What Is The Link Between Fish Oil And Diabetes?
Diabetes is on the increase in the US, and every year somewhere around a million people are diagnosed with type 2 diabetes. It isn’t usually fatal, but can be and can have serious impacts on the lives of sufferers. Is there any fish oil and diabetes link? Or can fish oil help reduce the impact of diabetes?
There are many scientists worried about the diabetes epidemic, and worried about the most serious impacts of this one sufferers and their families, including huge financial costs on them and the health system.
There’s well known lifestyle factors that help with diabetes like improving levels of exercise and improving diet and losing weight. But my interest is in the impact of Omega 3 and diabetes, so today I’ll look at that.
There is now little doubt that there is clear evidence supporting the link between fish oil and diabetes relief. Fish oil is of course the major source of Omega 3 fatty acids, and almost all good Omega 3 supplements utilize fish oil for their Omega 3. The main fats that are of benefit to diabetes are known as EPA and DHA. We have written about these elsewhere on this site.
Type 2 diabetes is a condition characterized by high levels of sugar in the blood. The disease causes insulin in the blood to be unable to sufficiently deal with the levels of blood sugar, so these become elevated.
Not only is the insulin unable to deal with the sugar but it is also less able to deal with the uptake of fats in the blood into the cells, so the levels of bad fats in the blood rise too. HDL, (good cholesterol) goes down and triglycerides go up, and the result is that the figures for heart disease amongst diabetics is scary. Risk of heart attack is 6 times normal, and the risk of heart disease is up to 8 times higher.
So is there any fish oil diabetes link? Is there evidence that taking fish oil lowers any of the risks of diabetes? Yes, scientists are finding that taking omega 3 fats from fish oil do indeed lower some of the risks of diabetes.
So why is there a fish oil and diabetes link? Because there are good polyunsaturated fats in Omega 3 fish oil and studies show that these fats reduce the level of triglycerides in the blood, reduce blood pressure and reduce abnormal heart rhythms, and also improve blood clotting regulation.
One large study studying the fish oil diabetes link found that one gram of fish oil a day reduced deaths from cardiovascular events by up to 30% and reduced the risks of death by heart attack by up to 45%. That’s pretty impressive.
It is now clear that there is indeed a link between relief from the risks of diabetes by increasing the intake of fish oil.
How should you be getting your fish oil? Well of course eating fish high in fat is a good way, the American Heart Association recommends eating 2 fish meals a week, but there are also warnings for certain people of eating too much fish due to the incidence of some heavy metals and in particular contaminants like mercury in fish.
Fish oil supplements are the best way to add Omega 3 fats to your diet, daily. The very best ones source fish that come from the southern ocean and are very clean to begin with, and have spectacularly high levels of DHA, so these supplements are naturally higher in DHA, and after undergoing molecular distillation there are no detectable levels of contaminants.
So it seems clear, if you suffer from type 2 diabetes there are good reasons to include Omega3 fish oil supplements in your diet daily.The lowering of the risks of death and disease are so striking its worth making the effort to up your intake of fish oil, daily.
Head over to my website to find out which Omega 3 supplements are the best fish oil supplements.
