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RobinZ comments on Open Thread: July 2010 - Less Wrong
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I feel cautious about the objectivity of this source. Other sources suggest health benefits to consumption of fish, but I want to be confident that my expert sources are not skewing the selection of research to promote.
Regardless of the souce, the evidence seems to be rather strong that fish oil does good things for the brain. If you can find any negative evidence about fish oil and mental health, I'd like to see it.
I would like to know of risks associated with fish oil consumption as well. I am not aware of any. I am also not confident that any given site dedicated to the stuff would provide such information if or when it is available. I would suggest investigating independent sources of information (including but not limited to citations within and citations of referenced research) before drawing a confident conclusion.
Fish oil (particularly cod liver oil) has high levels of vitamin A which is known to be toxic at high doses (above what would typically be consumed through fish oil supplements) and some studies suggest is harmful at lower doses (consistent with daily supplementation).
Seth Roberts has written about omega-3s. I believe that somewhere in there he's talked about the possibility of mercury contamination in fish oils.
(I note that mercury concentration is subject to heavy quality control measures. Quality fish oil supplements will include credible guarantees regarding mercury levels, based of independent testing. This is, of course, something to consider when buying cheap sources from some obscure place.)
Correction: the health risk he wrote about was PCBs in fish oil. For this reason he advocates flaxseed oil as a source of omega-3. Whether there is any real danger I don't know.
PCBs and omega-3s climb the food chain, so they're pretty well correlated. At some point I eyeballed a chart and decided that mercury was negatively correlated with omega-3s. No idea why.
Mercury is a known problem with fish in general, agreed. Content varies somewhat with species, I have heard.
I think this is one of those things that may have been a problem >5 years ago but recent regulation in the USA means that all fish oil on the market is now guaranteed to be safe.
That's a rather... disproportionate level of faith to have in the US government's ability to regulate anything. I would not rely on American regulatory agencies for risk assessment in any field, much less one in which so little is currently known.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/24/health/24real.html
I don't have faith, but I have a broad knowledge of the FDA and their regulation of supplements. Usually when the US government works, it works. If evidence comes out that something is dangerous, the FDA usually pulls it from store shelves until it is fixed. Examples of supplements that at a certain point in past history were poisonous but are now correctly regulated are 5-HTP and Kava.
I knew that there were people claiming fish oil is bad, some of them loudly. I know that this was first disclaimed at least five years ago. I then intuited today, that if there ever did exist a safety issue with mercury in fish oil, it would have been fixed by now.
The meme that some fish oil pills are poisoned is mostly perpetuated by companies that are trying to sell you extra expensive fish oil pills.
(Voted up but...)
I'd like to clarify that claim, because I took the totally wrong message from it the first read through. We're talking about regulation for quality control purposes and not control of the substance itself (I'm assuming). 5-Hydroxytryptophan itself is just an amino acid precursor that is available over the counter in the USA and Canada.
It is an intermediate product produced when Tryptophan is being converted into Seratonin. It was Tryptophan which was banned by the FDA due to association with EMS. They cleared that up eventually once they established that the problem was with the filtering process of a major manufacturer, not the substance itself. I don't think they ever got around to banning 5-HTP, even though the two only differ by one enzymatic reaction.
In general it is relatively hard to mess yourself up with amino acid precursors, even though Seratonin is the most dangerous neurotransmitter to play with. In the case of L-Tryptophan and 5-HTP care should be taken when combining it with SSRIs and MAO-A inhibitors. ie. Take way way less for the same effect or just "DO NOT MESS WITH SERATONIN!" (in slightly shaky handwriting).
Let me know if you meant something different from the above. Also, what is the story with Kava? All I know is that it is a mild plant based supplement that mildly sedates/counters anxiety/reduces pain, etc. Has it had quality issues too?
Thanks for the clarification, yes, by 5-HTP I meant tryptophan.
Serotonin has serious drug interactions with SSRIs and MAOIs, but otherwise is decidedly milder than pharmaceutical anti-depressants. It's effects are more comparable to melatonin than prozac
Kava is a plant that counters anxiety, and it is rather effective at doing so but very short lasting. It causes no physical addiction, which is one of the reasons it is on the FDA's Generally Recognized as Safe list. All kava on the market today is sourced from kava root. Kava has a great deal of native/indigenous use, and those people always make their drinks from kava root, throwing away the rest of the plant.
The rest of the plant contains active substances, so in their infinite wisdom, a Western company bought up the cheap kava leaf remnants and made extracts. It turns out that kava leafs have ingredients that cause large amounts of liver damage, but the roots are relatively harmless.
Kava root still isn't good for the liver, but it is less damaging than alcohol or acetaminophen. It is a bad idea to regularly mix it with alcohol or acetaminophen or other things that are bad for the liver, though.
Courtesy of google: acetaminophen is 'paracetamol'. It seems several countries (including the US) use a different name for the chemical.
I share your distrust of the regulatory ability of the US government, particularly the FDA. I further lament the ability of the FDA to damage the regulatory procedures worldwide with their incompetence (or more accurately their lost purpose). In the case of Kevin's specific reference to regulation I suspect even the FDA could manage it. While research on the effects of large doses of EPA and DHA (Omega3) may be scant, understanding of mercury content itself is fairly trivial. I'm taking it that Kevin is referring specifically to quality assurance regarding mercury levels which is at least plausible (given litigation risks for violations).
Stored riff here: I think the world would be a better place if people had cheap handy means of doing quantitative chemical tests. I'm not sure how feasible it is, though I think there's a little motion in that direction.
I would love to have that available, either as a product or a readily accessible service.
It would make consuming illegal drugs a lot safer, no?