The Caveman’s Essential Nutrients #8: Fish Oil

When you’ve been around as long as I have, you hear about a few diet and nutrition fads. Chances are, you’ve heard people talk about fish oil. At some point, fish oil was said to cure everythin’ from the common cold to cancer! While all that may not be true, it is safe to say that fish oil gives yer body a number of benefits that even this caveman is smart enough to know you need! Let’s take a look at some of the great things that fish oil can do for you Rockheads out there!

First off, you’ve gotta know where to find fish oil if you want to reap the benefits. Your body can’t produce fish oil, so it’s really important to know where you can find some. Fish oil is an Omega-3 fatty acid, also known as a polyunsaturated fatty acid. You can find it primarily in – you guessed it – fish, particularly cold-water fatty fish like albacore tuna, herring, lake trout, mackerel, salmon, and sardines. Other good sources include anchovies, bluefish carp, catfish, halibut, pompano, whitefish, and striped sea bass. The American Heart Association recommends that you eat at least two servings of fatty fish per week. How much is a serving? A serving of Fish Oil is about 3.5 oz of cooked or ¾ of flaked fish. Don’t really have a craving for catfish? You can also get Fish Oil in supplements.

Now that you know where ta get it, let’s look over some of those benefits you can get from Fish Oil. The Omega-3 fatty acids found in Fish Oil have a number of benefits for your heart. They may even help reduce plaque buildup in blood vessels that can lead to heart attack or stroke. The University of Maryland Medical Center even maintains that eating two servings of fish per week may reduce your risk of stroke by as much as 50 percent! Fish Oils also have a great effect on your inflammatory response. What does that mean? Fish Oil can relieve the pain from things like arthritis or cystitis (basically if you have an “-itis,” then you should eat more Fish Oil).

Fish Oil is also found to have an influence over brain function. Pregnant and nursing mothers can have a great impact on the intelligence and happiness of their babies by supplementing with fish oils. Adults get the benefits too; Omega-3 improves memory, recall, reasoning, and focus!

Finally, Omega-3 Fish Oils have been shown to help prevent three of the most common forms of cancer: breast, colon, and prostate. By stoppin’ the alteration from a normal healthy cell into a cancerous mass and inhibiting unwanted cellular growth, Omega-3 Fish Oils help keep yer cells healthy and prevent cancer from formin’!

So long as you keep yer Fish Oil intake in check, your body can really reap a number of benefits. Just make sure you don’t over do it. As with most cases, there is such a thing as too much of a good thing. If you eat Fish Oil in extremely large amounts, it can increase bleeding tendencies or even increase the risk of hemorrhagic stroke. So make sure ta get yer Fish Oil, but also remember that less is more!