Fish oil and colon cancer - who also feels annoyed?

[avee]

Since I seem to get a great relief from fish oil (especially during our Nordic winter) and I also give fish oil to my children, I feel very annoyed because of this study: http://www.emaxhealth.com/1275/fish-...on-cancer-mice.
Before that everyone kept talking that fish oil decreases the risk of colon cancer... Being somewhat hypochondriac, I hate these kinds of things. I don't want to give up fish oil. Maybe somebody has to say something to reassure me?

[DCRdryeye]

I can understand the concern, and you certainly don't want to put your children at risk. However, the study you're concerned about was done on "rats" and not humans and it lacks detail about the structure of the study. In terms of fish oil dosage, yes you can have too much, a balance is required for everything in life. You don't want to be taking more than 6 capsules a day.

Rather than fish oils causing colon cancer, to the contrary, it can prevent it, and even slow down cancer growth rate. Many studies highlight the benefits of fish oils for colon cancer:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18346463
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20574922
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19798733
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19493674
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18566476

[Guest]

Hi Avee,

If the study was done in rats, you can't assume it does the same to us... we're not rats and although sometimes we have the same reaction as other species, all too often, we do not.

Chocolate can kill a dog, but we can and do eat it and are fine. I'm certainly not going to give up chocolate because it can kill a dog... but boy am I ever happy it won't kill ME since I adore the stuff

So, for fish oil, in order to be concerned, I'd have to see convincing evidence that humans respond to it the same way rats apparently do.