Does Taking Fish Oil Tablets Help Prevent Bowel Cancer?
Fish oil tablets contain DHA (docosahexaenoic acid) and EPA (eicosapentaenoic acid) which are the 2 most important essential fatty acids known as omega 3 fatty acids. Over the last 40 years many studies have demonstrated the health benefits of increasing our intake of essential fatty acids and these health benefits include benefits to our heart health and have also demonstrated a link between increasing the intake of fish oil and breast cancer prevention and increasing our intake of fish oil and prostate cancer prevention. Studies are also showing that by increasing our intake of Omega3 fats we can help prevent bowel cancer.
A study undertaken in Scotland about the benefits of omega 3 to bowel cancer prevention found that increasing your intake fish oil can reduce your risk of colon cancer by up to 40 percent. These benefits came from an increase in the intake of DHA and EPA, however it was also noted that increasing your intake of ALA (alpha-linolenic acid), a plant-based Omega 3 fat, did not reduce your risk of colorectal cancer.
Clear evidence was that those who ate more fish had a lower risk of colon cancer and that those who ate less fish had a higher risk of colon cancer.
A Dutch study also established, by comparing the results of 14 other studies, that one meal of fish every week reduced your risk of bowel cancer by an estimated 4 percent. Therefore if you eat 2 meals of fish each week your risk of bowel cancer reduces by around 8 percent.
Here in the US our average intake of fish is way below what would be needed to help achieve these results in preventing bowel cancer.
Of course increasing your intake of fish oil is only a part of an overall strategy to reduce your risk of bowel cancer, but increasing Omega3 intake also offers a wide range of other health benefits including reducing a range of heart problems including heart attack.
So how do you increase your intake of omega 3 essential fatty acids? Fish is very expensive and is also generally contaminated with mercury and other toxins and the FDA tells us not to eat too much for this reason. These 2 facts combined mean that most of us eat way too little fish, and increasing our intake is risky and expensive.
However there are excellent fishoil tablets available which overcome these problems. Fish oil tablets are small capsules containing omega 3 fatty acids and the best fish oil tablets are completely contamination free and are much more cost-effective to be taken daily than increasing your intake of fish.
Unfortunately there is a wide variation in the quality of the different brands of fish oil tablets, and in particular the quantities of the important ingredients DHA and EPA, the best fish oil tabletshaving 2 to 3 times more DHA and EPA than average omega 3 tablets.
So it would seem that the evidence is getting stronger of the health benefits of increasing your intake of Omega3 fats, including in helping to prevent bowel cancer. Clearly all of us should be eating more fish or, more conveniently and more cheaply, taking daily omega 3 supplements by way of fish oil tablets.
For this reason sales of fish oil tablets are increasing faster than any other supplement in history, and I have taken daily Omega 3 tablets for a long time. To find out which Omega 3 supplements are my choice visit my website.
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Tags: colon cancer, colorectal cancer, fish oil, fish oil tablets, omega 3, omega 3 tablets, prevent bowel cancer, prevent colon cancer