Nothing fishy about fish oil sups.

People diving into the sea of nutritional supplementation often find themselves swimming in murky waters. Not only are there sharks out there looking to chomp down profits by bending studies and deep-sixing facts, but many of the online "health journals" run articles on supplements with all the investigative substance of a jellyfish.

Wow. Is that a cool extended metaphor or what?

Anyway, sometimes it's great when a reputable, trusted news source takes on a supplement and gives it the complete 360 degree treatment, as Forbes did recently with fish oil supplements. As it turns out, they can actually be good for you.

A 1989 study of 2,000 men who had just had heart attacks found that those assigned to eat lot of fish or take fish oil pills were 30% less likely to die during two years of treatment. A 19,000-patient study in Japan found that purified EPA fish oil pills reduced major heart problems by 19% in heart patients already taking cholesterol-lowering statins like Lipitor and Zocor. Last year a study of 4,500 patients with heart failure (a deadly weakening of the heart muscle) found that a daily dose of Lovaza decreased the risk of dying by 7% over four years.

"I don't think most physicians know there are gigantic studies--megastudies--that show quite a cardiovascular benefit," says Chip J. Lavie, head of preventive cardiology at the Ochsner Clinic in New Orleans and a consultant to GlaxoSmithkline. "Doctors know about Lipitor, but they don't know about this."

But then the article goes on to discuss the downside of the sup. It might not be as effective for healthy people; there are environmental concerns; and, most importantly, they make for nasty burps. So often we see sups as magical panaceas when in fact, like any other pill, they only work for some people.

Have read of the article. It's a cool drink of water in the middle of a parched desert of... wait, damnit, wrong metaphor!