Health for life

Consumption of whole walnuts or their extracted oil can reduce cardiovascular risk through a mechanism other than simply lowering cholesterol, according to a team of Penn State, Tufts University and University of Pennsylvania researchers.

"We already know that eating walnuts in a heart-healthy diet can lower blood cholesterol levels," said Penny Kris-Etherton, Distinguished Professor of Nutrition, Penn State. "But, until now, we did not know what component of the walnut was providing this benefit. Now we understand additional ways in which whole walnuts and their oil components can improve heart health."

In a randomized-controlled trial, the researchers gave 15 participants with elevated blood cholesterol one of four treatments -- either 85 grams of whole walnuts, 6 grams of skin, 34 grams of defatted nutmeat, or 51 grams of oil. The team evaluated biochemical and physiological responses in the participants before the treatments were administered and again 30 minutes, one hour, two hours, four hours and six hours after administering the treatments. The researchers repeated this process for each of the remaining three treatments.

Results -- which will appear in the June 1 issue of the Journal of Nutrition and are now online -- showed that a one-time consumption of the oil component in walnuts favorably affected vascular health. In addition, consumption of whole walnuts helped HDL -- good cholesterol -- perform more effectively in transporting and removing excess cholesterol from the body.

"Our study showed that the oil found in walnuts can maintain blood vessel function after a meal, which is very important given that blood vessel integrity is often compromised in individuals with cardiovascular disease," said Claire Berryman, graduate student in nutritional sciences, Penn State. "The walnut oil was particularly good at preserving the function of endothelial cells, which play an important role in cardiovascular health."

According to the researchers, walnuts contain alpha-linolenic acid, gamma-tocopherol and phytosterols, which may explain the positive effects of the walnut oil treatment.

"Implications of this finding could mean improved dietary strategies to fight heart disease," said Berryman. "The science around HDL functionality is very new, so to see improvements in this outcome with the consumption of whole walnuts is promising and worth investigating further."

Further studies are needed to determine the mechanisms that account for cardiovascular disease risk reduction with walnut consumption, according to Kris-Etherton.

"Our study indicates that simple dietary changes, such as incorporating walnuts and/or their oil in a heart healthy diet, may reduce the risk of heart disease," she said.

The omega 3 fatty acids in fish oil have long been thought to protect against cardiovascular disease—so much so that the American Heart Association currently recommends eating at least two servings of fish a week, particularly fatty varieties rich in omega 3s. However, the mechanism behind this protective effect still remains a mystery.

In a new study, scientists led by Jason R. Carter of Michigan Technological University shed light on this phenomenon by providing evidence that fish oil might specifically counteract the detrimental effects of mental stress on the heart. Their findings show that volunteers who took fish oil supplements for several weeks had a blunted response to mental stress in several measurements of cardiovascular health, including heart rate and muscle sympathetic nerve activity (MSNA), part of the "fight or flight" response, compared to volunteers who took olive oil instead. The results may explain why taking fish oil could be beneficial to the heart and might eventually help doctors prevent heart disease in select populations.

The article is entitled "Fish Oil and Neurovascular Reactivity to Mental Stress in Humans." It appears in the May edition of the American Journal of Physiology – Regulatory, Integrative, and Comparative Physiology, published by the American Physiological Society. It is available online at http://bit.ly/10j0CSS

Methodology

Carter and his colleagues worked with 67 adult volunteers. At the beginning of the study, each volunteer underwent a battery of tests to assess cardiovascular function, including heart rate, blood pressure, MSNA, and blood flow through the forearm and calf. These tests were performed first when the volunteers were at rest, and then again while they were performing a mental arithmetic test while the investigator encouraged them to hurry, a situation designed to induce acute mental stress. The study subjects were then nearly equally assigned to take either 9 grams of fish oil per day or 9 grams of olive oil, a placebo that hasnt been shown to have the same beneficial cardiovascular effects as fish oil. None of the volunteers were aware of which supplement they were taking. After 8 weeks of this intervention, the study subjects underwent the same tests again.

Results

The researchers found that test results didnt change between the two groups of study subjects when they were at rest. However, results for the volunteers who took fish oil and those who received the placebo differed significantly for some of the tests during the mental stress. Those in the fish oil group showed blunted heart rate reactivity while they were stressed compared to those who took olive oil. Similarly, the total MSNA reactivity to mental stress was also blunted in the fish oil group.

Importance of the Findings

These results show that fish oil could have a protective effect on cardiovascular function during mental stress, a finding that adds a piece to the puzzle on why taking fish oil helps the heart stay healthy, the authors suggest. Future studies might focus on the effects of taking fish oil for longer time periods and examining this effect on older populations or people with cardiovascular disease.

"Overall," the study authors say, "the data support and extend the growing evidence that fish oil may have positive health benefits regarding neural cardiovascular control in humans and suggest important physiological interactions between fish oil and psychological stress that may contribute to disease etiology."

We know olive oil is good for the heart. Its monounsaturated fats have a reputation for lowering LDL (bad cholesterol) and raising HDL (good cholesterol).

Now, researchers have found another benefit of olive oil - the ability to reduce pain and inflammation, much like non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) such as Advil® or Motrin® can.

This time the benefit is not due to olive oils monounsaturated fats, but to a newly discovered chemical the researchers named oleocanthal. It was found occurring naturally in the extra-virgin type of olive oil.

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For a summary of the researchers findings:
Olive Oil Contains Natural Anti-inflammatory Agent

The article appears in the September 1 issue of the journal Nature (editors summary only, subscription required for full article.):
Phytochemistry: Ibuprofen-like Activity in Extra-virgin Olive Oil

The mystery of exactly how consumption of extra virgin olive oil helps reduce the risk of Alzheimers disease (AD) may lie in one component of olive oil that helps shuttle the abnormal AD proteins out of the brain, scientists are reporting in a new study. It appears in the journal ACS Chemical Neuroscience.

Amal Kaddoumi and colleagues note that AD affects about 30 million people worldwide, but the prevalence is lower in Mediterranean countries. Scientists once attributed it to the high concentration of healthful monounsaturated fats in olive oil — consumed in large amounts in the Mediterranean diet. Newer research suggested that the actual protective agent might be a substance called oleocanthal, which has effects that protect nerve cells from the kind of damage that occurs in AD. Kaddoumis team sought evidence on whether oleocanthal helps decrease the accumulation of beta-amyloid (Aβ) in the brain, believed to be the culprit in AD.

They describe tracking the effects of oleocanthal in the brains and cultured brain cells of laboratory mice used as stand-ins for humans in such research. In both instances, oleocanthal showed a consistent pattern in which it boosted production of two proteins and key enzymes believed to be critical in removing Aβ from the brain. "Extra-virgin olive oil-derived oleocanthal associated with the consumption of Mediterranean diet has the potential to reduce the risk of AD or related neurodegenerative dementias," the report concludes.

Meals high in saturated fat (SAFA), as opposed to monounsaturated fat (MUFA), may impair artery function. That was the finding of a small study published in the December issue of Diabetes Care:

Differential Effects Of Two Different Isoenergetic Meals One Rich In Saturated And One Rich In Monounsaturated Fat On Endothelial Function In Subjects With Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus, Diabetes Care, December 2008

After 33 participants with type 2 diabetes consumed either a meal high in saturated fat (butter), or high in monounsaturated fat (olive oil), (meals had the same number of calories) their artery function was assessed.

Flow-mediated dilation (FMD):

• Declined by 16.7% after the saturated-fat-rich meal
  
• Increased by 5.2% after the monounsaturated-fat-rich meal

FMD measures the relaxation of an artery due to increased blood flow. FMD is a marker for heart disease risk. As FMD decreases, blood flow is impaired.

The authors concluded:

"Consumption of an SAFA-rich meal is harmful for the endothelium, while a MUFA-rich meal does not impair endothelial function in subjects with type 2 diabetes."

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Ahhh it was a good day today when I read this article... "Study raises questions about dietary fats and heart disease guidance".  Heres the scoop... researchers from the United States and Australia have recovered missing data from an old study from the 1970s.  The study, known as the Sydney Diet Heart Study, was a randomized controlled trial in which the participants were told to replace the saturated fats in their diets with polyunsaturated fats from vegetable oil.  The 458 subjects were all men between ages 30-59 who had recently had a coronary event, defined as either a heart attack or angina (1). 

Why was this data missing?  Who knows.  I cant find a good answer.  But had these results been available in the mid 1970s as they should have been, it may have changed the course of the dietary guidelines on fat intake.

Okay so we had two groups, both groups are coming off of either a heart attack or angina.  Let me break it down right quick...

Group 1:  Control group

• Given no dietary advice at all

Group 2:  Intervention group, given the following instructions...

• Reduce dietary saturated fat (animal fats) to under 10% of calories
• Reduce dietary cholesterol to less than 300 mg/day
• Increase polyunsaturated fats (from safflower oil) to 15% of calories

The participants diets were reported through a daily food diary, and they reported to the lab for testing 2-3x per year for several years.  Here are the results for all-cause death, cardiovascular disease, and coronary heart disease...


Here you can see the cumulative death rate over the course of 5 years of follow-up.  The data is essentially the same for all-cause, cardiovascular, and heart disease deaths.  Its also statistically significant and very, very clear.  Those in the intervention group, who reduced their saturated fat and cholesterol intake while increasing their polyunsaturated fat intake, fared worse.  In other words, the people eating more saturated fat and cholesterol lived longer, and they had a lower rate of heart disease.

This shouldnt come as a huge surprise if youre a reader of this here blog.  You know saturated fat is wrongly accused... and that vegetable oils are the devil.  Just further evidence here.  But theres something else thats interesting about this study:  the cholesterol levels.  The data is only available for 1 year of follow up, and I had to make this graph myself for your viewing pleasure.  Check it out...


Sorry about the colors... theyre actually the opposite of the graphs above and I hadnt realized it til now!  But the point is that the intervention group in red, the group eating more vegetable oils, lowered their total cholesterol nearly 40 points!!  They ended up at 243.9 mg/dl by the end of the first year.  The control group?  Well they lowered theirs a measly 15 points to 266.5 mg/dl.  Both began at the same level.  (There were no significant differences between groups in triglycerides, body mass index, or systolic or diastolic blood pressure at baseline or during follow-up.)

So based on this, you would assume that the intervention group would be better off, right?  But they werent.  They died far more often of heart disease than the control group did, and with lower cholesterol!  Lesson #1:  Arbitrarily lowering your cholesterol by any means necessary does not and will not lower your risk of heart disease!!!  Cholesterol is just a semi-accurate risk factor...  it is not the cause.  Theore I dont necessarily give two shits if your diet lowers your total cholesterol. 

But the worst part of all this?  Replacing saturated animal fats with unsaturated vegetable fats has been a cornerstone of mainstream dietary advice for the past 40 years.  I could cite any number of different sources here, like...

• The 2010 Dietary Guidelines:  "Americans should replace solid fats with oils." pg. 40 (2)
• The American Heart Association:  "Replacement of saturated fat and trans fat with monounsaturated fat and polyunsaturated fat might even help lower LDL cholesterol when eaten as part of a healthy diet." (3)
• The My Plate fats and oils info sheet I was forced to teach to teenagers last semester in my community rotation:  "Replacing saturated fats with unsaturated fats lowers your cholesterol and reduces your risk for heart disease."

I, for one, have had enough of this shit.  Its time this changes, and maybe this is the study to put it over the edge.  Saturated fat isnt killing us.  Vegetable oil is.  Eat real food.  Peace Im out.

Hi,

It seems that olive oil fraud has been around since day 0001 but it only came to my attention today in an e-mail from a guy who wants to sell me real extra virgin olive oil. I get so many e-mails from websites that are trying to sell me something that I dont often pay attention to them anymore, but this one caught my eye. I did not want to read the advertising for his expensive product so I searched out the source of information in an article that he erred to which was written in 2007 in The New Yorker magazine. (Here is a link if you are interested: http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/08/13/070813fa_fact_mueller )

After reading about all the corruption and mislabeling I am about to go off of extra virgin olive oil. There is no guarantee that what I am buying at my local grocery store, whether it be Kroger or Whole Foods, is even olive oil. It could be anything from soy bean oil to hazelnut oil. I only started using extra virgin olive oil (EVOO) because it was supposed to be so healthy for my body -- if I cannot be sure that what I am buying is actually EVOO, then why bother?

I can use extra virgin coconut oil (EVCO) instead. I tried using it in the salad dressing that I make myself and it actually tasted better than the EVOO from the plastic bottle under my counter. Plastic Bottle. That should be a dead give away that what is inside could be anything and the longer it sits (even if it actually is EVOO) the more rancid it gets. I dont need it. Out she goes.

The only problem I foresee with using EVCO for salad dressing is that in the winter time it tends to harden while sitting on the counter in my kitchen. It needs to be above about 75 degrees in order for it to be liquid form which works well in the pourable salad dressing. Ive been considering placing my bottle of dressing near the pilot light on my gas stove to keep it at a liquid temperature but I have no idea what that will do to my dressing. Perhaps I should put it in a different shaped container so I can spoon it out. I really dont know and will have to wait for winter time to experiment with that.

In the mean time, it is summer and it works fine as a good replacement. So there you have it. My personal workaround for the corruption in the olive oil industry.

You know what this reminds me of? The Mormon church which I grew up in. They actually tell their people not to trust the Bible because parts of it have been changed over the years. They only read the King James Version (at least when I was a member thats what they did) and they believed that parts of it were corrupt. To me, even at the time, that meant that since I had no way of knowing which parts were supposedly corrupt and which parts were accurate I could trust none of it. What a mess.

Im glad I found out the truth and became a Christian who can read and trust all of the Bible from cover to cover. I have found the evidence that I needed to ease and clear my mind concerning the Bible. The Dead Sea Scrolls give strong evidence that the Books in the Bible we are reading now are nearly identical to the ones stored away for three thousand years and hidden in a cave. There are other proofs that Ive read about too, so I dont worry about it anymore. I know the Bible is the word of God, and that is what I stand on. It is so much more "clean" to trust what I have investigated and found to be authentic. It actually eases my mind and assuages my soul.

My best source of information about the authenticity of the Bible came from a book written by Simon Greenleaf -- here is a link to Amazon.com where you can look inside http://www.amazon.com/The-Testimony-Evangelists-Examined-Evidence/dp/0825427479.

Its only about eight dollars so it wont break the bank. But I must warn you, it is probably not for the casual reader. It is quite interesting to me and very well written in my opinion, but some people dont like technical nor precise reading matter. I like it, expressly for that reason. When I was done looking through his eyes, I no longer had questions about whether the New Testament was authentic or whether I could trust the words of the Apostles which were written there.

Back to the typical fodder of this blog: I went to see my doctor on Thursday but ended up not seeing her at all. I ended up simply walking out of the office and not one person even noticed it or said a thing to me. Not even a friendly "Goodbye." Ill be choosing a new primary care physician from my insurance list, soon. It was an experience that I probably wont forget.

Before I went I knew that my only current health problem that needed to be addressed was my high blood pressure. When I measured it on the morning of the appointment it was about twenty points higher on the upper number than usual so I already knew it was going to be sky high in the office. Of course dreading that, makes it worse, but I did not want to miss the appointment, so I went. As I waited for them to call me, I tried to do deep breathing and relaxation to lower it. It is hard for me to relax in the doctors office but I did my best.

When the perky little girl came and got me and lead me back to the room to wait for the nurse practitioner (I had never really seen the doctor there.) I tried to continue to relax myself, but she wanted to chit chat so I was polite and cheerful. She walked me into the room, sat me down, tore the paper off of the examination table and pulled the blood pressure machine over to me. It all happened so fast I had no chance to breath and the number she got was pretty outrageous. She cheerfully said she would measure it again later and left the room. I got no chance to try to get anything under control and simply sat and waited to see my NP.

As I waited I got out my journal which I always take with me and was reading some things to relax me and the door opened up and another young nurse came in. She too rushed about and wanted to take my BP by hand this time. I know that the cuffs that they have dont work on my upper arm which is really oversized. They not only wont measure me, it is often extremely painful for me to undergo their trying to get it to work over and over, again, so I asked that she take it on my forearm instead of my upper arm. She said she did not know how to do that, so I was stuck. I rolled up my sleeve and asked for an arm support knowing that if they leave my arm in the air and I have to hold it up, that raises my blood pressure, too.

She pulled out the doctors stool and sat down so I could rest my arm on her knee and quickly put the cuff on my arm and started to pump. As she pumped the pain just got worse and worse until I said that I could not take any more pressure and she immediately stopped pumping and let it go. This begins to ease the pain but it does not stop until they take the cuff off. So she let it down and said she got the lower number but did not get the upper one and started to pump it up again. Of course my arm was already in pain and she started pumping it up again harder and harder. At a certain point, I could not take the pain any more and saw that she was oblivious to my torture so I simply reached over with my other hand and undid the cuff as I explained that it was simply way too painful for me.

She actually jumped up off of the stool, leaving it in front of me, and ran out of the room, leaving the door open. The next thing I heard was her talking about me to someone in the hallway as if I had committed a crime. She seemed very shocked. I suppose she never ran into someone before who believes that they are in charge of their own body and not the nurse or the doctor. Well, when I heard her talking about me, I realized that I needed to get out of there before they wanted to torture me some more -- but I really wanted to talk to the NP, so when I made the decision to leave, I did it slowly. I caully put my gloves and glasses on and got out my keys and waited. I sat there a few moments waiting but no one came in to talk to me.

I slowly stood up, fully expecting to see my NP coming into the room, but when I got to the door way and looked out, all I could see was the shocked nurse still talking to some other nurse farther down the corridor. So I got my walking stick and started to move slowly down the hall, fully expecting someone to approach me. No one even noticed me. I walked past the check out desk which was empty and pushed the green button to open the door and walked out. I did it all slowly in case someone wanted to say anything to me but no one came after me, and I just left. I then knew I would need to find another doctor.

Im not asking for agreement that I did the right thing. Perhaps it was the wrong thing. As Ive been thinking about it, Ive come up with reasons to justify finding another doctor. For one thing, I really have never once even seen the doctor there, I dont even know what he looks like. Id rather go to a doctor that I can see and talk to.

Their BP equipment is faulty and even from the comments of the nurses using it, it seems that they have a hard time using it. Ive also never liked having to carry my urine specimen in an open container -- my previous doctor had cups with caps that prevented spillage or contamination. And when they take blood from me, it is in the middle of the nurses station rather than in a private place.

Those things may not seem like much, but I had been putting up with all that because I liked my NP, but I really dont like being treated like I am "cattle." I really do think that, all things together, I will just find another doctor.

And about the HBP. I know how to lower my BP. It is with walking. So I shall manage it with walking. The only time in my entire life that I had normal blood pressure was after I had started walking a long time ago. I also saw how my BP came down when I did a stress test a few years ago so I know that walking will make the difference. It makes me wonder why my water arerobics has done nothing for the problem. I had been hoping it would, but my BP seems to be staying particularly high, so I will start the walking thing and see if that still helps.

In the mean time, I want to find a doctor with his eye on his patients and not on his bottom line or the elegance of his office. I really did not like the "factory" format they had so maybe I can find a more personal doctor. Id really like to go back to my old one, but she does not take medicare, so Ill keep looking.

BTW I was surprised to see a weight loss this morning. Im below 318 today. Still losing weight. Thank you Lord Jesus!!

Be back soon,

Marcia

 

Men with prostate cancer who ate a low-fat diet and took fish oil supplements had lower levels of pro-inflammatory substances in their blood and a lower cell cycle progression score, a measure used to predict cancer recurrence, than men who ate a typical Western diet, UCLA researchers found.

The findings are important because lowering the cell cycle progression (CCP) score may help prevent prostate cancers from becoming more aggressive, said study lead author William Aronson, a clinical professor of urology at UCLA and chief of urologic oncology at the West Los Angeles Veterans Affairs Medical Center.

"We found that CCP scores were significantly lower in the prostate cancer in men who consumed the low-fat fish oil diet as compare to men who followed a higher fat Western diet," Aronson said. "We also found that men on the low-fat fish oil diet had reduced blood levels of pro-inflammatory substances that have been associated with cancer."

This study appears in the early online edition of Cancer Prevention Research, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Association for Cancer Research.

This study is a follow-up to a 2011 study by Aronson and his team that found a low-fat diet with fish oil supplements eaten for four to six weeks prior to prostate removal slowed the growth of cancer cells in human prostate cancer tissue compared to a traditional, high-fat Western diet.

That short-term study also found that the men on the low-fat fish oil diet were able to change the composition of their cell membranes in both the healthy cells and the cancer cells in the prostate. They had increased levels of omega-3 fatty acids from fish oil and decreased levels of the more pro-inflammatory omega-6 fatty acids from corn oil in the cell membranes, which may directly affect the biology of the cells, Aronson said.

"These studies are showing that, in men with prostate cancer, you really are what you eat," Aronson said. "The studies suggest that by altering the diet, we may favorably affect the biology of prostate cancer."

The men in the previous study were placed into one of two groups, the low-fat fish oil diet or the Western diet. The Western diet consisted of 40 percent of calories from fat, generally equivalent to what many Americans consume today. The fat sources also were typical of the American diet and included high levels of omega-6 fatty acids from corn oil and low levels of fish oil that provide omega-3 fatty acids.

The low-fat diet consisted of 15 percent of calories from fat. Additionally, the men on this diet took five grams of fish oil per day in five capsules, three with breakfast and two with dinner, to provide omega-3 fatty acids. Omega-3 fatty acids have been found to reduce inflammation, and may be protective for other malignancies.

For this study, Aronson wanted to look at the potential biological mechanisms at work in the low-fat fish oil diet that may be providing protection against cancer growth and spread. They measured levels of the pro-inflammatory substances in the blood and examined the prostate cancer tissue to determine the CCP score.

"This is of great interest, as the CCP score in prostate cancer is known to be associated with more aggressive disease and can help predict which patients will recur and potentially die from their cancer," Aronson said.

Further, Aronson and his team analyzed one pro-inflammatory substance called leukotriene B4 (LTB4) and found that men with lower blood levels of LTB4 after the diet also had lower CCP scores.

"Given this finding, we went on to explore how the LTB4 might potentially affect prostate cancer cells and discovered a completely novel finding that one of the receptors for LTB4 is found on the surface of prostate cancer cells," Aronson said.

Further studies are planned to determine the importance of this novel receptor in prostate cancer progression, Aronson said.

Based on the results of his research, Aronson has been funded to start a prospective, randomized trial at UCLA next year studying 100 men who have elected to join the active surveillance program, which monitors slow-growing prostate cancer using imaging and biopsy instead of treating the disease. Study volunteers will receive a prostate biopsy at the beginning of the trial and again at one year. The men will be randomized into a group that eats their usual diet or to a low-fat fish oil diet group. Aronson will measure markers in the prostate biopsy tissue to check for cell growth and CCP score.

Prostate cancer is a leading cause of death among men in the United States. Its estimated that more than 230,000 American men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer this year alone, with more than 29,000 dying from their disease.

Critical research released in the industry publication journal Neurology from the American Academy of Neurology provides evidence that regular consumption of olive oil can help lower the risk of stroke. The study examined individuals over the age of 65 that are most vulnerable to the devastating effects of a stroke.

A Loyola University Chicago Stritch School of Medicine study suggests that omega-3 fish oil might help protect against alcohol-related dementia.

Previous studies have shown that long-term alcohol abuse increases the risk of dementia. The Loyola study found that in the brain cells of rats exposed to high levels of alcohol, a fish oil compound protected against inflammation and cell death.

The study by Michael A. Collins, PhD, and colleagues was reported Sept. 8 at the 14th Congress of the European Society for Biomedical Research on Alcoholism in Warsaw.

An earlier analysis by Collins and Loyola colleague Edward J. Neafsey, PhD, which pooled the results of 143 studies, found that moderate social drinking may reduce the risk of dementia and cognitive impairment. (Moderate drinking is defined as a maximum of two drinks per day for men and 1 drink per day for women.)

It appears that small amounts of alcohol might, in effect, make brain cells more fit. Alcohol in moderate amounts stresses cells and thus toughens them up to cope with major stresses down the road that could cause dementia. But too much alcohol overwhelms the cells, leading to inflammation and cell death.

In the new study, Collins and colleagues exposed cultures of adult rat brain cells to amounts of alcohol equivalent to more than four times the legal limit for driving. These cell cultures were compared with cultures of brain cells exposed to the same high levels of alcohol, plus a compound found in fish oil called omega-3 docosahexaenoic acid (DHA).

Researchers found there was about 90 percent less neuroinflammation and neuronal death in the brain cells exposed to DHA and alcohol than in the cells exposed to alcohol alone.

Further studies are needed to confirm whether fish oil protects against alcohol-related dementia. "Fish oil has the potential of helping preserve brain integrity in abusers," Collins said. "At the very least, it wouldnt hurt them."

But Collins added that best way for an alcohol abuser to protect the brain is, if possible, to quit drinking or cut back to moderate amounts. "We dont want people to think its okay to take a few fish oil capsules and then continue to go on abusing alcohol."