A recent Clinical Trial conducted on 24 women that were 66 years of age was performed to determine the effects of 12-weeks of omega-3 supplementation using fish oil on age-related issues that affect their quality of life.
As we age, there is a significant change in these factors:
- Decrease in muscle mass
- Decrease in metabolic rate
- Increase in functional impairment
- Increase in weight gain due to an increase in fat
- Loss of muscle mass and strength
- Increase in blood pressure and heart rates
- Increase in chronic disease
- Increase in functional impairment
- Increase in chronic disease
Welcome to the world of aging. Hopefully you are lucky enough to live this long. Therefore it is likely you will experience some of these problems. The question is, how severely will these factors affect you. Unfortunately due to our programmed genetics, our lifestyle (diet and exercise) for our first 65 years, and the care that we take of our mental and physical health, we will experience to some degree some of these negative factors that are part of aging. As the U.S. population is currently experiencing a major increase in its elderly population due to “baby-boomers” reaching 65 years of age, there is a lot of focus on the different approaches to reducing the negative aspects that accompany aging.
This current study by Logan and Spriet explored the effects of using fish oil for a very brief period of time (12 weeks) on a small controlled group of women, to see if they could affect any of these factors. Due to FDA regulations that prohibit a manufacturer of a health food product from making medical claims, we can only refer you as a footnote to read this study or at least its abstract to see the results of this clinical trial using fish oil and its effect on: metabolic rates; energy expenditure during exercise; fat oxidation rates; triglycerides; lean mass levels; and functional capacity … that would lead the researchers to conclude “fish oil may be a strategy to improve age-related physical and metabolic changes in healthy older females”. 
For obvious reasons, in today’s blog post we are not using a photo of any fish. Instead you may enjoy this photo of a turtle grazing in shallow water along a reef in Belize.
