I once heard a cancer researcher say, “I know a dozen ways to cure cancer in mice — none of them work in humans.” Before we get too excited about this, why don’t you look at the incidence and outcomes of leukemia in populations where people have a high natural intake of fish oil…

????

All I know is that our old friends and family are dying of cancer.

Don’t think anyone told John and Tim that Helen Sue died last week.

In 1932, we had no money for anything,my father sold a cord of split firewood for 1$, but somehow they bot cod liver oil for me.

@Doug: I was also raised on good amounts of cod liver oil, as it was the only thing available at the time. We did not know about salmon, for example.
@Celia: Not clear to me what you are saying? Remember that many populations that have an above average intake of fish oil are in a situation where the diets are deficient in other critical compounds and often high in salts. Trials in mice are a good first step and any trial with such a significant result must be a positive result.
In general: if you have more information on a topic, share it, do not post hanging comments.

@Henk — not trying to be cryptic, or allude to information that I’m not sharing — just saying that trials in mice are preliminary and not necessarily reflective of what will happen in humans. The day after this article was posted on futurity, for example, there was a futurity article from MSU researchers asking what was “too much” fishoil and saying “Fish oil—long encouraged by doctors as a supplement to support heart and joint health—induces severe colitis and colon cancer in mice in new research.” Now I realize this was a different study with different methods and aims and mouse models, but the point remains that you just can’t predict too much in terms of what will happen in people based on a few mice. In my opinion, it does cancer patients and their loved ones a disservice to hype very preliminary research.

Biostatisticians can look at existing data on populations — thousands of people — and see if there are trends that would suggest a link between higher intake of fish oils and a lower incidence of leukemia or better outcome for people who get it. The size of the studies may allow researchers to compensate for factors that might otherwise confound the effects of fishoil. Because large databases already exist, including Finnish national databases or the US NHANES database, doing a study is a matter of a couple of years and a few tens of thousands of dollars, rather than at least twice that amount of time and millions of dollars to take a drug to and through clinical trials. I’m not saying the epidemiology replaces clinical trials, but it would be another useful bit of evidence in support of the hypothesis of this research. If I were on their research team, I’d be looking for epidemiologist-collaborators in Finland to start digging into the databases whilst the homeys are working on the next layers of translational research prior to clinical trials.

I totally agree with Celia. We tend to extrapolate our data beyond what the data actually suggest. The biology of cancer is a complex thing and it is better we become conservative to moderate in our data interpretation so as not to give false hope to cancer and other disease patients. I have seen too many of this example which only works in mouse models fail in spectacular manner at human trials.

Great article! Fish oils do offer one of the best sources of omega 3 fatty acids. However, should you choose to avoid fish oil products due to possible mercury exposure, you could use plant-based omega 3 supplements. There are a variety of supplements to choose from that use algae-based formulas, as well as other plant-sourced omega 3 products, such as flaxseeds.

I think that this is a great thing to stop leukemia. Thanks and have a great day.

leukemia is a deadly disease.