Fish Oil

The link between good health and fish emerged in 1978, after a group of researchers from Denmark reported that the Inuit of northwest Greenland had one-tenth the death rate from heart attack as that of their Danish neighbors. The scientists concluded that the Inuit diet, primarily made up of fish, seal and herring oil, protected them from high cholesterol, obesity, diabetes and heart disease.

BY the time Weems W. Duvall Jr., hit 45, he was close to 300 pounds, his cholesterol was sky high and his blood pressure was out of control. "I was pretty much a walking heart attack," he says. Diet books advised him that adding fish to his meals would help him reduce calories and take advantage of a hefty dose of heart-friendly fats called omega-3 fatty acids. He began replacing his red meat with fish and felt better -- and lost weight. As Duvall likes to put it, "I was hooked."

Time may heal all wounds, but the scars that remain can be unsightly, itchy, stiff and painful. Pharmacy aisles beckon with "clinically proven, doctor-recommended" scar products, and the Internet teems with anecdotes of different creams and elixirs that supposedly erase old scars or prevent new ones from forming. But not all of those claims stick. "There are a thousand wives' tales and a whole bunch of things you can buy, but none have scientific validity to speak of," says Dr. Terence Davidson, a professor of surgery at UC San Diego School of Medicine.

So how many omega-3 fatty acids are enough — and how should you get them? That likely depends on your age and your specific health concerns. The United States does not yet have guidelines for DHA or EPA, and consensus among nutrition experts is elusive. But specialty groups, some governmental agencies and individual experts have started to take a stand. For healthy adults without major medical issues, the European Food Safety Agency recommends a daily dose of 250 milligrams of combined EPA and DHA, while the National Heart Foundation of Australia suggests 500 milligrams.

A beauty queen with no hair ? that turns expectations upside down. At the 90th Miss America competition in Las Vegas last weekend, Miss Delaware, Kayla Martell, was that girl. Martell usually ? but not always ? competes for titles wearing a wig, but far from trying to hide her baldness, she uses her beauty queen status to raise awareness about alopecia areata, the autoimmune disease that caused her to lose her hair as a child. FOR THE RECORD: Women's hair loss: An article in the Image section elsewhere in this edition, about thinning hair in women, identified Dr. Monte O. Harris as being affiliated with Cultura cosmetic medical spa in Washington D.C. Harris is with the Center for Aesthetic Modernism in Chevy Chase, Md. The error was discovered after the section went to press.

Struggling with the black dog of depression? The supplement aisle abounds with options for people seeking a non-medicinal remedy - but figuring out what works and what doesn't can be a challenge for consumers and experts alike. That's because the data are generally poor, says Dr. Charles Raison, associate professor of psychiatry in the College of Medicine at the University of Arizona in Tucson. There are some exceptions. Hundreds of studies have investigated the effects of omega-3 fatty acids and St. John's wort.

Not enough research has been done to prove fish-oil supplements can prevent heart disease, despite studies correlating seafood intake with low rates of cardiac disorders, a heart specialist says. The theory that omega-3 fatty acids found in fish oil may protect against heart disease has not been subjected to rigorous testing, said Dr. Garret FitzGerald, a Vanderbilt University researcher. He called for more studies on the long-term side effects of fish-oil consumption.

Could eating more fish or taking fish-oil capsules help thwart breast cancer? Some researchers think so. Dr. Rashida Karmali, associate professor of nutrition at Rutgers University, has found that supplements of fish oil, equal to what Japanese women commonly eat in fish, did suppress biological signs of developing cancer in women most apt to get breast cancer.

Most people remember cod liver oil as nasty, fishy-tasting stuff, high in vitamins A and D, that was given to kids to prevent rickets until convenient artificial vitamins were invented in the 1950s. Cod liver oil usage, so it seemed, had waned. In recent years, though, there has been a renewed--and, many experts say, potentially dangerous--popularity of the oil due to a number of medical studies showing that fish oils may reduce cardiovascular disease.

You’ve probably heard of omega-3 fatty acids , the nutrients that make fish oil so healthy. You may even have heard of particular ones, such as DHA (docosahexaenoic acid), ALA (alpha-linolenic acid) or EPA (eicosapentaenoic acid). But unless you’re one of the scientists who worked on a study being published in Friday’s edition of the journal Cell , you surely have no idea why omega-3 fatty acids are so good at tamping down inflammation and enhancing sensitivity to insulin.