Tuesday, March 22, 2011

Could the Benefits of Fish Oil Supplementation Include Reducing Your Risk of Hearing Loss?

The health benefits of the Omega 3 essential fatty acids are now firmly established by mainstream science. Amongst other benefits you may even help save your life from taking Omega 3 supplements every day, because science has shown that overcoming your deficiency in the Omega 3 fats may prevent a heart attack.
But it is less well-known that adding more of the Omega 3 essential fatty acids to your diet may also help protect your hearing. The benefits of fish oil supplementation grow bigger and bigger.
Yes you heard right. Adding more Omega3 fats to your diet has been shown in at least 2 studies to reduce the likelihood or amount of hearing loss that people may suffer over time.
The 2 studies were conducted independently, one in Holland and one in Australia. The Dutch study examined both the level of hearing of a group of people over a period of 3 years as well is what they ate. Each of the participants in the study was tested for hearing including high-frequency and low frequency sounds, and the reduction, if any, over the period of the study was measured.
And it was found that those who have the highest intake of fish in their diet were roughly 10 percent less likely to suffer from hearing reduction compared to those who had the lowest intake of fish.
And of course fish is the primary source of the most important of the Omega 3 essential fatty acids, namely DHA and EPA.
Another study in Australia undertaken for 5 years found that people who ate fish at least twice a week had roughly half the rate of hearing loss compared to other people who rarely or never ate fish.
It is not fully understood why increasing your intake of the Omega 3 essential fatty acids could help reduce hearing loss. But the fact that the mechanism is not well understood does not alter the fact that this seems to be the case, as borne out by 2 solid scientific studies.
And of course it's not just hearing loss that can be protected by increasing the amount of Omega 3 fatty acids in your diet, there is an extremely wide range of health conditions which can be positively impacted by eating more fish.
Sadly though much fish is heavily contaminated with Mercury, and in fact we are told not to eat too much for this reason, and this combined with the fact that fish is becoming extremely expensive presents a conundrum. How do we get more of the Omega3 fats in our diet without going broke doing so, and without eating Mercury?
Fortunately it's quite possible to get high quality Omega3 supplements which contain oil from fish, and which are not contaminated with Mercury or any of the other contaminants present in fish, and which are also cost-effective to take daily.
Sadly however not all Omega 3 supplements are high quality.

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