So I finally saw an ad for

[XemaSab]

"fish oil" tablets made out of krill.

If anyone wants me I'll be behind the barn with a gun in my mouth. x(

[Dead_Parrot]

1. I'm holding out for the phytoplankton capsules

Which should be shortly before we learn that we have to do our own damn photosynthesis.

[Systematic Chaos]

2. Feed me, Dead_Parrot!

[NNadir]

3. As it happens though, the health benefits of these omega-3 polyunsaturated acids are remarkable.

GSK is marketing Loveza and it's actually something of a miracle drug almost on the scale of aspirin, having anti-carcinogenic, anti-Alzheimer's, anti-aging, anti-inflammatory and cardiovascular benefits that are hard to resist. Some of this derives from the same COX-1 and COX-2 systems involved in the many remarkable benefits of aspirin.

(If Aspirin were discovered today, it would be a blockbuster drug and cost 8 bucks a pill, even though it is easily synthesized in ridiculously simple chemistry. Vioxx, Celebrex, and a few other drugs we won't mention, were all designed to mimic the remarkable medicinal chemistry of Aspirin.)

On the bright side, it turns out that neither fish nor krill synthesize arachadonic acid, dosahexaenoic acid or eicosopentaenoic acid, which are the active ingredients of fish oils.

They are biochemically sythesized by algae that krill and fish ingest and concentrate.

Two of these acids, EPA and DHA may be regarded as "essential fats" since they are not available by physiological synthesis in most animal tissues and must be obtained by ingestion. Actually human breast milk is a rare exception since it contains EPA, although not much of it.

I do recognize the threat to krill and fish, but I have to say that these organisms have been used for much worse things than as medications.

[conscious evolution]

4. Are you familar with Omega-6?

I attended a lecture recently on cancers and foods.
Omega 3 and 6 were one of the topics covered.
Basicly Omega-3 = good Omega-6 = not so good
Guess which one is added to pre processed foods the most?

[phantom power]

5. A few months ago I had some wicked swollen glands...

My mom said "you should try some aspirin, it really works great on that stuff." Whoa. Retro! And she was right.

It's good to hear that after we've simplified our ocean ecosystems to jellyfish and a layer of algae, that we'll still be able to harvest our omega-3 supplements.

[NNadir]

6. Aspirin lacks a constituency to promote it. If it had salesmen calling on MD's to promote

it, its true potential would be realized.

It is still the subject of some less than ideally funded clinical trials.

The use of medications around the world is dictated not only by science, but unsurprisingly, money.

There's just no money in Aspirin, even though it is, in my mind, unquestionably the greatest drug discovery in the history of medicinal chemistry.

[eppur_se_muova]

7. I'd rather get mine from Chia.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salvia_hispanica

[NickB79]

8. US FDA says omega-3 oils from GM soya are safe to eat

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn18049-us-fda-says-omega3-oils-from-gm-soya-are-safe-to-eat.html

"Good news for fish stocks at last. A genetically modified soybean that produces oil containing omega-3 fatty acids – recommended for heart and brain health – could supplement fish as a source of these nutrients.

Last week, the US Food and Drug Administration made public its ruling that the oil produced by GM soybeans is safe to eat, meaning food companies can begin testing it in products such as margarine.

Developed by biotech giant Monsanto, the soybean is the first GM plant that has claimed health benefits for consumers, not just economic benefits to farmers. Two other companies, BASF (PDF) and Du Pont, say they are not far behind."


What a conundrum: strip-mine the base of the ocean's food chain or eat GM crops.

[NNadir]

9. Personally, I would prefer the GM crops.

It's not like humanity just started manipulating the genetics of plants in 1980.

Actually they have been doing as much since preliterate times, which accounts for the existence of animals like the dog, probably.

In fact, nature has been sorting the genome for billions of years and many plants and animals arose which were inherently symbiotic, as we are symbiotic with corn (all of it, not just genetically modified), wheat (likewise) and many other cultivated plants.

[Nihil]

10. The unfortunate thing about the GM versions ...

> It's not like humanity just started manipulating the genetics of plants in 1980.
>
> In fact, nature has been sorting the genome for billions of years and many plants
> and animals arose which were inherently symbiotic, as we are symbiotic with corn
> (all of it, not just genetically modified), wheat (likewise) and many other
> cultivated plants.

... is that we are not allowing enough time to determine the *effects* of
genetic manipulation (i.e., not just cross-breeding strains of the same basic
crop) on the creatures (including humans) that are now symbiotic with it.

:thumbsdown: