Seth’s blog

Many people take fish oil to get omega-3. (I get mine from flaxseed oil.) Fish contain PCBs, therefore fish oil does. How much? More than we’re told. A lawsuit has been filed about this:

Mateel Justice Foundation, in conjunction with two individual plaintiffs, brought a lawsuit against six fish oil manufacturers and two retailers for labeling violations of the California Safe Drinking Water and Toxic Enforcement Act, also known as Proposition 65. Filed March 2 in Superior Court of San Francisco, the suit alleges several fish oil products sold in California failed to include label warnings for levels of PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyl compounds) found in the products by testing initiated by the plaintiffs . . . Named as defendants in the suit were two retailers—CVS Pharmacy Inc. and Rite Aid Corp.—and six manufacturers—General Nutrition Corp. (GNC); NOW Health Group Inc.; Omega Protein Inc.; Pharmavite LLC (Nature Made brand); Solgar Inc.; and Twinlab Corp. . . . The plaintiffs conducted testing on 10 products produced or sold by the defendants, looking at all 209 known PCB compounds . . . Many fish oil companies test for as few as seven such compounds.  [emphasis added]

Thanks to Dev Rana. The plaintiffs plan to post testing results here (I have been unable to reach this site).

• LA Times article about omega-3 health effects
• Sanity about CO2 emissions. “When and where did the climate alarmists tell you about CO2 levels that were up to 20 times current levels when dinosaurs roamed the earth? When and where did alarmists tell you that the conditions they openly worry about have repeatedly happened without turning the earth into an oven?”

Thanks to Dave Lull.

• Vision therapy
• Omega-3 and brain health. “Participants were 280 community volunteers between 35 and 54 y of age, free of major neuropsychiatric disorders, and not taking fish oil supplements. . . Five major dimensions of cognitive functioning were assessed . . . Among the 3 key (n-3) [poly-unsaturated fatty acids], only DHA [was] associated with major aspects of cognitive performance.”
• The rise and fall of Beijing restaurants

Thanks to Steve Hansen, Tim Lundeen, and Eric Meltzer.

A new review article compares them. Here is most important info, as far as I’m concerned:

A healthy diet should consist of roughly one to four times more omega-6 fatty acids than omega-3 fatty acids. The typical American diet tends to contain 11 to 30 times more omega -6 fatty acids than omega -3, a phenomenon that has been hypothesized as a significant factor in the rising rate of inflammatory disorders in the United States[40]. Table 2 shows significant differences in n-6:n-3 ratios between grass-fed and grain-fed beef, with and overall average of 1.53 and 7.65 for grass-fed and grain-fed, respectively, for all studies reported in this review.

Grass-fed really is better.

• Julian Simon replies to his critics
• self-experimentation with pig saliva. “‘I was at first told that self-experimentation was not allowed any more,’ says Varki. . . . He slyly asked if any members of the committee wanted to be the volunteers.”
• omega-3 helps healthy boys. Background here.
• In Seoul, a week without Internet. “An unnerving sense of isolation.”

Thanks to Dave Lull.