Thread: The Trouble with Fish Oil (Omega 3's)

Why Fish Oil is Threatening A Vital Species - TIME

The appetite for omega-3 fatty acids — hailed by studies as a weapon against ailments from heart disease to Alzheimer's to depression — appears to be endless. Since 2006, the U.S. market for omega-3 supplements has doubled, to an estimated $1 billion, and that doesn't count the billions of dollars more that consumers paid for infant formula, orange juice, breakfast cereals and a host of other products that have added these wonder nutrients.


But is the fatty-acid craze threatening our ecosystem? The best omega-3 source is oily fish like salmon, mackerel and sardines. Environmentalists fear that some species — especially a small filter feeder called menhaden, which plays a critical role in the aquatic food chain — are being overfished for oil supplements. Bigger fish prey on menhaden, which eat omega-3-rich algae and in doing so clean the ocean waters off the Atlantic and Gulf coasts. By filtering up to 7 gal. (about 26 L) per min., menhaden help prevent oxygen-depleting algal blooms that lead to underwater dead zones. (See the top 10 green ideas of 2009.)


Although few Americans have heard of menhaden, its protection is a big enough worry that 13 of 15 Atlantic states have banned from their waters the fish-oil company that catches 90% of the country's menhaden. The Houston-based Omega Protein insists the menhaden population is healthy. But while the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission says menhaden don't yet face overfishing on a coastal scale, it is limiting the industrial harvest of the fish in Chesapeake Bay, hard hit of late by dead zones. "The devastation of the marine environment has to be taken into account," says H. Bruce Franklin, a professor of American studies at Rutgers University and the author of a recent book on menhaden, The Most Important Fish in the Sea. (See TIME's photo-essay "Scenes from the Tuna Trade.")


The declining menhaden population isn't the only concern swimming around fish-based omega-3 supplements. Mercury consumption is another, as are the needs of vegetarians. The good news there is that plant sources like flaxseed and canola oils have one of the omega-3 fatties, alpha-linolenic acid (ALA). The bad news is that they don't contain docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) or eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA), the more important omega-3 nutrients. Our bodies can convert ALA into DHA and EPA, but the process is limited and slow. (See "The Year in Health 2009: From A to Z.")


A more efficient source of omega-3s is emerging, however, and it's made straight from the algae that give menhaden and other fish so many healthful fatty acids. Maryland biotech company Martek, which farms myriad algal strains in massive tanks, is marketing life'sDHA, an algal omega-3 supplement rich in DHA, which is especially beneficial to the brain.
Martek and others are also developing oilseed-algae hybrids that are packed with a larger array of fatty acids, according to Adam Ismail, director of the Global Organization for EPA & DHA Omega-3, a Salt Lake City trade group. "This is a really interesting new area we're heading into," he says. And given consumer demand for omega-3s, it's likely to be a booming one.

Read more: Why Fish Oil is Threatening A Vital Species - TIME

tl;dr - Don't buy fish oil or omega 3/6/32512 pills that are made from fish oil.
Get the ones that are made from algae, which is sustainable and won't destroy ocean life.

Another reason not to eat the fish oil is that you could very easily be getting jacked. There's no regulations in place to make sure that they handle it correctly to keep the good stuff intact. It's better to just eat the fish itself.

I've read but can't verify that the algae extracts tend to be higher quality.

Well yeah, it makes sense. Plus the fish are just getting it from algae anyway. May as well cut out the middle man (not literally lol) and leave the fish alone.

But yeah, eating the whole fish would be ok because you're getting other nutrients as well. And you don't need to kill as many fish.

Interesting. I will definitively think twice before using fishoil products, even though I don't know if there is a threat of overfishing here yet. Do you know if krill oil is all right (environmentally speaking)?

Originally Posted by khh

Interesting. I will definitively think twice before using fishoil products, even though I don't know if there is a threat of overfishing here yet. Do you know if krill oil is all right (environmentally speaking)?

Not really sure about that. I think there's a shitload of krill everywhere though.
Although there was a shitload of fish 50 years ago....
So yeah, not sure.

But personally I think I'm going to stop eating anything from the ocean.

I've heard a few times that there's no evidence that omega 3 does anything...

Yeh I've heard that too. On the other hand I've heard lots of things that it does help with.
So I don't really know. But for people that wanna take it anyway (which is inevitable with anything really), this is some good info for them.

Originally Posted by Xei

I've heard a few times that there's no evidence that omega 3 does anything...

That's funny.

I've heard more than a few times that it does.

Specifically, neurons that use omega-3s in place of omega-6s release serotonin at a more rapid rate after reuptake leading to the serotonin spending more time in the synapse. Contrast this with the fact that most anti-depressents are Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors. They also cause the serotonin to spend more time in the synapse.

Of course if one set of scientists were working with intact DHA and EPA and the others were working with ALA or crappy DHA and EPA from commercially available fish oils, then one would expect the ones working with ALA to report null results.

Also, the evidence that omega-3s are good for the heart is pretty indisputable. What's up for debate now is its effect on the brain and mental health. There's a plethora of direct and cirmumstantial evidence to support this hypothesis.

Originally Posted by Xei

I've heard a few times that there's no evidence that omega 3 does anything...

But there's tons of evidence that you are an idiot.

Omega 3 acids are healthy, period. If you are one of those fools who always cite some dubious sources that attempt to question every well-established belief in the world, then go ahead and do so.

I know the invasive carp are now being used for omega-3s...which is all they're good for in the US since people won't eat them. They are absolutely devastating our freshwater ecosystems, and unfortunately it would take a massive scale effort to rid us of these pests. Attempts to confine the carp have failed and they have infiltrated the Great Lakes, a 7 billion dollar fishing industry will soon be wiped out (although many people are in denial about this). Even harvesting for omega-3's won't make a dent in their population.

It amazes me how ignorant people still are about the damage we do to our water ecosystems in particular. I guess that's how people learn...from making mistakes (e.g. mass extinctions caused by damming rivers). But I thought scientists/environmentalists would have had this shit at least somewhat figured out by now.

Originally Posted by nina

I know the invasive carp are now being used for omega-3s...which is all they're good for in the US since people won't eat them. They are absolutely devastating our freshwater ecosystems, and unfortunately it would take a massive scale effort to rid us of these pests. Attempts to confine the carp have failed and they have infiltrated the Great Lakes, a 7 billion dollar fishing industry will soon be wiped out (although many people are in denial about this). Even harvesting for omega-3's won't make a dent in their population.

It amazes me how ignorant people still are about the damage we do to our water ecosystems in particular. I guess that's how people learn...from making mistakes (e.g. mass extinctions caused by damming rivers). But I thought scientists/environmentalists would have had this shit at least somewhat figured out by now.

Yeah, carp can pretty much die as far as I'm concerned. They're edible but you have to cut out their lateral line. And then they don't taste that great anyways. Most of the good sources of Omega 3s are cold water fish though. So I would be surprised if they were a good source. I bet the pharmecutical industry highly values them as a source for their research demonstrating their inefficacy though...

The main problem with fishing is not that we're over fishing but that we're doing it stupidly. Fish breed more profusely as they grow larger. Our laws are reversed. We keep the big ones and toss back the little ones. It should be the exact opposite. One grandmother halibut can make something on the order of 100 times as much eggs as a mid sized one. If we always tossed back the grandmothers, we could keep as many "chicken" halibut as we wanted. This also has the benefit of selecting for halibut that grow larger faster rather than selecting for halibut that stay under the limits and/or are small enough to pass through nets. This effect has been documented with cod and there's no reason to suppose that it doesn't happen with other fish.

Yummy fish vs. disgusting algae ....humm.....

Originally Posted by nina

I know the invasive carp are now being used for omega-3s...which is all they're good for in the US since people won't eat them. They are absolutely devastating our freshwater ecosystems, and unfortunately it would take a massive scale effort to rid us of these pests. Attempts to confine the carp have failed and they have infiltrated the Great Lakes, a 7 billion dollar fishing industry will soon be wiped out (although many people are in denial about this). Even harvesting for omega-3's won't make a dent in their population.

It amazes me how ignorant people still are about the damage we do to our water ecosystems in particular. I guess that's how people learn...from making mistakes (e.g. mass extinctions caused by damming rivers). But I thought scientists/environmentalists would have had this shit at least somewhat figured out by now.

Implying that the carp are not natural..?

If you thought nature was about stability or even benevolence, you are sorely mistaken. Nature is apathetic and anarchic. If there is a superior species, the fate of the lesser species is oblivion, not symbiosis. The existing life on Earth is the 1% that was able to drive the remaining 99% to extinction. Although of course, if a species is too aggressive, it'll soon have nothing to eat and its population will crash until the old species have recovered.

Originally Posted by Xei

Implying that the carp are not natural..?

If you thought nature was about stability or even benevolence, you are sorely mistaken. Nature is apathetic and anarchic. If there is a superior species, the fate of the lesser species is oblivion, not symbiosis. The existing life on Earth is the 1% that was able to drive the remaining 99% to extinction. Although of course, if a species is too aggressive, it'll soon have nothing to eat and its population will crash until the old species have recovered.

I see two problems with ths. First, nature is full of examples of symbiosis. Failure to enter into beneficial symbiosis could be viewed as a cause of extinction in some cases. Second, saying that evolution behaves one way means that we should is not right. We should definitely be aware of how this stuff works but it has to be up to us to determine what we want to do and then do it. "Self determination" is one of the primary mechanisms by which we view ourselves as The Magic Monkey That Lives at The Center of The Universe and Sweats Axe Body Spray. E.g. We went out into the hostile world and "domesticated" other species instead of entering into a symbiosis as equals. While its true that our changes are memetic and not genetic, they are just as irrevocable. Emmer wheat domesticated us just as much as we domesticated it.

"Driven by the same natural forces as any other organism" is more like a normal stupid hairy monkey with all the toppings when it comes to "intelligence". If we want to be the former than we should do that. It sounds nice. Otherwise, why make the pretenses?

You'll do yourself a hundred times whatever the benefit is by eating well and exercising regularly

I challange you to name a serious, non-vegetarian dietician that doesn't say that cold water fish is one of the best meats that you can get with any concerns being over heavy metals that didn't used to be there.

Originally Posted by Xei

Implying that the carp are not natural..?

No, it's not natural. That's why they call them invasive Carp. The Asian Carp were brought here by humans and raised in fisheries. Then everything flooded, and the fish got into the rivers and literally took over everything...killing all of the native species because the carp eat everything and the rest of the species starve to death.

tommo...I never said most omega-3's come from carp. I only said that some people are trying to deal with the carp situation by harvesting them for omega-3's.

Unfortunately the electric system explained in this video has already been shown that it has failed, as scientists testing the waters of Lake Michigan for carp have been getting positive readings. It's a great idea to put them on the menu like this guy talks about at the end...



Yes. Pest is the right word. They go right to the bottom of the food chain and eat everything, starving out the rest of the species.

Originally Posted by nina

No, it's not natural. That's why they call them invasive Carp.

But they were natural in Asia, right? That's what I'm saying. It's not as if this phenomenon is unusual. Presumably the same ecosystem arose when the carp evolved in Asia? And if they'd evolved in the US instead of being imported it'd be natural? I'm saying these types of events can happen in nature all the time when a superior species arises for whatever reason, I don't see what's anthropogenically unique about it. I'm not denying that this isn't going to lower the biodiversity or anything.

Originally Posted by Xei

But they were natural in Asia, right? That's what I'm saying. It's not as if this phenomenon is unusual. Presumably the same ecosystem arose when the carp evolved in Asia? And if they'd evolved in the US instead of being imported it'd be natural? I'm saying these types of events can happen in nature all the time when a superior species arises for whatever reason, I don't see what's anthropogenically unique about it. I'm not denying that this isn't going to lower the biodiversity or anything.

I do get what you're saying. And I realize that many species have traveled extraordinary distances naturally via birds etc. to populate other regions without any human interference at all. The thing is that in Asia these fish have natural predators, and are actually endangered. The Asian freshwater system is full of very large catfish and other species that eat the carp, and the carp are popular food with the Asian people. Why we don't just sell them our fish, I don't understand. I don't think it's right to assume that the carp are a superior species when they are just bottom feeders that eat all the plankton causing the rest of the fish to die. I mean, I understand why you are saying that they are, because they have become the dominant species in our rivers and lakes, it's just hard to think of them as anything other than locusts of the water. Just wait, next we'll start putting huge mekong catfish into our rivers to eat the carp. Which will eventually start eating the people.

(watching the fish jumping out of the water like that makes me want to play Age of Empires...anyone?)

Haha, Age of Empires.

Just watched a video of a guy shooting one with a bow with the arrow attached to a rope lol

Would be kinda fun.

Wouldn't be surprise if they did what you said though.
It seems no one has ever read "she swallowed the dog to catch the cat, etc." forgot it's actual name lol. But it's happened so many times. We have rabbits all over Aus now for that reason. Cane toads too. I think the toads were to catch locusts maybe? Not sure. But they ended up not doing anything and just spreading like a wild fire lol

I checked the Wikipedia article and it's all inconclusive. There have been some meta analyses showing no notable benefits, others contradicting this; point is I don't actually give a damn about omega 3. Whatever it is it isn't a miracle drug. You'll do yourself a hundred times whatever the benefit is by eating well and exercising regularly.

Originally Posted by Xei

I checked the Wikipedia article and it's all inconclusive. There have been some meta analyses showing no notable benefits, others contradicting this; point is I don't actually give a damn about omega 3. Whatever it is it isn't a miracle drug. You'll do yourself a hundred times whatever the benefit is by eating well and exercising regularly.

You would probably get omega-3 with a healthy diet anyway.

Why do you think I wouldn't agree with that? :/

Anyway, my other post was largely confusion at the term 'pest', as if this kind of thing isn't how nature works anyway in the vast majority of cases. As if the other fish are somehow the good guys struggling against the evil guys; as if they themselves hadn't, by being better at whatever their niche is, similarly destroyed species in the past. If the carp had evolved locally and was now the dominant species, presumably that wouldn't be bad for some reason. This is of course ignoring the fact that the carp will likely eat themselves to death anyway.

Humans really have nothing to do with what I was saying. As I'm sure you know though, almost every attempt of humans to control complex systems ends as a complete and utter catastrophe. I believe there was a case with lynxes (this could be the wrong animal pair, I can't remember) which lived solely off rabbits. The lynxes would eat loads of rabbits and the rabbits' population would crash. Of course, after a few years the large lynx population couldn't sustain itself due to the rarity of rabbits, and it crashed. The rabbit population then exploded. Rinse, repeat. At some point of course humans come along, note how low the lynx population is, and decides they need to be conserved. They feed them or breed more, and of course this puts the entire system all out of whack and makes it totally unsustainable. Human altruism mixed with hubris is a dangerous mix. The best thing we can do is leave it alone, even if we were the ones who fucked it up.

Originally Posted by nina

I know the invasive carp are now being used for omega-3s...which is all they're good for in the US since people won't eat them. They are absolutely devastating our freshwater ecosystems, and unfortunately it would take a massive scale effort to rid us of these pests. Attempts to confine the carp have failed and they have infiltrated the Great Lakes, a 7 billion dollar fishing industry will soon be wiped out (although many people are in denial about this). Even harvesting for omega-3's won't make a dent in their population.

It amazes me how ignorant people still are about the damage we do to our water ecosystems in particular. I guess that's how people learn...from making mistakes (e.g. mass extinctions caused by damming rivers). But I thought scientists/environmentalists would have had this shit at least somewhat figured out by now.

Well, I don't know where you got your info from, but a few articles say that halibut is the most used source of omega-3's etc. (just gonna say fish oil from now on).

I haven't heard of this carp being so invasive. But I highly doubt that scientists don't know this. It's the rest of the population and the politicians who need to get this stuff stopped. It's them who need to get any action done. The scientists do enough by finding out that this is happening, and a lot of them do still campaign for it etc.

Anyway. It is pretty much established (I was reading articles on this in cosmos for the past few weeks) that as soon as the oceans life dies, so basically all the fish etc. above a certain depth (because the lower ones we haven't really reached yet) that the human race is fucked.

I think it says it in this article in the OP too. When Halibut gets wiped out, all the algae they clean up will obviously be able to grow now, and it will suck up more oxygen, making the oceans even more acidic than our greenhouse gases are.... and then we're gonners. The oceans are the Earth's lungs. And we've killed em.

People know this. It's just that no one can get the politicians to do anything that will actually help.
"Ooooh we're gonna lower our emission by 5% in 20 years" LOL< you fucking homos.

ahem....

Originally Posted by PhilosopherStoned

That's funny.

I've heard more than a few times that it does.

Specifically, neurons that use omega-3s in place of omega-6s release serotonin at a more rapid rate after reuptake leading to the serotonin spending more time in the synapse. Contrast this with the fact that most anti-depressents are Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors. They also cause the serotonin to spend more time in the synapse.

Of course if one set of scientists were working with intact DHA and EPA and the others were working with ALA or crappy DHA and EPA from commercially available fish oils, then one would expect the ones working with ALA to report null results.

Also, the evidence that omega-3s are good for the heart is pretty indisputable. What's up for debate now is its effect on the brain and mental health. There's a plethora of direct and cirmumstantial evidence to support this hypothesis.

That's a good point actually. You would think they would get standardised, pharmaceutical grade sources. But a lot of the times they don't. So I could see how that could change the results for a lot of the studies.
Also a recent meta analysis, lol, showed that 70% of meta analyses don't take conflicts of interest in to account.
So I don't trust them much anymore, and that is the only thing I've read about omega-3's 6's etc. not doing anything.

Originally Posted by PhilosopherStoned

The main problem with fishing is not that we're over fishing but that we're doing it stupidly. Fish breed more profusely as they grow larger. Our laws are reversed. We keep the big ones and toss back the little ones. It should be the exact opposite. One grandmother halibut can make something on the order of 100 times as much eggs as a mid sized one. If we always tossed back the grandmothers, we could keep as many "chicken" halibut as we wanted. This also has the benefit of selecting for halibut that grow larger faster rather than selecting for halibut that stay under the limits and/or are small enough to pass through nets. This effect has been documented with cod and there's no reason to suppose that it doesn't happen with other fish.

Is this true?
I always had an inkling that throwing the little ones back was stupid, because they would have to mature before they can produce more.... but damn
Have you got any studies that show this?

Originally Posted by greenhavoc

Yummy fish vs. disgusting algae ....humm.....

Destroy 90% of all life to satisfy your taste buds vs. .... don't. HMMMMMMMM

Originally Posted by Xei

Implying that the carp are not natural..?
(There you go with your inferring again )

If you thought nature was about stability or even benevolence, you are sorely mistaken. Nature is apathetic and anarchic. If there is a superior species, the fate of the lesser species is oblivion, not symbiosis. The existing life on Earth is the 1% that was able to drive the remaining 99% to extinction. Although of course, if a species is too aggressive, it'll soon have nothing to eat and its population will crash until the old species have recovered.

Have you ever thought that maybe we have developed the ability to help the other species? And we don't want to be in a world where only one species exists in each area?
And we ARE eating too much and consuming too much. 90% of the ocean life killed in 50 years is fucking insane. Everything needs some sort of symbiosis with everything else around it.
Not direct, but indirect. And in most places, this has happened. However we have then screwed this up majorly in most places. Which is probably why this carp can get so out of hand in the first place.
However because we are very intelligent compared to other animals, we can create a sort of artificial symbiosis, if you will. So that we can keep every invasive species at bay, and make sure the threatened species survive.

It's our role on Earth in a way.

I doubt I disagree with any of your opinions, or at least your principles. Certainly mankind's activities are unsustainable. They are also irresponsible and we are the one species on Earth who does know better and should do better. We're probably going to drive many natural fish stocks to extinction. Although of course, humans are no exception to the laws of nature: no doubt if we carry on like this we'll have a population crash too, and the fish we haven't totally destroyed will soon be back.

Like I say though, beyond regulating ourselves, we should for the most part stay the hell away. This is more a mathematical issue than anything. If you've seen Jurassic Park and listened to it properly you'll know what I'm talking about. Human hubris causes a popular conviction that we can control the chaotic systems in nature; we can't. Even with extremely simple relationships like a single prey/predator relationship, we fuck up and make it ten times worse when we perceive that we need to help it. Another example: there was a year or so ago a lot of enthusiasm about a method to take affirmative action against global warming where we would synthetically create giant meshes of some organism which captures CO2. They did a test run. What ended up happening is some other organism developed a symbiotic relationship with it with the net result of releasing even more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. This plan was relatively mild to some other ideas about darkening the skies via chemistry and things. Such affirmative action is extremely dangerous, even though we were the ones who caused the original problem.

Originally Posted by Xei

I doubt I disagree with any of your opinions, or at least your principles. Certainly mankind's activities are unsustainable. They are also irresponsible and we are the one species on Earth who does know better and should do better. We're probably going to drive many natural fish stocks to extinction. Although of course, humans are no exception to the laws of nature: no doubt if we carry on like this we'll have a population crash too, and the fish we haven't totally destroyed will soon be back.

Like I say though, beyond regulating ourselves, we should for the most part stay the hell away. This is more a mathematical issue than anything. If you've seen Jurassic Park and listened to it properly you'll know what I'm talking about. Human hubris causes a popular conviction that we can control the chaotic systems in nature; we can't. Even with extremely simple relationships like a single prey/predator relationship, we fuck up and make it ten times worse when we perceive that we need to help it. Another example: there was a year or so ago a lot of enthusiasm about a method to take affirmative action against global warming where we would synthetically create giant meshes of some organism which captures CO2. They did a test run. What ended up happening is some other organism developed a symbiotic relationship with it with the net result of releasing even more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. This plan was relatively mild to some other ideas about darkening the skies via chemistry and things. Such affirmative action is extremely dangerous, even though we were the ones who caused the original problem.

You're probably correct for the most part.
Although I see nothing wrong with limiting the amount of fish we eat. Or as philstoned said, eating more smaller fish. Which have less mercury anyway. Doesn't seem like anything could go wrong with that. (famous last words? haha)

Do you have a link to this coz capturing organism example?

I believe omega-3 is actually essential.