicity in studies is to analyse the umbilical cord blood of newborn babies and this shows that a newly born baby is born with 200 industrial chemicals and pollutants in place. Studies of the Eskimo/Inuit people show high levels of toxicity (particularly heavy metals, eg mercury) – yet they live in the most pristine environment. Their toxicity is coming from the diet they live on which has a large amount of whale and seal blubber in it.


So here is a brief tour of some of the pollutants found in the seas. The list is far from entire as that would entail talking about 200 pollutants.

Heavy metals, eg lead, cadmium, arsenic and mercury – which is the most poisonous of the heavy metals. There are at least 643 scientific papers linking mercury toxicity to cardiovascular disease (heart attacks, strokes, angina et al). There are at least 1,445 linking mercury to neurodegenerative diseases (eg alzheimers, parkinsons, dementia). The brain has no defence against any toxin that is fat-soluble – it crosses the blood/brain barrier.

Research has found that all cancer cells have mercury in them. And mercury leads to cancer by depleting the immune system – anything doing this increases the chances of cancer. It also increases oxidative stress (oxidisation – the simplest and best explanation is oxidisation makes things rust) while damaging DNA, which results in mutations that promote cancer. It disrupts apoptosis which is programmed cell death leading to the safe removal of sick or unhealthy (e.g. cancerous) cells. Mercury also binds with haemoglobin (the oxygen transport system in the tissues) so there is less oxygen reaching the tissues.

Another group of toxins found in the seas are the PCBs and Dioxins. There are 209 different PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyls) also known as congeners. They have no smell or taste and there are no natural sources. They were first used in the 1920s and production stopped in 1977 because they are so toxic. They were used in old fluorescent lighting, as coolants, in hydraulic fluids, as lubricants and flame-retardants. They were not well disposed of and get concentrated in the food chain, principally in fish. Studies in the 1970s showed they harm the neurological development of children; they are also harmful to the reproductive system and the thyroid; they harm the immune system (and are therefore carcinogenic).

Dioxins are also chlorinated chemicals with a high affinity for fats. There are 75. They are mainly man made, but are also the product of forest fires and volcanic activity (i.e. they are found in smoke). They are formed as a by-product of incomplete combustion e.g. waste incineration, cigarette smoke, car exhausts and also in the chlorine bleaching of pulp and paper and in the production of chlorinated pesticides. They are released into the wastewater where they are non soluble, so settle on plants and plankton, so working their way up the food chain.

A dioxin binds strongly to the intra cellular receptors in the nuclei of the cells throughout the body – so it easily gets to the DNA and damages it. Causing the similar disruption as the mercury does. Dioxins are known carcinogens. They are particularly bad for children and the developing foetus, causing problems in the reproductive, nervous and immune system.

To get a dioxin out of your body completely is impossible – it has a half-life of 7 years. So in 7 years, half of it has gone. 7 years later half of that half has gone. And so on. So I suppose if you stop ingesting dioxins as a child, you would clear most them from the body – but you have to be sure you are not ingesting any more!

The final group of toxins to think about is the plastics. Plastic bottles, bags, food packaging, floor coverings, furniture, car seats. These have clearly been shown to be oestrogenic in wildlife. Oestrogenic = acting on the body like female hormones do, feminising men and leading to health problems in females- eg PMS, menopausal problems, weight gain. Signs of oestrogen toxicity are fat bottoms and/or thighs. The proper term is xenoestrogens (foreign oestrogens). Their effects upon humans are only being fully studied now – and industry is busy down playing their effects, insisting that they do not pose a problem to our health.




Plastics are slow to break down and found in swirling masses in the oceans. One mass the size of Texas is found in the North Pacific gyre. Another place a large mass of floating plastic has been found is in the Amundsen Sea. This is in the Pacific sector of Antarctica thousands of miles away from the nearest urban centre. In these masses, the plastics slowly break down into smaller and smaller pieces and the birds and fishes eat them in mistake for their normal food. And so by this way plastics find their way into fish oils.

There are many other pollutants in the seas. Solvents, APEs (main source is detergents), herbicides, pesticides. The list goes on. All of them cause disease and dysfunction. So fish oils have to be cleaned of these things. What is really worrying is that some companies use Hexane to clean the oil because it is cheap. Now hexane is itself a solvent that can have neuropsychiatric effects by slowing down the impulses from the spinal chord to the arms and legs and it causes headaches.

So it is best to make sure that the country of origin is either Norway or California!


APPENDIX

1. Oily fish are tuna, swordfish, salmon, herrings, sardines, anchovies etc. Cod, plaice or whiting, for example are white fish so are not such good sources of omega 3 – and are less toxic than some of the oily fish.
2. Most toxins are fat-soluble. Ideally the liver converts them to water-soluble form so they can be excreted. But the liver gets very overloaded by the sheer quantity of toxins in the environment alone. Never mind the other daily insults of pharmaceuticals, poor food choices, excessive alchohol etc. Another factor lies in the genes. The various toxins are rendered harmless by the liver through different pathways and genetically this capability varies from person to person. So some people have a much harder time neutralising heavy metals, for example, than others. Genetic testing is a growing market. Once the problem gene(s) are known, wise supplementation and good nutrition is vital for good detoxification.

A simple way of making yourself much healthier

Take fish oils.



We are designed to run on a good balance of the essential oils: omegas 3, 6 and 9. In the wild, our natural diet provided this. But because our diet is now heavily skewed towards the omega 6 oils (sunflower, grain fed animals etc), which are pro-inflammatory, we are no longer running on what we are genetically designed for - and so weak genes can be triggered.

So what is fish oil? It is the Omega 3 oils EPA and DHA and ALA. EPA is the part of the omega 3 oil that reduces inflammation. DHA is the part of the omega 3 oil that is in the brain and eyes and improves their function. The brain is about 60% fat – and that fat is mostly DHA. See appendix for ALA.

Here are 7 ways that fish oils are good for you:

Omega 3 oils keep the walls of the cell flexible. There are more than 100 trillion cells in the human body (!) and each cell could be viewed of as a mini factory – nutrients and messengers go in and waste goes out. With a diet full of transfats, rancid fat and skewed towards the omega 6 oils, the cells harden and cannot function efficiently. So on an individual basis, the shortage of Omega 3 in the body may have a different expressions: weight gain in some, skin problems in another (eg eczema), sleep disorders, circulation problems, brain disorders, immune dysfunction (ie leading to auto-immune conditions). The list is as long as people; hence the statement all disease known to man is improved by the addition of high quality fish oil.

The second way fish oils improve health is by balancing out eicosanoid production. Eicosanoids are signalling molecules produced throughout the body and similar to hormones, exerting complex control over many bodily functions. The family of eicosanoids most heard about is probably the prostaglandins. Eicosanoids are produced from both omega 3 and omega 6 oils and counter balance each other:



So for the body to function effectively, there needs to be an equal balance of omega 3:6 in the diet. And today’s diet makes this very difficult to achieve, resulting in a dangerous imbalance towards the problems on the right hand side column. The excess of omega 6 type eicosanoids is further exacerbated by high insulin levels, which, by a different pathway, also produces the omega 6 type of eicosanoids.

The third way fish oils improve health is by lowering C-Reactive Proteins (CRP). This is a group of proteins that increase rapidly in the blood as a response to infections and inflammation. High CRP levels damage the walls of the blood vessels and form blood clots and so can lead to heart attacks and strokes. High CRP levels are a good predictor of a recurrence of heart attacks and strokes or of an artery reclosing after being opened. People with colon cancer were found to have higher levels of CRP in their blood than those without. It seems that elevated CRP is a predictor of a high risk of developing diabetes, high blood pressure and cardiovascular disease. So the addition of fish oil to the diet is a safe and effective way of lowering CRP levels.

Fourth way: by positively impacting upon cholesterol by lowering VLDL (very low density lipoproteins – these are the dreadful things that fur up the arteries) and raising HDLs (high density lipoproteins – a simplistic description is that these act like pan scrubbers to the arteries, clearing away plaque build up). Plaque in the arteries leads to heart attacks/strokes. Taking fish oils is a fabulous way of reducing the plaque without risking the side effects of pharmaceuticals.

Fifth way: fish oils are adaptogenic to the blood. An adaptogen is something that improves something as needed. So in this case if the blood is thin, it helps thicken it and if it is too thick, it thins it. If the blood is of good quality, it has no effect upon it, neither thickening nor thinning it. It will help reduce blood pressure by increasing nitric oxide, which helps dilate the blood vessels (the tubes in the body that carry the blood either away from or to the heart) and reduces inflammation in them.

Finally, DHA has a good effect upon the brain and the eyes . The membranes (cell walls) of the brain cells are composed of a thin double layer of fatty acid molecules - principally DHA. DHA is also the fatty acid of the retina of the eye. As previously stated, EPA and DHA are vital to keep cell walls fluid so they can function properly. DHA is used in all parts of the brain, so low levels affect motor control, memory, cognition, nervous system development (this does continue with age) and the actual function of the brain. Low levels are also associated with psychiatric disorders such as depression, anger, hostility, suicide and they are also associated with the development of Alzheimers disease and general age related decline.

Good DHA levels are absolutely critical for a pregnant or nursing mother. The placenta preferentially selects DHA from the diet to feed the growing baby’s brain and eyes. And where DHA intake is inadequate, the first child gets the best of the mother’s supplies. For subsequent children, the supply is increasingly inadequate leading to impaired intelligence/behavioural problems etc.

There is also the importance of DHA in sperm. DHA is found in the tail of the sperm. Again, its importance lies in the cell fluidity and, because it is found in the tail, good DHA levels are vital for good motility so the sperm moves both fast and strongly.

The good news is that increasing DHA levels reverses these problems – usually completely in children, sadly not always completely in adults – but always significantly.

The next blog explains why it is vital that the oil is manufactured in Norway or California to avoid toxicants. It is a fat lot of good taking fish oil that is laced with solvents!


APPENDIX

ALA. This is the variation of omega 3 found in vegetables – for example hemp or flax. It does convert to EPA and DHA in the body. There is disagreement about the importance of ALA in brain function. At issue is the conversion of ALA to DHA (or EPA in the body). Children lack the ability to do this conversion at all. This apart, remember all omega 3 oils are very fragile and there is a real problem with rancidity with all these oils. They will not take any heat, have to be used quickly once opened and kept refrigerated – but, obviously, fish oil in capsules does not need refrigeration.. Also, just as with fish oils, you have find a source you completely trust to risk taking ALA as a supplement to avoid rancidity or toxicity.

IBUPROFEN
Transfats interfere with the production of eicosanoids generally. The above is further insulted by taking NSAIDs (non-steroidal anti-inflammatorys), eg Ibuprofen and Aspirin. These things work by inhibiting the production of omega 6 eicosanoids. They do reduce inflammation and pain but they seriously disrupt eicosanoid balance leading to bleeding, usually in the guts. So if, instead of reaching for a pain killer, a high quality fish oil was taken regularly, then inflammation and pain would reduce in the body making you healthier and not weaker.

Why do Polyunsaturated fats cause heart attacks?

Polyunsaturated fats, like those found in sunflower spreads, are marketed as a good thing. Crisps cooked in sunflower oil are sold as superior to others, and there are frequent quotes that ‘a diet rich in polyunsaturates improves health’ - lowering heart attack risk, reducing the incidence of cancer and cholesterol.

These fats are also known as Omega 6. The commonest are in oil form - sunflower, hemp, safflower, grapeseed, corn, soy and pumkinseed oils. What makes these oils different to monounsaturated fats or saturated fats are their chemical structure. They have a double bond between 2 or more carbon chains, hence the ‘poly’ bit. The effect of this is that they are liquid at room temperature.


There are four problems polyunsaturated fats. The first: as long as they are cold
pressed and eaten as a salad dressing or finishing oil, they aren’t quite so bad. A big problem comes when you heat them up. Because of the double bond, they are unstable oils at higher temperatures and quickly go rancid. A rancid fat is a fat chemically altered, in this case by heat - becoming full of free radicals, the toxic compounds that cause mayhem in cells and DNA, leading to mutation and therefore many horrible diseases: heart attacks and strokes, diabetes types 1 and 2, cancer, fibromyalgia, and arthiritis. The bag of crisps cooked in sunflower oil gets worse. Do you think they change the oil between heatings? Oil that is repeatedly heated and cooled becomes a transfat.

The second problem: in its natural state, a polyunsaturated fat should be liquid at room temperature. Yet we can buy sunflower oil as a spread. Something must have happened to the original oil to cause this. To make a liquid oil spread, it is heated to a high temperature and hydrogen is added, which changes its molecular structure. It becomes known as a hydrogenated or partially hydrogenated fat. The other name is a transfat.


Our digestive system does not have an
enzyme to digest transfats, so they wander about the blood stream undigested. And because of their new nature given to them by mankind, they leave debris (known as plaque) that clogs up the cells and fur up your arteries - leading to further risk of heart attacks and strokes.

Problem number three: both omega 3 and omega 9 oils are anti-inflammatory. Omega 6 is pro-inflammatory. This wouldn’t be a problem if the ratio between omega 3 to omega 6 was balanced between 1:4 and 1:1. These days, however, our ratio of omega 3: 6 is 1:20 or worse. One of the by-products of subsequent inflammation in the body is raised cholesterol. It is also arthritis, diabetes, asthma, allergies and all degenerative diseases - and you can only develop cancer in the presence of inflammation.

Food manufacturers make a lot of money with these products. So does the pharmaceutical industry, since doctors prescribe various drugs to counteract the effects of eating a diet rich in these fats - statins being the prime example.

Fourth problem: storage. Because they are inherently unstable, once opened they should be stored away from heat, light and exposure to air or they go rancid. And they should be used within 6 months of opening. The other types of oil – omega 9 and saturated fats are more stable and have less storage problems.

So polyunsaturated fat being good for you is patently a myth. If eaten cold it overwhelms the ratio of omega 3:6 and so, because it is pro-inflammatory, increases inflammation in the body. If it is heated, it rapidly goes rancid leading to all degenerative diseases. If it is not stored well it also goes rancid. If it is made into a spread or turned into a high-oleic oil, it is just completely and utterly bad for you. But it does make nice profits for food and pharmaceutical companies. And indeed causes heart attacks and cancer.


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Appendix

A good oil is oleic acid – this is found in the monounsaturated oils such as Olive oil.

In order to cash in on the health benefits of olive oil, a way has been found to
change sunflower or safflower oil into High-Oleic Sunflower or Safflower oil. These oils are as awful as transfats. When man fiddles with food, the results are very rarely good for our health – but they are exceedingly good for profits.

Vitamin E is a very good anti-oxidant to dodgy oil. But the Vitamin E must be of natural sources and not man made. The container will have such words as ‘Natural Tocopherols’ (the posh name for Vitamin E) printed on it. And you are looking for D-Delta Tocopherol, D-Gamma tocopherol etc. If the container only has D Alpha tocopherol written on it, then do not take it since this is the man made version and damaging to health. (As an aside, natural vitamin E is also very good for the uterus).

Finishing on a good note. There is one form of polyunsaturated oil which is in short supply in the diet and is very good for you and this is Gamma Linolenic Acid (GLA). It is found in borage seeds or, but only feebly, in evening primrose oil (you have to take a bucket load of this to get any result). Taken with a high quality fish oil, it will reduce inflammation in the body. It may help with pre-menstrual tension and menopausal symptoms.