Hmm .. cod liver oil instead of fish oil? page

[echoyjeff222]

I'm about to purchase another bottle of fish oil, but I just saw that I could save 5 bucks by buying the cod liver oil instead (same size). I'm wondering whether I should just go for the cod liver oil.

I already have salmon like 3-4 times a week so ... the fish/cod liver oil is mainly for my skin.

(both carlson)

[bloodorchid]

yeah get the cod liver oil

[maurile]

The brand of cod liver oil that's worthwhile is the fermented cod liver oil by Green Pastures. But it's expensive.

The other brands of cod liver oil are like taking fish oil plus synthetic vitamins.

[bloodorchid]

i dunno, my skin likes the synthetics in it

[OperaDivaMom]

Not all of them have synthetics, some of them like Carlson Labs have natural vitamins added, but yes the fermented Green Pastures stuff is the best. Get the capsules if you can though, that stuff is HARD to get down, even the flavored versions.

[Glamorama]

It's good for natural Vit A!

[paleo_hailey]

Yep, Green Pastures is the gold standard. I actually fill my own capsules. You need 12 (!) of the Green Pastures capsules to get a full tsp of FCLO I buy the liquid FCLO and empty "000" gelatin capsules (about $5 for 500 on Amazon.) Just 4 of those = 1 tsp. It works out much, much cheaper and it's more pleasant than swallowing 12 at a time!

[Dragonfly]

I personally don't recommend Cod liver oil--especially to any of my Pregnant clients.

Too easy to create Vitamin A toxicity with a Primal diet--especially if you are also regularly eating liver.

High pre-formed retinol (Vitamin A) was not part of our evolution. We would most likely have gotten LOTS of sun (Vitamin D) to balance a reasonable amount of Vitamin A from meat, eggs & (occasional) liver.

Read these links:
Vitamin D Council > News Archive > 2006 > Cod Liver Oil and Vitamin A Toxicity

Vitamin D Council > News Archive > 2008 > Dangers of Cod Liver Oil


You are much better off getting your Vitamin A from a well-balanced Primal diet, D from sun and/or D3 oil-based supplements and Omega 3 from Krill oil.

[paleo_hailey]

Dragonfly, have you listened to any of Chris Kresser's stuff? He strongly recommends FCLO for pregnant women, and says as long as you're getting enough D and K (and paleo women generally do) there's practically zero risk of vitamin A toxicity. He goes quite specifically into how the few studies which showed some risk were badly done and generally just flawed. He does say to avoid synthetic A in all its forms, though.

I'd be interested to know your opinion, I haven't been vigilant with my FCLO (it's not exactly nausea-friendly) but I was planning to start back up now that I'm feeling a little better. The WAPF people love it for pregnant women, too.

[Dragonfly]

Hi Hailey!
Yes. I have read Chris' site (which I mostly LOVE) & he seems to have taken the WAPF position on CLO completely. I just posted a comment on his Green Pastures' post, actually.

Honestly, it makes no evolutionary sense to me that we would have A levels in excess of D levels (nor to Katherine (cillakat)--a venerated researcher on this forum who also works with pregnant moms.)

Cod liver oil has only been used in the last few centuries, as far as I can tell and it makes perfect sense to use it in malnourished cultures where food was often scarce, but a Primal/Paleo mom who is eating well and getting plenty of Vitamin A from her diet and who takes CLO often, is in potential danger of fetal toxicity, especially if she eats liver on a regular basis. Also, too much A may reduce the effectiveness of Vitamin D--a big no-no for pregnant moms.

Here's my latest blog post on Vitamin D. My personal experience is that most Paleo/Primal moms are not aware of how much Vitamin D they need and unfortunately many are still deficient.

Here's what I wrote to Chris:
Chris~ I LOVE most of what you share on your site.

However, I am seriously concerned about the potential for Vitamin A toxicity in pregnancy for well-nourished Western world Paleo/Primal moms who are taking cod liver oil as a supplement.

Given that a Paleo/Primal diet provides plenty of pre-formed retinol in eggs, meat & dairy and many moms will be eating liver regularly for folic acid, B vitamins and iron, I do not see the benefit of adding cod liver oil and risking Vitamin A toxicity to the fetus.

Vitamin D and DHA can be obtained through other, safer sources, IMO. From what I have seen with my clients Vitamin D deficiency is much more of a problem.

A recent study in developing countries where there is NO malnutrition is NOT recommending Vitamin A supplements:

Micronutrients and women of repr... [J Matern Fetal Neonatal Med. 2011] - PubMed - NCBI

Obviously, in countries where there IS malnutrition, WHO is recommending Vitamin A supplementation. Indeed, I wonder if some of the cultures that Weston A. Price studied were using cod liver oil as a supplement because they were not getting enough food/calories on a regular basis.

Also, when I went to the Green Pastures site, they basically said that measuring levels of A, D & Omega 3 was difficult in fermented CLO.

"Nutrient assays, including vitamins A and D, for our fermented oils vary widely depending on methodology, lab and batch. Current science struggles to answer the questions we have on our sacred fermented foods.

There are many naturally occurring metabolites and co-factors that make the issue of measuring natural nutrients difficult in the fermented oils. "

So, basically, they can't tell you what amount of A or D is in their product. That is scary to me!

Whether or not you like him, Dr. Mercola agrees with me:
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/ar...il-update.aspx