One of GOD's Provisions for Our
Health!
Salmon Oil and Cod Liver Oil in pure quality and quantity can save health and money and heartach.
Fish appear again and again in the miracles and words of Christ. It was on the shores of Galilee that Jesus launched his ministry. Christ's first Four disciples were fishermen, and fish for food is described more frequently in the New Testament than anywhere else in the Bible, especially in the wonderful miracle of the Loaves and Fishes (Mark 6:41-2, which says to me: here is an unusual food available to all.
Even more fascinating is the fact that a fish was chosen to be one of the first symbols of Christianity (supposedly) because the first five letters of the word "fish" in Greek stood for the initial letters of the five words: `Jesus Christ, God's Son, Savior. " A fish was the secret emblem Christians in hiding used to recognize each other.
Only in the last decade have scientists begun to understand how right the Bible is, as an astonishing array of ailments cured or relieved by the right kind of fish comes to light.
The best source of "fish oil" is from North Atlantic cod and Wild Salmon.
For example (to name just a few):
Stroke
The right kind of fish are exceedingly remarkable therapeutic and preventive food with enormous lifesaving power-a curative food, full of surprises.
How Omega-3 Can Ward off Cancer
"Numerous studies show that fish oil consistently decreases the size of animal tumors, the number of tumors and their tendency to spread," says Artemis Simopoulos, M.D., president of the Center for Genetics, Nutrition and Health in 'Washington, D.C.
+ COLON POLYPS-In humans, fish oil seems to suppress pre-cancerous colon polyps. In a study at the Catholic University of Rome, patients with polyps who ate fish oil showed suppression of signs of colon cancer in just 2 weeks. In the study, men with colon polyps ate either daily doses of fish oil or a fake capsule for 3 months.
Abnormal cell growth-a sign of developing colon cancer-dropped an average of 62 percent in nearly all (90 percent) of the fish-oil group and came to a complete halt in one patient. The doses were equal to eating about 8 ounces of mackerel a day. Dr. George Blackburn, of Harvard, says that high doses of fish oil are necessary at first to correct a deficiency, after which lower amounts are acceptable.
+ BREAST CANCER-Dr. Blackburn finds that fish oil given to breast-cancer patients before and after surgery slows down cancer activity. Rashida Karmali, associate professor of nutrition at Rutgers University, has found that signs of breast cancer in women in the highest risk group were suppressed when they took fish-oil supplements in amounts equal to what Japanese women get from eating fish.
Fish is packed with vitamin D, which seems to ward off postmenopausal breast cancer in women over 50, according to Frank Garland, M.D., of the Department of Community and Family Medicine at the University of California. The recommended dietary allowance (RDA) of vitamin D in the United States is 200 IU (international units) daily. Japanese women eat about six times as much: 1,200 IU daily. When they move to the United States, their vitamin D intake drops and their breast cancer rate rises sharply.
And a study of 6,000 middle-aged men by Therese A. Dolececk, Ph.D., at the MRFIT Coordinating Center in Minneapolis showed that deaths from cancer were lower in men who ate fish regularly.
Omega-3 fish oils have actually doubled the life expectancies of HIV patients. According to studies in Tanzania, when people who were HIV-positive were given omega-3 fish oil, along with gamma-linolenic acid (GLA), their life expectancies were more than doubled.
+Rheumatoid Arthritis
As an anti-inflammatory agent, fish oil can bring relief from the pain, swelling, and stiffness of rheumatoid arthritis, according to Joel M. Kremer, M.D., associate professor of medicine, Albany Medical College, New York.
It significantly reduces leukotriene B4-an inflammatory substance mainly responsible for arthritis symptoms, according to Dr. Kremer. It takes about a month to click in. After that, relief is rapid and lasts as long as you continue to consume fish oil.
The daily doses needed to attain relief range from 3,000 to 5,000 mg of fish-oil capsules with omega-3 fatty acids, according to Dr. Kramer. Since most fish-oil capsules contain 300 mg., that means at least ten capsules a day. But in a Belgian study, 2.6 grams [eight capsules] of omega-3 fish oil daily reduced pain and strengthened hand grip. And several studies have shown this same effect by supplementing the diet with as little as 1.8 grams of EPA fish oil daily (six capsules).
Research shows that the irritating chemicals that cause arthritic pain tend to build up again within a month of discontinuing fish oil.
Reported results:
"Several of my patients with rheumatoid arthritis have told me they have less morning stiffness and joint pain when their diet is rich in fish with a high omega-3 fatty acid content," says Isadore Rosenfeld, M.D. (Seen on Fox News every Sunday Morning9:30 Centeral). You may possibly improve the symptoms of rheumatoid arthritis if you regularly eat these fatty, cold-water fish. If you cannot afford them or don't like their taste, you may take 6 grams of [fish oil] capsules every day." 1
"After years of taking various medications for arthritis pain, I have been able to control the flare-ups for the past 10 years by eating two to three cans of sardines a week," says one woman.
"I find fish oil very helpful for morning stiffness and joint pain," says a 63-year-old neighbor of mine with a history of rheumatoid arthritis in her knees, shoulders, and hands. She says a capsule a day keeps the pain away. She finds that even if it flares up a bit, she can control it by taking a couple of extra capsules a day for a few days.
'From Doctor, What Should I Eat? by Isadore Rosenfeld, M.D. Copyright © 1995 by Dr. Isadore Rosenfeld. Published by Random House, Inc.., New York, NY. Reprinted by permission of the author.
In one study by Dr. Kremer, 33 patients complaining of swollen, painful joints with morning stiffness that lasted more than a half-hour were given fish-oil capsules for about three and a half months. Not only did their symptoms subside, but they were free of fatigue and had energy for longer periods.
There's no question that certain foods and beverages can bring on
migraine headaches in a person prone to them; foods such as
cheeses, chocolate, hot dogs, bacon, processed meats that contain
nitrites, foods containing MSG, fermented foods such as beer,
yogurt, sauerkraut, yeast, and brewer's yeast, aspartame (Nutra
sweet), or lack of caffeine, which occurs in coffee drinkers when
they are deprived of coffee.
Headaches from these foods may be due to an allergy to them or, to a substance they contain called tyramine, which can bring on headaches even in the absence of allergy.
Migraine headaches were prevented for about 60 percent of
severe migraine sufferer&-and greatly relieved in others-simply by
taking fish-oil capsules, in a study by Dr. Timothy macaroon at the
University of Cincinnati College of Medicine that lasted 6 weeks.
Studies have shown that fish eaters are less likely to suffer from asthma or other respiratory ailments. Eskimos, for example, who eat lots of sea food, rarely suffer from asthma.
English researchers say that regularly eating fish high in antiinflammatory omega-3 fatty acids, such as salmon, mackerel, sardines, and cod, may prevent asthma in those who don't have it and help heal those who do.
They had asthma sufferers take high doses of fish oil-, equivalent to eating about 8 ounces of mackerel daily, for 10 weeks, which reduced asthma-causing agents in the body by about 50 percent.
At Guy's Hospital in London, asthma patients who took fish oil had fewer breathing difficulties in the so-called late asthma reaction, which usually occurs from 2-7 hours after initial breathing problems.
1. Fish eaters are only about half as likely to develop Type II diabetes as are nonfish eaters, according to Dutch researchers at the National Institute of Public Health and Environmental Protection. In a longterm study involving 175 healthy elderly men and women who were free of both diabetes and impaired glucose intolerance, they found-after 4 years-that 45 percent of the nonfish eaters had developed glucose intolerance (a precursor of diabetes), while 75 percent of the fish eaters remained completely free of this symptom. The amount of fish involved? Only an ounce per day. Omega-3 fish oil seems to preserve the pancreas's ability to handle glucose, thereby avoiding diabetes.
2. The main cause of diabetes has to do with sugar intake as a child or your parents - and your liver. To break the dependency of insulin you need to revitalize your liver. Liver plus C is great for recovering from diabetes. For those who already have diabetes, the recommended dose is two per meal, or three times a day with food.
When normal rabbits ate food soaked in cod-liver oil, their eye pressure dropped 56 percent, according to Prasad S. Kulkarni, Ph.D., of the University of Louisville in Kentucky. "If it works as well in humans as it does in healthy animals, this could be a good prophylactic against glaucoma," says Dr. Kulkarni, who got the idea for this experiment from surveys indicating that Eskimos have very low rates of open-angle glaucoma, on a diet high in fish oil.
In England, 27 lupus patients taking fish-oil capsules showed significant improvement, over a 34-week period, while those taking placebo pills got worse or stayed the same.
Food allergy is a major cause of eczema, especially in children. In a recent study at Middlesex Hospital in London, researchers estimated that simply eliminating cow's milk, eggs, tomatoes, artificial colors, and food preservatives would help up to three-quarters of children with moderate to severe eczema.
"In addition to food allergies, dietary oils are important in the presence of eczema," says Dr. Michael T. Murray. "Specifically, patients with eczema appear to have an essential fatty acid deficiency."
Treatment with essential fatty acids has both normalized the deficiency and relieved the symptoms of eczema in many patients. "It may be particularly important to increase the dietary intake of omega-3 oils," says Dr. Murray.2
'From Natural Alternatives to Over-the-Counter and Prescription Drugs by
Michael T. Murray. Copyright © 1994 by Michael T. Murray. By permission of William Morrow & Company, Inc.
Symptoms of psoriasis, especially itching, were "significantly" relieved by eating 5 ounces a day of an oily fish such as mackerel, in a study at the Royal Hallamshire Hospital in Sheffield, England, over an 8-week period. Similar results were achieved in 60 percent of patients taking fish-oil capsules for 8 weeks, in a study by Dr. Vincent A. Ziboh at the University of California at Davis.
Patients with psoriasis must not drink alcohol, which causes increased absorption of toxins from the gut, along with impaired liver function. A weakened liver cannot filter out these toxins. As a result, the psoriasis gets much worse.
People in the fishing industry seem strangely immune to multiple sclerosis, a fact that has not escaped the notice of scientists.
Roy Swank, M.D., a neurologist at the Oregon Health Sciences University in Portland, has been treating multiple sclerosis very successfully with a diet high in omega-3 foods such as fish (three or more times a week) and a daily teaspoon of cod-liver oil. For 34 years, Dr. Swank kept track of 144 MS patients.
The results of this study are astounding. Minimally disabled
patients who followed his dietary recommendations experienced little or no disease progression, and only 5 percent failed to survive the 34-year study. But 80 percent of those who failed to follow the dietary program did not survive the study period.
Writing in the British medical journal The Lancet in 1990, Dr.
Swank said: "If we got them on the diet before disability set in, 95
percent lived for 30 years without disability. All who did not go on
the diet went downhill and most died within 20 years."
Moderately and severely disabled patients who followed the
dietary recommendations also did far better than the group that didn't. The diet prevented worsening of the disease and greatly reduced fatigue.
MS patients are severely lacking in omega-3 fatty acids, according to Ralph T. Holman, Ph.D, of the University of Minnesota and Emre Kokmen, M.D., of the Mayo Clinic.
How You May Cheat Death
with an Ounce a Day of Omega-3
Eating just an ounce of fish a day cuts the chances of a fatal heart attack in half, according to a Dutch study. And if you've already suffered a heart attack, it can help you escape another one, according
to Michael Burr, M.D., of the Medical Research Council in Cardiff, Wales. Burr studied 2,033 men who had all had at least one heart attack. He divided them into four groups:
1. One group was asked to eat 5 ounces salmon, mackerel, or sardines, at least twice a week, or take fish-oil capsules.
2. The second group was asked to cut down on saturated fats,
such as butter, cheese, and cream.
3. A third group was asked to increase their fiber intake by eating
bran cereal and whole-wheat bread.
4. The fourth group received no instructions and were free to eat
as they pleased.
The results after 2 years?
There was no life-saving effect from a low fat or high -fiber diet.
But among fish eaters, the mortality rate dropped 30 percent.
In a study of 84 patients who had had balloon angioplasty to
open clogged arteries, at the Washington, D.C., Hospital Center, out
of 42 patients who ate both a low-fat diet and took fish-oil capsules
for 6 months, only eight (19 percent) needed another angioplasty. In
an equal number of patients on a low-fat diet without fish oil, the
rate of recurring blockage was 38 percent-twice as many-according to Mark R. Milner, M.D., the surgeon who made the study.
Consistently eating fish both before and after heart surgery keeps arteries open just as well as taking fish-oil capsules, according to Isabelle Bairati, M.D., professor of medicine at Laval
University in Quebec City, Canada.
How to Quickly Normalize
a Subnormal HDL Count
If your HDL cholesterol-the "good" cholesterol-is subnormal, you can give it a tremendous boost by eating fish rich in omega-3 fatty acids, such _as salmon, mackerel, herring, sardines, or cod., according to Gary J. Nelson, Ph.D., of the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Western Human Nutrition Research Center in San Francisco. In a test, men with normal cholesterol ate salmon for lunch and dinner for about 40 days. The beneficial HDL cholesterol in their blood went way up-within 20 days. Results were surprisingly rapid, says Dr. Nelson. People with subnormal HDL can expect even higher rises from eating fish, he says.
"Omega-3 fatty acids," says Dr. Michael Murray, "have been shown in hundreds of studies to lower cholesterol and triglyceride levels [and] are being recommended to treat or prevent not only high cholesterol levels but also high blood pressure, other cardio-vascular diseases, cancer, auto-immune diseases like multiple sclerosis and rheumatoid arthritis, allergies ..-. asthma, lupus, and ulcerative colitis ..., eczema, psoriasis, and many other illnesses....
"If cold-water fish are not readily available, I recommend supplementing the diet with either fish oils or flaxseed oil. The dosages found to be effective when using fish-oil supplements range from 5
to 15 grams of omega-3 fatty acids per day. ..."6
Preventing Blood Clots and Stroke
Omega-3 fish oil prevents blood platelets from sticking together, so that clots cannot form to plug up your arteries. It causes blood platelets to release much less of a clotting substance called thromboxane, according to Norberta Schoene, Ph.D., of the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Harvard researchers say that eating 6-1/2 ounces of canned tuna can "thin the blood" as much as taking an aspirin. One researcher claims you can get a favorable anti-clotting effect from eating 3-1/2 ounces of fatty fish such as mackerel, herring, salmon, or cod.
Fish also lowers fibrinogen in the blood, another factor that causes clots to form, according to Paul Nestel, chief of Human Nutrition at the Commonwealth Scientific & Industrial Research Organization in Australia.
Dutch researchers have found that men between 60 and 69 who ate fish at least once a week were only half as likely to have a stroke during the next 15 years as were those who ate no fish.
"My own blood pressure dropped from 140/90 to 100/70 after I started eating a small can of mackerel fillets every day," says Peter Singer, Ph.D., of Berlin, Germany. For most people, eating fish three times a week supplies enough omega-3 oil to lower blood pressure-and may even eliminate the need for medication in some people.
Dr. Singer found small doses of fish oil as effective in reducing
blood pressure as the beta-blocker Inderal, a widely prescribed blood
pressure medicine.
Fish-oil capsules do lower blood pressure in those who don't like fish. In tests at the University of Cincinnati, blood pressure fell 4.4 points diastolic and 6.5 points systolic in subjects with mild high blood pressure who took 2,000 mg of omega-3 fatty acids daily for 3 months.
Ulcerative Colitis
Fish oil is being used to treat ulcerative colitis by William Stenson,
M.D., at Washington University Medical Center in St. Louis. In one
study of 18 patients, Dr. Stenson found that fish-oil supplements
reduced an inflammatory agent in the colonleukotriene B4-by 60
percent. Not surprisingly, patients felt much better and gained
weight. Examinations by sigmoidoscopy revealed less inflammation
or damage. Nearly half the patients (eight) were able to cut their
dosage of prednisone-a drug needed to keep the disease under
control-in half.
Crohn's Disease Sufferers Saved from Relapse
Italian doctors have used fish oil to save Crohn's patients from
relapse. Out of 78 patients at high risk for a relapse, half were given
nine fish-oil capsules daily, specially designed to melt in the colon.
The others were given blank pills. After a year, 59 percent of the
patients using fish oil capsules were in remission, compared with 26
percent on the placebo.
Fish oil "seems to be one of the truly non-toxic medications to
give patients on a long-term basis to prevent relapse,)) according to
Albert B. Knapp, M.D., assistant professor of medicine at New York
University's School of Medicine.
Raynaud's Disease Helped
Raynaud's disease is characterized by fingers that grow pale and hurt in cold weather, or when exposed to cold water or ice. Then, as they warm up, they turn red, become painful and swollen, and tingle or throb. This condition is due to a spasm of the small arteries in exposed areas of the body-fingers, nose tip, ears-when exposed to a drop in temperature.
It usually occurs in people with some disorder of the immune system, notably lupus, rheumatoid arthritis, and scleroderma. But it can occur in people who are otherwise completely healthy, except that their fingers get frostbitten quickly on exposure to cold.
Aside from the obvious solutions-stay out of the cold, and if you can't avoid it wear gloves-and as an alternative to drugs, you might try fish oil. In one study of persons with Raynaud's disease who took 12 capsules of omega-3 fish oil daily for twelve weeks, their fingers remained pink and warm after exposure to cold. A 4 ounce serving of pink salmon contains the same amount of omega-3 fish oil as seven capsules. Other rich sources are herring, mackerel, bluefish, sardines, trout, cod, and whitefish. Omega-3 fish oils cause the inner lining of blood vessels to release prostaglandins, which help prevent the small arteries (arterioles) in exposed areas of the body from going into spasm.
A Cure for Aging?
At age 68, Otto von Bismarck, the "Iron Chancellor" of Germany, was in feeble health. A lifetime of hard work and overindulgence in food, drink, and tobacco had taken its toll, and he appeared bloated and mentally vague. Then he was introduced to a young Jewish physician named Dr. Schweninger, who promptly put him on a diet consisting almost exclusively of herring.
The effect was miraculous. According to Bismarck's biographer, A J.P. Taylor, "However curious this seems by contemporary standards, it did the trick. Bismarck's weight went down ... he slept long and peacefully; his eyes became clear, his skin fresh .and almost youthful." According to Taylor, "Every observer noted the change in Bismarck; and it can be seen in his photographs. In 1877 he is bloated, choleric, bursting at the seams." In 1883, just before he met Schweninger, the photos showed "A bearded old man, bewildered at life and hardly able to control his twitchings long enough to face the camera. In 1885 he is fresh, clean-shaven, chin upright, face finely drawn, master of himself, seventy years old no doubt, but a man with a long life before him."
Of course, von Bismarck did not stay on a diet of herring. His diet expanded to include meats and vegetables. But fish remained a major source of rejuvenation for him. He lived to a hale and hearty 83 years of age.
+Herring, as we have seen, is a rich source of omega-3 oil, which protects against a wide range of allergic and inflammatory conditions, such as asthma, arthritis, blood clots, clogged arteries, colon cancer, diabetes, heart attacks, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, macular degeneration, ulcerative colitis, and much more.