Browse evidence-based analysis of health-related claims and assertions
People who take the highest dose of fish oil for six months end up with more oxidized fat in their red blood cells than those taking a low dose — even if they started with the same level of protection.
Descriptive
Fish oil can help protect your blood cells from damage at first, but if you take a lot for a long time, it ends up making them more fragile — and how much you take and how long you take it both matter.
After six months of high-dose fish oil, the protective antioxidant in red blood cells drops back down, and the cells become more easily damaged by oxidation — and the higher the dose, the worse it gets.
After one month of taking high-dose fish oil, your red blood cells temporarily get more of a protective antioxidant called alpha-tocopherol, which helps them resist damage from oxidation.
Taking fish oil supplements with EPA and DHA over time makes the membranes of your red blood cells more filled with these types of fats, making them more flexible but also more prone to damage from oxidation.
Trans fats from dairy and meat (vaccenic acid) don’t seem to make insulin resistance worse in overweight women, even when eaten at levels higher than typical industrial trans fats.
Correlational
In healthy young people, eating more trans fat for a month doesn’t make their insulin work worse than eating the same amount of butter or olive oil.
Japanese people living in the U.S. have similar levels of this unhealthy fat in their blood whether they have diabetes or not, suggesting that their overall diet might mask any link between trans fat and blood sugar problems.
Japanese people with diabetes have more of a certain unhealthy fat in their blood than those with normal or slightly elevated blood sugar, hinting that processed foods might play a role in their condition.
People in Japan who have more of a specific fat (elaidic acid) in their blood—usually from processed foods—tend to have higher insulin resistance, which means their bodies don’t use insulin well, but this link gets weaker when you account for high triglyceride levels.
Even when people ate a very high amount of trans fats—either artificial or from dairy—their blood proteins didn’t change enough to be picked up by the method used, meaning this way of studying proteins might not be good for spotting diet effects.
Even when people ate a lot of a specific trans fat found in dairy (CLA), their blood proteins stayed pretty much the same, so this type of fat probably doesn’t change how the body uses proteins in the blood.
Even when people ate a lot of artificial trans fats—way more than normal—their blood proteins didn’t change much, so these fats might not mess with the body’s protein signals in a big way.
When older adults with memory problems eat more omega-3 fats from fish or supplements, their bodies show less of a type of cell damage linked to aging and brain decline.
Older adults with memory issues have more harmful oxidative damage in their blood compared to healthy older adults, which may be linked to their cognitive problems.
Elderly people with memory problems who eat more fish oil-like fats (DHA and EPA) tend to have less damage from harmful molecules in their blood, which might help protect their brains.
Fish oil and chemo together cause more oxidative damage in tumors than either alone, but that’s not the whole reason the tumors shrink — something else (like GPX suppression) matters more.
Mechanistic
Fish oil only affects the cancer cells’ ability to handle stress — not the healthy liver or colon — which may mean it’s safer and more targeted.
Giving methylene blue while brain cells are still starved makes things worse — it only helps if you wait until oxygen and sugar are restored.
Unlike some toxins, methylene blue doesn’t make harmful free radicals in brain cells after they’ve been starved.
Mice with breast tumors that eat fish oil stay healthier and gain weight before treatment, while those on regular oil lose weight — suggesting fish oil helps fight cancer-related wasting.
Methylene blue helps brain cells store more sugar as glycogen after being starved, which may help them recover energy later.
Even when given an antioxidant (vitamin E), tumors in fish oil-fed mice still get more oxidative damage after chemo, meaning they’re already under more stress and can’t recover.
After brain cells are starved and then get oxygen and sugar back, methylene blue helps them make more of their main energy molecule.
Quantitative