[EasyEJL]

Why take a ridiculous amount of fish oil? In an interview on the 5 best supplements for mass gain, Charles said

Originally Posted by Charles Poliquin

In many seminars, I always get asked which supplements are best to gain mass. My answers will surprise many of you.

Here they are:

1. Fish Oil

What? Fish oil? That is not cool, avant-garde, sexy, or exotic. Fish oil?

Yes. Fish oil. You cannot be anabolic with enough Omega 3s. For example, I was once training a first-round pick for the NFL. He put on 29 lbs of lean body mass in one month once I jacked his fish oil intake to 45 grams a day. If you want to put muscle on and lose fat, take at least 30 grams of fish oil a day.

Additional reasons for using fish oil include:

It reduces inflammation.
It improves insulin sensitivity: makes glucose and amino acids get better in your starved muscle cells.


Taking fish oil in a liquid form is the most economical way of doing it. But taking them every meal works best. I always recommend a combination of liquid and capsules - Liquid for home meals, and capsules for away from home meals.

This plus a number of other articles about varied effects of fish oil made it seem worth the attempt. On Sept 2 at 199lbs, I started taking in 30+ g of fish oil a day. Today I weighed in at 215lbs. Thats 16 lbs in 16 days... Granted I was just coming off an extended cut cycle, but still astounding. There is no way I have been taking in 5500 calories a day either, so i'm not sure how this worked out. Other supplementation has been Leviathan , Incarnate , Neovar , RPM and "basic" supplements. I've also been doing GVT for training (German Volume Training) German Volume Training | Charles Poliquin which is a mass gaining specific workout structure also popularized by Poliquin. In that 16 lbs, I believe a majority is LBM. I see increased vascularity in terms of new veins starting to become visible, but it is hard to tell for sure.

I don't think my results are typical, but they are impressive. I wanted to start a specific thread for others to share their results, thoughts or concerns about megadosing fish oil as it seems to me that the main side effect is slightly oily skin + hair. Long term there are possibly questions about health in general, but the megadose levels aren't meant to be year round. In one article Poliquin mentions doing the mega levels for a limited amount of time (I recall something like 6 weeks) then reducing to 12g (which is still high).. I will try to find the specific details on that when I hunt the article down.

[whatastud08]

10 Reasons Fish Oils are Essential
By: Charles Poliquin

Fish oils, rich in the Omega-3 fatty acids may help prevent depression, stabilize the moods of maniac-depressives, and alleviate symptoms of schizophrenia.
University of California's Johnsson Cancer Center, Los Angeles, CA health.com


Fish oils is one of the few substances known to lower concentrations of triglycerides (fatty substances) that pose a cardiovascular risk, in the blood.
J Raloff Science News


Increasing the amount of Omega-3 fatty acids has direct effects on serotonin levels.
Andrew Stoll M.D.1999 Archives of General Psychiatry


Fish oils, eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) help prevent heart disease, depression, and cancer.
Hans R. Larsen, Msc chE "Fish Oils: The Essential Nutrients" International Health News


Research has shown that supplementation with fish oils can markedly reduce interlukin-1beta production and results in a significant reduction in morning stiffness and the number of painful joints in rheumatoid arthritis patients.
Darlington, L Gail and Stone, Trevor W. Antioxidants and fatty acids in the amelioration of rheumatoid arthritis and related disorders. British Journal of Nutrition, Vol. 85, March 2001, pp.251-69. Oilofpisces.com


Several clinical trials have concluded that eating fish regularly or supplementing with fish oils can reduce the risk of sudden cardiac death by as much as 50%.
Bigger,J. Thomas and El-Sherif, Tarek. Polyunsaturated fatty acids and cardiovascular events: a fish tale. Circulation, Vol.103, February 6, 2001, pp623-25 (editorial). Oilofpisces.com


Researchers at Mayo Clinic report that supplementation with fish oils, EPA and DHA is highly effective in slowing down the progression of IgA nephropathy, a common kidney disease.
Donadio, James V.,et al. A controlled trial of fish oil in IgA nephropathy. New England Journal of Medicine, Vol 331 November 3, 1994, pp1194-99 Van Ypersele de Strihou, Charles. Fish oil for IgA nephropathy? New England Journal of Medicine, Vol 331, November 3, 1994, pp 1227-29 (editorial). Oilofpisces.com


Epidemiological studies have shown that populations with a high intake of fish oils have a lower incidence of inflammatory diseases such as asthma.
Dry J. and Vincent D. Effect of a Fish oil diet on asthma: results of a 1-year double bind study. Int Arch Allerguy Appl Immurol, Vol.95, 1991,pp.156-57. Oilofpisces.com


Researchers at The University of Tromso now report that fish oil supplementation lowers blood pressure significantly in people with hypertension and has no effect on glucose control even in people with mid diabetes.
Toft, Ingrid, et al. Effects of n-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids on glucose homeostasis and blood pressure in essential hypertension. Annals of Internal Medicine, Vol 123, No 12, December 15, 1995, pp 911-18. Connor, William E. Diabetes, fish oil, and vascular disease. Annals of Internal Medicine, Vol 123, No 12, December 15, 1995, pp950-52. Oilofpisces.com.


Medical researchers in New Zealand provide convincing evidence that an increased consumption of fish oils helps reduce the risk of developing prostate cancer.
Norrish, A,E, et al. Prostate cancer risk and consumption of fish oils: A dietary biomaker-based case-control study. British Journal of Cancer, Vol. 81, No.7, December 1999, pp.1238-42

[EasyEJL]

Originally Posted by whatastud08

Increasing the amount of Omega-3 fatty acids has direct effects on serotonin levels.
Andrew Stoll M.D.1999 Archives of General Psychiatry

Ah I have noticed positive mood elevation as well.

[whatastud08]

Q&A with Charles Poliquin

Q: What's one supplement that every athlete, weekend warrior, and basically any active person should be taking daily?

A: Fish oil. I was first introduced to fish oil twelve years ago by my friend Mauro DiPasquale. I was over at his house and he had fish oil on the counter. I asked him what he used it for and he said, "Charles, this is the most important supplement ever."

He told me to go to Medline and punch in any disease known to man and the words "fish oil" beside it. He challenged me to find a study that didn't show how fish oil could benefit in the treatment of any disease. I gave up after 86 studies!

Why is it so beneficial? It's in our genes. Humans used to consume 300-400 grams of omega-3s per week. If we consume more than two grams a day now it's considered a lot.

There was a study published four years ago that showed that if the US government issued three grams of fish oil per day to American citizens, then the amount of cancer and heart disease would go down by 50% within one year. Most readers don't care about cancer and heart disease, but they may care about this: the biggest limiting factor in naturally training people to getting lean and adding muscle is the consumption (or lack thereof) of omega-3s.

Looking at the body structure of cavemen, they had a lot of muscle mass compared to modern man. They got their omega-3s through the meats they ate. Now, they often ate what the predators left. For example, a lion will eat an antelope from the gut on, so what's left is the skull and long bones. Primitive man would break the skull open and eat the brains. Brains are 60% fat, and 60% of that is DHA, the omega-3. What they've found is that the more brain-sucking was going in those populations, the faster the IQ went up.

Primitive man would also break the bones of the prey and suck the marrow, also rich in omega-3, DHA particularly. DHA is the omega-3 most responsible for brain development while EPA is most associated with reducing inflammation.

My athletes would often recognize each other when sitting around a table because those I'd be training would break out the fish oil during the meal. That's how I got the nickname "the fish oil guy" among athletes. But that's also how I get people so lean so fast.

Anyone who wants to put on muscle and lose fat should be on 30-45 grams of fish oil per day. That's just three tablespoons of fish oil. It would be a pain in the ass with capsules though because that's around 45 capsules per day, but it's easy with a straight oil

[bioman]

Subbed!

[bludevil]

I see your making good progress on the scale, but how's the progress in the gym going with mega dosing?

[whatastud08]

For those of us interested in positively and optimally altering body composition and maximizing our training efforts, fish oils offer thirteen possible advantages:

1. Cell membrane health: EPA and DHA insure that cell membranes remain healthy. This means that the membranes are flexible and contain larger numbers of insulin receptors that are more receptive and responsive to circulating insulin. This results in decreased fat storage in the adipocytes (fat cells).

2. Fish oils turn on the lipolytic genes (fat burning genes).

3. Fish oils turn off the lipogenic genes (fat storage genes).

4. Fish oils diminish C-reactive proteins, a newly identified risk factor associated with various inflammatory diseases, including atherosclerosis, angina, coronary heart disease, heart attack, stroke, congestive heart failure, and diabetes. The DHA fraction of the fish oil seems to be one most responsible for that protective effect. DHA also has the best ability to reduce blood pressure.

5. Increase utilization of fat stores from the adipocytes.

6. Preferential utilization for energy production once stored in the adipocytes.

7. Reduced inflammation from physical training.

8. Pain management from the reduced inflammation.

9. EPA regulates blood supply to the brain which is essential in maintaining focus in weight training sessions. DHA is important in brain membranes, memory, and cognitive function.

10. Fish oils increase serotonin levels (the happy neurotransmitter). Therefore, fish oils will decrease incidence of depression, anxiety, panic attack, and reduce carbohydrate cravings.

11. Fish oils will improve your cardiovascular risk profile by lowering VLDL, triglycerides, homocysteine, fibrinogen, and increasing HDL levels. Combining fish oils with plant sterols will improve lipid levels even more than either alone.

12. Fish oils can also decrease blood pressure by several mechanisms. These include increases in the vasodilatory compound, nitric oxide, reducing vascular inflammation, blocking the constrictive elements in the vascular wall such as the calcium channels reducing blood viscosity, and inhibiting a blood vessel constrictor (thromboxane). Lipoprotein (a) is another CVD predictor that can be lowered by fish oils (a 19% reduction was seen with natural, stable fish oils and just 4% with a highly purified fish oil).

13. Fish oils are a great stress fighter. Supplementation with n-3 fatty acids inhibits the adrenal activation of steroids, aldosterone, epinephrine, and norepinephrine (catecholamines) elicited by a mental stress, apparently through effects exerted at the level of the central nervous system. Therefore, for the same amount of stress, one will produce fewer stress hormones if consuming fish oils on a regular basis.

-Charles Poliquin

[canadian champ]

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[EasyEJL]

Originally Posted by bludevil

I see your making good progress on the scale, but how's the progress in the gym going with mega dosing?

So hard to tell. I'm not seeing huge leaps, but some progress. for instance previous week I had to lower weights down from 100lbs on squats when I was hitting set 7, cause I just couldn't do it, this week I managed to do all 10 sets with 100lbs. Same with a couple of the other exersizes. the problem is that even this week is only my third "round" of GVT, so I can't tell if there is strength gain. The first week was just guessing at what I could do ten sets of 10 with supersets, the second week was refining it, so changes from now forwards I'd call progress. I can definitely feel the difference sizewise in a few spots, pecs and thighs are definitely harder.

It will be interesting to see how this works once I clip calories down to maintenance or below, which I will do as of sunday...

[canadian champ]

Some contradicting evidence... although 'mega-doses' were not implemented, the decrease in trig. and increases in EPA and DHA suggests that the dose was sufficient to cause a physiological response.

Omega-3 fatty acid supplementation does not improve maximal aerobic power, anaerobic threshold and running performance in well-trained soccer players.Raastad T, Høstmark AT, Strømme SB.
Norwegian University of Sport and Physical Education, Laboratory of Physiology, Oslo, Norway.

In a randomized, placebo-controlled study the effect of 10 weeks of supplementation with either 5.2 g of a concentrated fish oil triglyceride (Triomar) enriched in omega-3 fatty acids (1.60 g/day EPA and 1.04 g/ day DHA) or 5.2 g corn oil (serving as placebo) on maximal aerobic power, anaerobic threshold and running performance was assessed in 28 well-trained male soccer players (18-35 years). Supplements were given as 650-mg capsules. Capsule assignment was randomized to one omega-3 group (n = 15), given eight Triomar capsules per day, and one placebo group (n = 13), given eight capsules of corn oil per day. During the 10-week supplementation period the subjects maintained their usual diets and training regimes. Red blood cell (RBC) osmotic fragility, triglycerides and fatty acid composition in plasma were assessed before and after the supplementation period. The pre- and post-supplementation tests of maximal aerobic power, anaerobic power and running performance showed no significant difference between the two groups. Subjects in the omega-3 group had significantly reduced plasma triglycerides, rose EPA (175%) and DHA (40%) in the total lipid fraction of plasma after supplementation. RBC osmotic fragility did not change. In conclusion, the results do not support the hypothesis that endurance athletes can improve maximal aerobic performance by omega 3-fatty acid supplementation.
PMID: 9089901 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

[RedwolfWV]

Subscribed

[drewh10987]

Subscribed. Planning on buying some liquid fish oils really soon, probably this week, to try this out.

[TheCrownedOne]

Pics possibly?