Greetings,Eric Bakker here from the Naturopath from New Zealand. Thanks for coming back.
Let's talk about Omega 3. The topic today: 7 Mistakes People Commonly Make When Taking
an Omega 3, all right? I've written some notes here so you'll see me reading off some notes.
As you're aware, if you watch his channel regularly,
that I've retired since November, 2019, but I continue to educate through this YouTube channel.
For many years I did see patients who consulted me with many types of ailments, problems,
all sorts of issues. For many, the solutions came with diet and lifestyle recommendations,
including best foods to eat and best supplements to take for their particular individual situation.
I've been recommending Omega 3 since the 1980s, when the jury was still out on whether Omega 3
fish oil would even benefit a person's health, or if it's just another health scam. I can
still remember seeing headlines and newspapers saying new health scam people taking fish oil.
They basically thought it was a scam. Some early studies that came out 2001, 2002, and these are
the early studies, reported benefits of Omega 3. So Omega 3 really took off about,
I think 15, 20 years ago, it started to become quite big. And now, it's quite a big topic.
One of my dear friends in New Zealand here had discussions with me about Omega 3 and I urged
him to take on a large distribution of Omega 3 in New Zealand around 1999, 2000, which he did.
Now he's one of New Zealand's leading marketers of Omega 3 fish oil in Australia and New Zealand,
because it's become very big since then. But prior to that, people were paying lip service to
fish oil supplements and not really taking them seriously. Like probiotics, they thought they were
a fad and a scam even. Most doctors would never talk about fish oil and still don't today for some
crazy reason, even though a lot of good fish oil supplements work better than non-steroidal drugs.
All right. Let's talk about these seven mistakes. These are things I commonly see with people taking
Omega 3. So the first one, take with foods. Preferably take an Omega 3 fatty acid supplement
with a meal, okay? Generally I recommend you take it with food for increased uptake,
and particularly if you have it with a fatty meal. So many people choose
not to take it with a fatty meal. This can be a mistake. This can make them feel sick
or burp or regurgitate fish, things like that and that can put people right off.
But hang on before you say, "Okay, I won't take it away from meals." Some people benefit from
taking it away from meals. Now you'll think, "Well, hang on a minute, man. You're totally
off your head. Now you're saying one thing, but now you're saying something else." Remember,
I'm talking about patient experience, not clinical studies or trials. When you work with thousands
of people, you get to work out certain things. The bulk of people benefit from taking fish oil
with food, sorry. But a smaller percentage feel much better when they take it away from food.
So point number two, take away from food if it suits you the best. Don't listen to what
others say about you must only take with food. All these laws and rules imposed on us by the
food police have written [inaudible 00:03:44]. You are best to experiment what suits you.
Some prefer with food and some have no issues at all without food. Try both
several ways to see what benefits you the most. Ideally, you would take fish oil once or twice
per day. Twice per day is probably better. I prefer to see people take one capsule,
like the large 1,000 milligram capsule, for example, with breakfast or lunch or dinner;
any one of those three meals if they're taking it once a day. If they take it twice a day,
breakfast, lunch, or dinner. If they take it three times a day, breakfast, lunch, or dinner.
You just split it up, basically. You can take two capsules for one meal as one dose. If a serving
is usually two capsules, you don't have to take one breakfast and one lunch. You can take them
both with one meal. Just try and make sure that it's with a fatty meal. But again, experiment.
Point number three, taking the wrong dose for you. This is very common.
It all depends on the reason why you're taking the Omega 3 supplement.
If you take it for pain or arthritis for example, you basically take two or three capsules,
about 1,000 milligram capsules, each day for three to six months, minimum before you decide it did
nothing for you. Taking one capsule daily will do little to nothing when you've got arthritis.
Taking larger amounts in conjunction with the diet that contain several fish meals a week is optimal.
So most who persist will gain amazing results. So [inaudible 00:05:18], if you want to get the best
results from fish oil, you really want to make sure that you take it enough and for long enough,
all right? It's very important to do that before you dismiss it and say that it's crap.
Fish oil is not a pharmaceutical pill. You can't pop it in your mouth and within a few hours, get a
defined chronic clinical outcome. It doesn't work like that. And for many reasons, doctors always
laughed at fish oil for that reason. But the funny thing is most of them taken themselves these days,
because their pills don't seem to work anymore, do they?
All right. Point number four, taking it long enough. Again, most common.
Somebody will commonly buy one bottle and take Omega 3 fish oil capsules religiously for a month,
then they run out and that's the end of it. I've seen this a thousand times or more. Unless I buy
another bottle in a few months and take them sporadically, a very common event
for conditions like heart disease, immune dysfunctions, inflammation, pain, diabetes,
arthritis, for example, take each day for six months minimum before you decide it was
an inverted comments or wasted money. It wasn't a waste of money at all.
It was a waste of you not taking them long enough or in the sufficient dose long enough.
Most patients I work with long-term, some more than 20 years,
who took Omega 3 for decades, would never ever consider stopping the supplement,
because they discovered the miracle of Omega 3 in that period of time.
All right, point number five. Buying a product that's potentially rancid or off,
it's done; many people do. They go and buy a cheap fish oil from Costco or iHerb or
they'll go to their local chemists, their drug store. They'll see the bag and bins,
300 fish oil capsules for six bucks and they'll think they've got a great product.
Not good. I wouldn't even give it to my pet in case the pet got sick.
So just be careful with fish oil. It's very easy to buy a cheap crappy product.
Rancidity is still a big issue in fish oil industry. Finding a product that is
manufactured with freshness in mind is critical. Cheap fish oils are readily
available online. Be sure to check the origin and the quality of the product you're purchasing.
Point number six, not storing your Omega 3 fish oil properly.
Once opened, it's best to keep it in a cool and dry place. The refrigerator is an ideal place.
Many people say you don't get fish burps or feel funny if you take a fish oil or capsule, once
it's been in a refrigerator. I haven't noticed any difference myself, but many people swear by that.
Some people may inadvertently leave their fish oil on a window sill in the sunlight,
or even in the handbag in their car. It's not a great thing to do. Poor care and storage
will cause it to lose quality faster. So it makes sure that when you use it, you put the
cap on tightly and put it in a cool dark place somewhere. It'll last longer and perform better.
The seventh one, apart from not taking Omega 3 supplements,
I sorry, apart from taking them, not benefiting from more seafood and seaweed in your diet.
So, I believe it's very smart if you're taking a Omega 3, is to have an additional source
of some type of seafood in your diet on a regular basis. I tend to eat herring, I eat a lot of
anchovies and sardines and oily fish, because I've seen the research. I've seen the science on it.
I believe it's for my best interest to do that and I enjoy eating those fish.
If you don't enjoy eating them, you can at least try some sheets of sushi,
for example. The nori sheets or square sheets you get, you can buy it, you can
crumble those up and put them in your salad. But to get some more seaweed in your diet,
go to the Asian shops and have a look at the different seaweeds available and look into it.
Adding these into your diet, gives you additional sources of sea minerals. And I believe sea
minerals worked very well in conjunction with Omega 3. There's definitely a benefit there.
So that's it. The other interesting thing with having seaweed in your diet,
is you're going to get access to minerals that you would never otherwise get in your diet;
like iodine, like selenium. All sorts of weird minerals are in seaweed.
So I hope you got something out of this video. Thanks for tuning in.