Fish Oil

What may be a driving force for both clinical benefits as well as relative risk of using antioxidants as well as omega-3 fish oil is the redox stability of the patient being treated. In the case of CFS, that redox stability or redox buffer capacity is very poor and demonstrable by ETM in all cases of CFS so far tested. The point is that antioxidants are all potentially pro-oxidants and possibly harmful if used to excess in an overly oxidizing state such as CFS as they cannot be maintained in their reduced state. If fully oxidized, antioxidants are pro-oxidants if they cannot be re-reduced. Published meta-analysis studies of anti-oxidant use show both increased mortality and morbidity in populations of both healthy and non-healthy patients. It is likely that if those studies could separate the redox stable vs. the redox unstable sub-sets of patients under study, the data might be much more compelling concerning the risk vs. benefit of pharmacologic doses of antioxidants.

I have tested a patient’s response to various vitamin E preparations on the ETM plus a typical array of nutrients that are standard practice in my clinic – Methyl-B12, Hydroxy-B12, Glucose, Fructose, Olive Oil and Fish Oil. The last six always show this kind of response in CFS but not in controls who are all positive for these six except Fructose which can be mixed in controls. CoQ-10 response can be mixed positive or negative in CFS but positive in controls. The historical variance for IVRT testing is plus or minus 1% and IVRT is measured three times and averaged. IVRT is an indirect measure of the free energy in the heart myocardial cells. Positive is good and negative is bad as it indicates a loss of free energy. These immediate responses in IVRT over a few minutes may or may not reflect later effects over time but are rather more useful to detect immediate positive or negative effects. Later effects can also be monitored but requires sequential testing over months of many patients on the same nutrient. This had only been done for a few items we currently use in therapy.