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Thursday, March 18, 2010

Fish oil: Don't leave home without it

Last Updated Aug 2007



A new study published in the October issue of the American Journal of Preventative Medicine indicates that taking fish oil will lower the death rate from heart disease nearly seven times more than having automated external defibrillators in every home and public area in America. In fact, authors of the study wrote, taking fish oil is more than twice as effective as having a surgically implanted pacemaker in reducing the death rate. As I have always said, if there is one government subsidy program that makes sense, it would be giving free fish oil to anyone who wanted it. But how do you know if you are prone to sudden cardiac death? The best marker is heart rate variability (HRV). This is an indicator of the ability of your heart to cope with instability in cardiac rhythms. The higher the HRV, the less likely you are to die from sudden cardiac death. The only known "drug" that increases HRV is fish oil. Then how come the government is not giving out fish oil for free to everyone as opposed to reimbursing surgery or giving grants to have defibrillators everywhere? Maybe the fish oil lobby is not as big a contributor to political campaigns as the medical device companies are.
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