Fish Consumption And Diabetes Risk

[biohacked]

There’s little question that fish contain environmental pollutants such as mercury and PCBs with, generally, bigger fish such as shark and tuna containing more and smaller fish like sardines containing less. That’s been common knowledge between health researchers for a while now. The real question is whether that translates into any of the major degenerative diseases in people (such as cancer or diabetes).

Well, sadly, in the case of diabetes it does appear to be the case.

Here’s a great video by Dr. Michael Greger summarizing the science between diabetes risk and fish consumption:


As he mentioned in the video, besides the pollutants, the causal link could also very well be the oxidative stress causing n-3 fatty acid content of the fish. That obviously goes against the mainstream opinion on diet but one can certainly find smart people that would support that notion and as far as I’ve seen the research on fish oil seems to be quite mixed.

 

[thujone]

I've been focusing on my Omega-3 and Omega-6 balance lately, supposedly the optimal ratio is 2:1 (Omega-6:Omega-3). I came across this chart as well:

The main issue in trying to reach the optimal balance is there is so much more Omega-6 in dietary fats than Omega-3, the only food I could find that is sort of OK ratio-wise is cheese but I guess otherwise the options are either supplementing diet by eating fish a few times a week or taking the cod liver oil. As for the mercury, it's hard to tell what works. I heard coriander (seeds?) works but the very topic of chelation has been consumed by the shills hawking their supplements 'big pharma doesn't want you to know about!!!111' So nuts...

 

[Foreigner]

I've experimented a lot with different fats over the years and I feel like the needed intake of fish oil is overstated. If I take anything more than 1/2 teaspoon per day my body will not absorb it. Either way, taking omega-6 isn't even all the necessary since it's so common in our diets.

Chelating mercury can be accomplished with fasting if you enter full ketosis. Just be prepared to feel like shit for a few days or more. The body can excrete a certain amount of mercury per day, so if you eliminate all major sources like diet and dental fillings, your body should take care of it over time.

The heavy metal that freaks me out more is cadmium. It stays in the body for life and cannot be excreted or chelated. It's also in a lot of seafood but especially shellfish.

 

[thujone]

yeah I find cod liver oil pretty difficult to digest myself, fish itself is alright though. The highest concentrations of omega-6 seems to be in vegetable oils and meats so it's easier to restrict intake of those than to fill up on omega-3 daily.

I just realized the Wikipedia page for vegetable oils has a nice breakdown of omega-3 and omega-6 content: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vegetable_oil#Composition_of_fats