The TOXIC Truth About Cod Liver Oil & Fish Oil — RELOADED: Part 2

In Part 1 of this series, I went through the history of cod liver oil and fish oil, the animal toxicity research, Weston Price’s own rather inconvenient observations, “vitamin” A and vitamin D, immune suppression, and the toxic aldehydes created when omega-3 fats oxidize.

And there was a LOT.

If you haven’t watched Part 1 yet, you really should, because Part 2 is going to make a lot more sense once you understand just how ugly the actual chemistry of these oils gets.

If you made it through Part 1 and thought:

“Oh crap. I’ve been taking this stuff for YEARS.”

Good.

Not good that you took it.

Good that you figured it out.

Because the first rule of detox is really quite simple:

STOP IN-TOXING.

You cannot out-supplement something you keep putting into yourself every day.

Seems obvious, right?

You would think.

Part 2 gets even uglier, because now we’re going to look at what is actually IN commercial fish oils, how commonly these oils are already oxidized before you swallow them, what happens when fish oil is fed during infection and pregnancy, what it does to the liver and heart, and then—most importantly—what we can actually do to clean up some of this mess.

And yes, when I say “fish oil,” I am including cod liver oil.

All cod liver oil is fish oil. Not all fish oil is cod liver oil.

Simple enough.

Now let’s look at what people are voluntarily swallowing every day because somebody told them it was “heart healthy.”

Your “Health Supplement” Comes With PCBs, Pesticides and Dioxins

One of the favorite defenses of fish oil is that the manufacturers “purify” it.

Okay.

Purify it from WHAT?

That question alone should bother people.

Why does your supposedly wonderful, natural, health-promoting oil need industrial purification in the first place?

Well, because fish spend their entire lives swimming in water containing industrial pollution, persistent organic pollutants, metals, pesticides, and all sorts of other garbage.

Many of these toxins BIOACCUMULATE.

Then what do we do?

We take the FAT from the animal and concentrate it into a bottle or capsule.

Where exactly do people think fat-soluble—which also means FAT-STORABLE—pollutants tend to accumulate?

Let’s walk through this.

A study appropriately titled Persistent organic pollutants in fish oil supplements on the Canadian market: polychlorinated biphenyls and organochlorine insecticides tested commercial fish-oil supplements collected in Vancouver.

Here is what the researchers reported:

“Each sample was found to contain detectable residues.”

Each sample.

Not some of them.

Not just the cheap brands.

Each sample tested contained detectable residues.

The highest concentrations were found in shark oil. The lowest were in oils made from smaller fish like anchovy, mackerel, and sardines.

Why might shark oil contain more?

Welcome to bioaccumulation and biomagnification.

Small animal accumulates toxins.

Larger animal eats lots of small animals.

Its toxin burden builds.

Something bigger eats THAT animal.

On and on up the food chain.

This should not be difficult.

And this was not some isolated Canadian finding.

Researchers measuring PCBs, hexachlorobenzene, hexachlorocyclohexane isomers, and organochlorine pesticide residues in cod-liver oil supplements found PCB and DDT residues in the products they tested.

Another paper looking at PCB contamination and aryl hydrocarbon receptor activity of omega-3 supplements said something that every person taking fish oil should read:

“Omega-3 PUFA supplements can contain sufficient POPs to present a risk to consumers.”

Read that again.

“Sufficient POPs to present a risk to consumers.”

That isn’t me calling your fish oil toxic.

THAT’S THE PAPER.

They examined 17 omega-3 supplements.

PCB concentrations varied tremendously, with salmon- and seal-derived oils among the highest.

And at the recommended doses, the researchers calculated that some products could contribute enough PCBs or dioxin-like activity to exceed tolerable daily intake limits.

Again...

These are products people are swallowing DAILY to become “healthier.”

And it keeps going.

Fish-oil contaminants have been documented in products from Czechoslovakia, the United Kingdom, and researchers have specifically measured dioxins and dioxin-like PCBs in cod liver versus cod muscle.

A retrospective study even looked at PCNs, dioxins, furans, and PCBs in cod-liver products from 1972 through 2017.

1972 to 2017.

This is not a new problem.

People just don’t want to look at it.

And Yes, There Is Mercury in Fish Oil

Then we have the metals.

Here comes another favorite defense:

“But fish oil has much less mercury than fish!”

Okay.

You do understand what you just admitted, right?

THERE IS MERCURY IN THE FISH OIL.

A study measuring mercury in vegetable, cod-liver, and shark-liver oil supplements detected mercury in the preparations they tested.

Another paper specifically investigated the chemical forms of trace mercury impurities found in fish-oil supplements.

Were the levels generally lower than what you find in whole fish?

Yes.

Fine.

Lower is not the same word as ZERO.

And mercury is only ONE contaminant we are talking about.

Another analysis of the content and quality of dietary fish-oil supplements found lead exceeding recommended limits in several fish-oil products.

So now the sales pitch becomes increasingly ridiculous.

Take this oil every single day for your health.

It can contain persistent organic pollutants.

PCBs.

Pesticide residues.

Dioxins.

Mercury.

Lead.

And we’re not even to the WORST part yet.

Because even if you somehow removed every external contaminant from that bottle...

THE OIL ITSELF IS A PROBLEM.

The Oil Itself Is Unstable

Fish oils are extremely rich in highly unsaturated fatty acids.

That is exactly why they are so prone to oxidation.

You don’t need some mysterious industrial contamination event.

You don’t need a dirty factory.

You don’t need a bad fishing ground.

The oil itself can become the source of toxic oxidation products.

That is what highly unsaturated fats DO.

And commercial fish oils have repeatedly been found oxidized around the world.

Not once.

Not one country.

Not one manufacturer.

AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN.

Let’s go around the world.

United States

A U.S. analysis had the wonderfully straightforward title Omega-3 fatty acid fish oil dietary supplements contain saturated fats and oxidized lipids that may interfere with their intended biological benefits.

There it is right in the title.

OXIDIZED LIPIDS.

In the “healthy” supplement people intentionally bought to improve their health.

North America

An investigation of oxidation levels of North American over-the-counter omega-3 supplements again documented widespread oxidation.

New Zealand

Then New Zealand gave us this gem:

Fish oil supplements in New Zealand are highly oxidised and do not meet label content of n-3 PUFA.

Not just oxidized.

HIGHLY oxidized.

And not meeting the stated omega-3 content on the label.

What a bargain.

Pay money for rancid oil that doesn’t even contain what the bottle tells you it contains.

United States—Again

Researchers then performed a multi-year rancidity analysis of 72 marine and microalgal omega-3 supplements.

Still finding oxidation problems.

Australia

Same story.

Oxidation of fish oil supplements in Australia.

South Africa

Again.

Analysis of the omega-3 fatty acid content of South African fish oil supplements found continuing problems with product composition and oxidation.

Do you see the pattern yet?

United States.

Canada.

New Zealand.

Australia.

South Africa.

Europe.

At what point do we stop pretending this is just some unlucky bottle somebody left sitting on a hot loading dock?

THESE FATS WANT TO OXIDIZE.

That’s the chemistry of highly unsaturated fatty acids.

And here is the part the “but I refrigerate mine!” crowd doesn’t understand:

Even if you could somehow manufacture absolutely pristine, completely unoxidized fish oil and teleport it directly from the factory into your refrigerator...

THE PUFAs STILL UNDERGO LIPID PEROXIDATION INSIDE YOUR BODY.

That was a major subject of Part 1.

DHA and EPA do not get some magical exemption from basic chemistry once somebody puts a heart on the bottle.

“Just Add Vitamin E!”

This is where the supplement merry-go-round gets fun.

Fish oil oxidizes?

No problem!

Take vitamin E!

Oh.

So now I need another supplement to protect me from the supplement I supposedly needed for my health?

Does anyone hear how stupid that sounds?

Why are we taking something that requires us to take something else to protect ourselves from the thing we supposedly needed in the first place?

A study on lipid peroxidation and DNA oxidation in rats fed fish oil with different levels of vitamin E found greater oxidative damage when antioxidant protection was inadequate.

The investigators concluded that vitamin E supplementation was necessary with fish-oil feeding to prevent increased lipid peroxidation and formation of 8-hydroxydeoxyguanosine, a marker of oxidative DNA damage.

That is supposed to make me like fish oil MORE?

It does the exact opposite.

Then we have an older paper titled Cod-liver oil as both source and antagonist of vitamin E.

Fantastic title.

Cod liver oil actually CONTAINED vitamin E.

Yet the animals eating it still developed abnormalities the investigators associated with vitamin E deficiency.

So what did they try?

More cod liver oil.

Because more cod liver oil meant more vitamin E, right?

And did it fix the problem?

NO.

Why?

Eventually the researchers got to the important part:

“...the antagonistic action of its other components, particularly its highly unsaturated fatty acids.”

There it is.

The highly unsaturated fatty acids were creating the problem.

So giving MORE cod liver oil to supply MORE vitamin E was simultaneously giving the animals MORE of the highly unsaturated fats antagonizing the vitamin E.

This is what I call the Double Down Mistake.

Something is creating a problem.

So you give MORE of the thing creating the problem because it also contains something you think might fix the problem.

Brilliant.

Another rat study, Peroxide formation, vitamin E and myocardial damage, fed diets containing cod liver oil for 16 or 32 weeks.

Peroxidation products accumulated.

Antioxidants were depleted.

Changes showed up in heart and skeletal muscle.

Again, what is the pattern?

The more oxidative garbage you put into the body, the more antioxidant resources you need to burn through dealing with it.

My approach is MUCH simpler.

STOP PUTTING THE EASILY OXIDIZED OIL IN YOUR CAKE-HOLE.

Problem solved.

Fish Oil Can Make One Number Look “Better” While Making the Animal SICKER

This is one of the most important concepts in this entire discussion.

People have been trained to think like this:

Triglycerides went down = GOOD.

Inflammation marker went down = GOOD.

Cholesterol changed = GOOD.

And then they stop thinking.

A substance can improve laboratory numbers while making the organism WORSE.

Ever heard of statin drugs? Perfect example.

I say this constantly.

DO NOT confuse moving a lab marker with creating health.

A fish-oil-rich diet in rats produced metabolic changes people would probably cheer about while simultaneously increasing lipid peroxidation in the liver.

Lower triglycerides?

YAY!

Meanwhile, liver malondialdehyde goes up.

Oops.

Malondialdehyde—MDA—is one of the reactive aldehydes created through lipid peroxidation.

We spent a huge amount of time in Part 1 going through exactly why these aldehydes matter.

And if you want several great examples of the “one marker looks better while the actual animal does worse” problem, look at infection.

Less Inflammation...More DEATH?

Fish oil is “anti-inflammatory.”

People repeat that phrase like it automatically means something is healthy.

Does it?

Let’s find out.

Researchers studied dietary fish oil and resistance to Listeria monocytogenes.

The mice were fed diets containing lard, soybean oil, or menhaden fish oil.

Here were the survival rates:

Lard: 100% survived.

Soybean oil: 58% survived.

Menhaden fish oil: 33% survived.

Let me translate the last one.

67% OF THE FISH-OIL-FED MICE DIED.

But wait.

It gets better.

The fish-oil-fed mice also had approximately TEN TIMES MORE BACTERIA IN THEIR SPLEENS than mice fed the other diets.

And what did the researchers say?

They concluded that the omega-3-rich diets had:

“the most detrimental effect.”

The MOST detrimental effect.

That is rather difficult to spin into a health benefit.

But don’t worry.

We can do worse.

Researchers then tested fish-oil-fed mice during influenza infection.

The title gives the game away:

Fish Oil-Fed Mice Have Impaired Resistance to Influenza Infection.

Here is where this becomes BEAUTIFUL.

The fish-oil-fed mice had LESS LUNG INFLAMMATION.

There you go!

ANTI-INFLAMMATORY!

Everybody celebrate!

Except...

They also had a 40% higher mortality rate.

Approximately 70% higher lung viral load at day seven.

And a longer recovery.

Read that again.

LESS INFLAMMATION. MORE DEATHS. FROM THE “FLU”.

Maybe blindly suppressing inflammation isn’t always such a brilliant health strategy?

The fish-oil-fed mice also showed suppressed splenic natural-killer-cell activity and fewer CD8 T cells in their lungs.

The researchers said fish oil altered the immune response, resulting in:

“increased morbidity and mortality.”

Oh.

So fish oil was “anti-inflammatory”...

AND THE MICE WERE WORSE AT FIGHTING THE INFECTION AND MORE OF THEM DIED.

This is EXACTLY why reducing inflammation as an isolated goal can be incredibly stupid.

Sometimes inflammation is there because your immune system is TRYING TO KEEP YOU ALIVE.

Oxidized Fish Oil, Leaky Gut, Endotoxin and Liver Damage

Now let’s take the fish oil and oxidize it first.

What happens?

Researchers studying oxidized fish oil and alcoholic liver disease found that oxidized fish oil made the liver damage WORSE in mice.

How it happened is even more interesting.

The oxidized-fish-oil animals developed:

More intestinal dysbiosis.

More barrier dysfunction.

More circulating endotoxin.

More liver inflammation.

And what did the authors conclude?

Oxidized fish oil worsened liver injury through:

“intestinal dysbiosis, barrier dysfunction and hepatic inflammation mediated by gut-derived endotoxin.”

Let me translate some researcher-speak.

“Barrier dysfunction” = LEAKY GUT.

So now put the pieces together.

We have a highly oxidation-prone oil.

Commercial products all over the WORLD have been found oxidized.

Oxidized fish oil damages the intestinal environment.

Leaky gut increases.

Endotoxin gets through.

Liver inflammation increases.

Do you see how this starts feeding itself?

And remember the enterohepatic circulation—the gut-to-liver-to-gut loop.

Your liver dumps compounds into bile.

Bile goes into the intestine.

That bile feeds the gut biome, for better or WORSE.

Some compounds get bound up and leave in the stool.

Most get reabsorbed.

Back to the liver.

Back into bile.

Back to the intestine.

Again and again and again.

If the gut is damaged and you are not properly binding and eliminating these compounds, they don’t magically disappear because you took something called a “detox supplement.”

They can KEEP CIRCULATING.

This leaking of toxins into the blood and repeated recirculation is a foundational concept to my Toxic Bile Paradigm model of health & disease. Learn more on that below:

Part 1:

Part 2:

Part 3:

Remember that, because it becomes important when we get to the binders.

Now, Let’s Give the Oxidized Fish Oil During Pregnancy

This one should make people angry.

Fish oil has been AGGRESSIVELY marketed to pregnant women.

Why?

DHA!

Baby brains!

Smarter babies!

Healthy development!

You’ve all seen the sales pitch.

So what happens when oxidized fish oil is actually given during pregnancy?

Researchers looked at exactly that in Toxicity of oxidized fish oil in pregnancy: a dose-response study in rats.

Did the rat mothers LOOK sick?

No. Not at all.

That part matters.

People think:

“I feel fine, therefore this thing isn’t hurting me.”

That is not how toxicity necessarily works.

The mothers did not APPEAR sick.

Meanwhile...

The researchers found increased NEONATAL MORTALITY at higher oxidation levels.

Let’s translate that too.

More dead baby rats shortly after birth.

They also found changes in placental gene expression involving antioxidant pathways and free-radical production.

And their conclusion?

“Highly oxidized fish oil was toxic in rat pregnancy.”

There really isn’t much ambiguity in that sentence.

Highly oxidized fish oil was TOXIC in pregnancy.

And the effects occurred at doses the researchers considered relevant to human exposure.

So maybe the only question shouldn’t be:

“Does DHA help build the baby’s brain?”

How about:

What ELSE comes with the DHA?

How oxidized is it?

What does DHA turn into when it oxidizes?

What does that do to the placenta?

What does it do to antioxidant systems?

What does it do to developing tissue?

What does it do to survival?

Suddenly “take fish oil because muh baby’s brain!” starts sounding a little simplistic, doesn’t it?

Fish Oil Is Supposed to Protect Your Heart. So Why the Atrial Fibrillation?

This is where the fish-oil story becomes almost comical.

If there is ONE area where fish oil has been sold as basically unquestionable dogma, it is cardiovascular health.

Fish oil = heart healthy.

Everybody knows that!

Right?!?

So what happened when they actually ran large cardiovascular trials?

The STRENGTH randomized clinical trial included more than 13,000 high-risk patients and gave the treatment group 4 grams per day of an omega-3 formulation.

The comparison group got corn oil.

The trial was STOPPED EARLY.

Why?

Futility.

Meaning there was no reasonable expectation that continuing the trial was going to suddenly reveal the promised cardiovascular benefit.

The omega-3 formulation did NOT significantly reduce the major cardiovascular endpoint.

The authors concluded:

“These findings do not support use of this omega-3 fatty acid formulation...”

Well.

That is awkward.

But then we get to atrial fibrillation.

In REDUCE-IT, patients taking icosapent ethyl—pharmaceutical-grade EPA ethyl ester from fish oil—were hospitalized for atrial fibrillation or flutter MORE OFTEN than the placebo group.

Serious bleeding:

2.7% in the EPA group.

2.1% in placebo.

Then came OMEMI, another randomized controlled trial, this time in elderly patients who had already suffered myocardial infarction.

Atrial fibrillation occurred in:

7.2% of the omega-3 group.

Versus:

4.0% of placebo.

That is not some tiny difference that went the “right” way.

That is almost TWICE the percentage.

And what did the researchers conclude regarding the main outcome?

“We could not detect reduction in clinical events...”

So let’s summarize.

Take the “heart healthy” oil.

Fail to demonstrate the promised reduction in clinical events.

Meanwhile the atrial-fibrillation signal goes UP.

Interesting.

Very interesting.

The “Duration Paradox”: Eventually the Detox Machinery LOSES

Here is another concept people need to understand if they want to stop getting fooled by short-term research.

I have called this the Duration Paradox for years.

Here is how it works.

You expose the body to something toxic.

What does the body do FIRST?

It fights back.

Detox enzymes increase.

Antioxidant defenses increase.

Protective pathways get turned on.

The body recognizes trouble and starts working HARDER.

Sometimes this helps people feel better short-term. It’s a common thing with recreational and pharma drugs, actually.

Then somebody measures the increased activity of some “protective” enzyme and says:

“LOOK! IT INCREASED THIS GOOD ENZYME! THIS MUST BE HEALTHY!”

No.

Maybe you’re watching a horse being whipped into running faster.

The horse CAN run faster.

For a while.

Does the whipping therefore improve the horse’s health?

Keep whipping it.

What happens eventually?

It slows down.

Then it collapses.

THIS is the Duration Paradox.

And we have a beautiful example involving PUFAs, lipid peroxidation, and aldehyde detoxification.

A study examining vitamin E, selenium, lipid peroxidation, and aldehyde dehydrogenase activity found that high PUFA intake significantly increased malondialdehyde production.

Early on, cytosolic aldehyde dehydrogenase—ALDH—activity went UP as MDA production went up.

The body was responding to the poison.

It was trying to process the extra aldehydes.

Great.

Keep the oxidative assault going.

What happens?

After more severe, prolonged lipid peroxidation...

ALDH activity went DOWN.

The researchers wrote:

“ALDH activity becomes suppressed after more severe, longer-term in vivo lipid peroxidation...”

There it is.

SHORT TERM:

Increase the defense.

LONG TERM:

Overwhelm the defense.

THE POISON EVENTUALLY WINS IF YOU KEEP GIVING THE DETOX SYSTEM TOO MUCH WORK.

This is why I do NOT assume that something increasing a detoxification enzyme means the substance causing the increase is beneficial.

Maybe the body is fighting for its life.

Maybe the “beneficial adaptation” is simply the FIRST STAGE of the damage.

Okay. So What Do We Do About the Damage?

THIS is the useful part.

If you swallowed fish oil ten years ago, sitting around panicking about it accomplishes exactly nothing.

If you are still taking it?

My first rule applies:

STOP IN-TOXING BEFORE OBSESSING OVER DE-TOXING.

Stop adding the thing you’re now trying to recover from.

Then support the systems your body actually uses to process and ELIMINATE the garbage.

In Part 1, I went through flush niacin, NAD+, aldehyde metabolism, and zeolite in much more detail.

Now let’s add some more pieces.

Modified Citrus Pectin: Getting Toxic Elements OUT

Low-molecular-weight modified citrus pectin—MCP—is one of my favorite tools because it does something very different from just acting as an ordinary bulky intestinal fiber.

A clinical study of modified citrus pectin in children with elevated lead levels found that oral MCP lowered blood lead while increasing urinary lead excretion.

Translation:

Less lead in the blood. More lead leaving through the urine.

Exactly what I want to see.

Then a pilot study on modified citrus pectin and urinary excretion of toxic elements found some very interesting numbers.

Within the first 24 hours:

Urinary arsenic excretion increased about 130%.

By day six:

Urinary cadmium excretion increased about 150%.

These were not hospitalized people with an acute poisoning emergency.

The researchers were demonstrating increased elimination of toxic elements in generally healthy subjects.

Why does this matter to the fish-oil discussion?

Did we not JUST go through metals found in marine oils?

Mercury.

Lead.

Other trace metals.

There is your first connection.

But here is another one.

Remember all that MALONDIALDEHYDE?

MDA keeps showing up wherever PUFA lipid peroxidation shows up.

In a liver-fibrosis study, modified citrus pectin inhibited galectin-3 and reduced progression of liver fibrosis while also reducing malondialdehyde and increasing glutathione.

Another experimental toxicity study found that MCP reduced malondialdehyde while improving glutathione, superoxide dismutase, and Nrf2-related antioxidant responses.

MCP has also been studied in myocardial fibrosis and inflammation and models involving oxidative stress and neuroinflammation.

So let’s connect this.

• Fish-oil problems:

• Toxic elements.

• Lipid peroxidation.

• MDA.

• Oxidative stress.

• Liver stress.

MCP research:

• Increased urinary elimination of toxic elements.

• Reduced MDA in experimental toxicity models.

• Improved glutathione-related defenses.

• Reduced liver injury in multiple models.

See the overlap?

No, there is not a 20-year randomized human trial where researchers poisoned people with rancid fish oil and then proved MCP fixed every problem it caused.

I don’t need to pretend there is.

I am showing you the mechanisms and the overlaps.

This is WHY I use these things.

Alginates: Bind the Garbage in the Gut and GET IT OUT

Then we have alginates.

Alginate is a highly purified soluble fiber derived from seaweed.

And the toxin-binding research gets REALLY interesting.

One experiment used alginate-coated activated charcoal to increase fecal excretion of the dioxin TCDD.

Stop there.

What did we just spend an entire section talking about?

DIOXINS in marine oils.

Now we have alginate being used as part of a strategy to increase FECAL EXCRETION of a dioxin.

See why I pay attention to these connections?

Then we get an even better paper.

Researchers tested multiple dietary fibers for their ability to increase fecal excretion of a dioxin isomer.

Want to know which fibers showed up?

PECTIN.

ALGINIC ACID—which is alginate.

GUAR GUM.

Well, look at that.

What do I already use?

Modified citrus pectin.

Alginate.

Partially hydrolyzed guar gum—Sunfiber.

Funny how these things keep lining up.

When I combine modified citrus pectin and lower-molecular-weight alginate, that is essentially the strategy behind PectaClear.

Why do I want BOTH?

Because I want to support more than one exit route.

MCP has evidence for increasing urinary elimination of certain toxic elements.

That means we are helping the:

Blood → kidney → urine route.

Alginate primarily stays in the gastrointestinal tract.

THERE I want it helping bind the compounds being dumped into the intestine through bile so they LEAVE instead of getting reabsorbed.

That is the:

Liver → bile → intestine → stool route.

Blood/kidneys.

Bile/gut.

HIT MORE THAN ONE EXIT ROUTE.

That is the strategy.

MCP + Alginate Together

And yes, there is even human case-report literature specifically combining these.

Integrative Medicine and the Role of Modified Citrus Pectin/Alginates in Heavy Metal Chelation and Detoxification reported five cases using MCP alone or MCP combined with alginates.

The authors reported an average reduction in measured toxic metals of about:

74%.

SEVENTY-FOUR PERCENT.

Is that a randomized trial of fish-oil poisoning?

No. The point is that toxic metals are PART of the fish-oil problem.

MCP and alginate have published evidence connecting them to toxic-element elimination.

Therefore, I care about them when thinking about recovering from these exposures.

Simple.

Zinc, Selenium, and Molybdenum: The Keystone Minerals

Now we get into what I call the Keystone Minerals:

ZINC.

SELENIUM.

MOLYBDENUM.

Why “keystone”?

A keystone is the central stone at the top of an arch that helps hold the structure together.

These minerals sit right in the middle of multiple systems relevant to liver function, oxidative stress, and aldehyde metabolism.

Remember:

We are not trying to “take antioxidants.”

That is internet supplement thinking based on the long-failed “antioxidant theory of health”.

Wait, you didn’t know about that, because the supplement manufacturers keep acting like it still works so they can sell you more garbage in pills?

“We found no evidence to support antioxidant supplements for primary or secondary prevention.”

Yeah. Stop buying antioxidants for antioxidants’ sake already.

Over here, we’re trying to make the body’s NORMAL BIOCHEMICAL MACHINERY WORK.

Those are not the same thing.

Zinc and Liver Oxidative Stress

USDA research on zinc supplementation and alcohol-induced liver injury found that zinc reduced multiple measures of liver injury and oxidative stress in mice.

“Why are you talking about alcohol in a fish-oil article?”

Because alcohol creates ALDEHYDES.

PUFA lipid peroxidation creates ALDEHYDES.

Different upstream poison.

Overlapping downstream problems.

Oxidative stress.

Aldehyde metabolism.

Liver detoxification.

Same detox pathways.

That is the connection.

Selenium and ALDH

Now selenium gets REALLY interesting.

A 2026 study using a high-selenium Lycium barbarum preparation in alcohol-induced liver injury found increased activities of BOTH alcohol dehydrogenase and aldehyde dehydrogenase while reducing oxidative-stress and lipid-peroxidation markers.

And guess what else went down?

MALONDIALDEHYDE.

There’s MDA…AGAIN.

PUFAs oxidize.

MDA goes up.

Then another paper developed a selenium-containing compound specifically as an ALDH2 activator.

Why does ALDH2 matter?

Because ALDH2 is one of the major mitochondrial enzymes involved in getting rid of reactive aldehydes.

The paper describes ALDH2 as having:

“a pivotal role in the metabolism of endogenous reactive aldehydes”

BINGO.

What have we been talking about for two episodes?

Reactive aldehydes.

So a selenium-containing compound ACTIVATING ALDH2 gets my attention.

Then another study looked at selenium deficiency and aldehyde oxidase 1.

Selenium deficiency profoundly reduced glutathione-peroxidase activity and changed multiple detoxification enzymes.

This is why calling selenium merely “an antioxidant” is way too simplistic.

Selenium is incorporated into enzymes.

It is part of the MACHINERY.

You don’t merely need to dump random “antioxidants” into yourself.

YOU NEED THE RIGHT PARTS SO THE DETOX MACHINERY WORKS.

Selenium and Ferroptosis

Here is another connection directly back to the lipid-peroxidation problem.

Selenomethionine alleviated alcohol-induced liver injury by inhibiting ferroptosis.

What is ferroptosis?

An iron-dependent form of cell death intimately connected to LIPID PEROXIDATION.

And what have we been talking about for TWO ENTIRE EPISODES?

Lipid peroxidation.

The study found improvements involving glutathione depletion, reactive oxygen species, and—yes—malondialdehyde.

Again.

Same categories of damage.

Same systems showing up.

That’s the pattern.

Selenium and Mercury

Remember how fish oils can contain mercury?

Now look at this.

A human trial involving people with long-term mercury exposure found that organic selenium supplementation increased mercury excretion and decreased oxidative damage.

Three months of selenium supplementation increased mercury elimination.

At the same time, urinary malondialdehyde and 8-hydroxy-2-deoxyguanosine decreased.

There they are AGAIN.

Mercury.

MDA.

Oxidative DNA damage.

Selenium.

How many times do these same biochemical themes need to show up before people start seeing the pattern?

Molybdenum and Yet ANOTHER Aldehyde-Detox Pathway

Molybdenum gives us another important piece.

A classic paper on acetaldehyde oxidation during molybdenum deficiency looked at molybdenum-dependent aldehyde metabolism.

Two enzymes you should know:

Xanthine oxidase.

Aldehyde oxidase.

Both are molybdenum-containing enzymes.

And yes...

ALDEHYDE oxidase.

The name should be giving away why I care about it.

Then a human liver-tissue study compared people with end-stage liver failure against healthy liver donors.

Homeostasis of Molybdenum, Xanthine Oxidase and Aldehyde Oxidase Activity Levels in the Livers of Patients with End-Stage Liver Failure and Healthy Controls found significantly lower hepatic molybdenum and altered molybdenum-dependent enzyme activity in the liver-failure group.

The authors described:

“altered hepatic trace element composition, including molybdenum”

along with disturbances in molybdenum-dependent enzymes.

Your LIVER is a detox organ.

Detox requires ENZYMES.

Enzymes require RAW MATERIALS.

YOU CANNOT RUN CHEMISTRY WITH INGREDIENTS YOU DON’T HAVE.

Then the older molybdenum paper gave us another fascinating observation.

A protein-free diet caused what the researchers called:

“virtual elimination of all the aldehyde oxidizing enzymes studied.”

Read that one again too.

PROTEIN-FREE DIET CAUSED VIRTUAL ELIMINATION OF THE ALDEHYDE-OXIDIZING ENZYMES THEY STUDIED.

Think about THAT the next time some detox guru tells you to stop eating protein and fast harder.

Your detoxification machinery is MADE FROM STUFF.

You need amino acids.

You need minerals.

You need nutrients.

You don’t “detox” by depriving the body of the materials required to run detoxification.

DETOX ISN’T MAGIC. IT IS BIOCHEMISTRY.

This Is Why I Don’t Megadose the “Good” Stuff Either

Now here comes the mistake people make on the OTHER side.

They hear:

“Selenium helps ALDH!”

“Molybdenum helps aldehyde oxidase!”

“Zinc protects the liver!”

And their immediate thought is:

GREAT! I’LL TAKE TEN TIMES MORE!

No.

That is pharmaceutical drug-like effect thinking.

If a mineral is REQUIRED, that does not mean infinitely more is infinitely better.

We are trying to RESTORE NORMAL NUTRITIONAL FUNCTION.

Not turn minerals into drugs.

This is exactly why I designed Keystone Minerals around useful, sane amounts of zinc, selenium, and molybdenum instead of participating in the internet supplement Darwin Award Olympics.

More is not automatically better.

ENOUGH is the goal.

What About Niacin and Zeolite?

I covered both of these much more extensively in Part 1, so I’m not going to repeat the whole thing here.

But they fit directly into this exact same picture.

Nicotinic acid supplies precursor material for NAD+.

ALDEHYDE DEHYDROGENASES REQUIRE NAD+.

So if the problem involves reactive aldehydes being produced by lipid peroxidation...

Do you think maintaining NAD+ availability might matter?

Of course it does.

And zeolite clinoptilolite gives us another gut-binding strategy for compounds I want LEAVING instead of recirculating.

For the full research on flush niacin, NAD+, aldehyde metabolism, and zeolite, see Part 1:

But here is the point I do NOT want people missing:

None of these things are an excuse to keep swallowing fish oil.

Taking niacin while continuing the fish oil?

Taking selenium while continuing the fish oil?

Taking binders while continuing the fish oil?

That’s like smoking cigarettes while taking supplements for oxidative stress.

At some point...

STOP DOING THE THING CREATING THE PROBLEM.

Stop Having to Protect Yourself FROM Your “Health” Supplement

Just look at how absurd this becomes.

Take fish oil.

Then take vitamin E because fish oil oxidizes.

Take taurine because taurine reduced toxicity of oxidized fish oil in rats.

Take something for lipid peroxidation.

Take something for the aldehydes.

Take something for the gut damage.

Take something for the mercury.

Take something for the POPs.

Take something for the dioxins.

Take something because the fish oil is chewing through antioxidant defenses.

How many things do you need to take to protect yourself FROM THE SUPPLEMENT?

At what point does somebody finally say:

MAYBE WE SHOULDN’T TAKE THE FISH OIL.

This should not be difficult.

“But MY Fish Oil Is Really High Quality!”

Here comes the last refuge.

“I buy a REALLY good fish oil.”

Of course you do.

“It’s molecularly distilled.”

“It comes in a dark bottle.”

“I keep it refrigerated.”

“They add antioxidants.”

“They test peroxide values.”

Fine.

Those things can influence how much oxidation or contamination is already there when you swallow it.

Know what they do NOT do?

They do not make DHA stop being DHA.

They do not make EPA stop being EPA.

They do not remove all those double bonds.

They do not make highly unsaturated fats magically stable.

They do not prevent lipid peroxidation inside your body.

They do not erase the immune-suppression experiments.

They do not erase the increased infection mortality.

They do not erase the atrial-fibrillation signal.

They do not erase the reactive aldehydes.

They do not guarantee elimination of every contaminant.

And if we are talking about COD LIVER OIL, you get the added “bonus” of the toxic “vitamin” A and vitamin D issue I went through in Part 1.

So no.

This was never merely:

“Is my bottle rancid?”

The bottle can be perfect.

THE FAT IS STILL HIGHLY OXIDIZABLE.

Stop Looking at One Study. Look at the PATTERN.

This is where people get lost.

They want to argue about ONE paper.

One product.

One dose.

One contaminant.

One antioxidant.

One outcome.

STOP.

Back up and look at the whole thing.

Fish-oil supplements have repeatedly been found to contain environmental contaminants.

They contain persistent organic pollutants.

PCBs.

Pesticide residues.

Dioxins.

Mercury.

Lead has been found over recommended limits in some products.

Marine oils are EXTREMELY oxidation-prone.

Commercial products have repeatedly been found oxidized across multiple countries and over multiple years.

Oxidized fish oil worsened intestinal dysbiosis, leaky gut, endotoxemia, and liver injury in an experimental model.

Highly oxidized fish oil increased neonatal mortality in pregnancy.

Fish oil impaired resistance to bacterial infection.

Fish oil impaired resistance to influenza.

The fish-oil-fed influenza mice had LESS inflammation and MORE deaths.

Large cardiovascular trials failed to produce the miracle people were promised.

Atrial fibrillation went the WRONG way.

High-PUFA intake increases lipid peroxidation and MDA.

Longer, more severe lipid peroxidation can eventually SUPPRESS the ALDH detox machinery trying to deal with the aldehydes.

Then you need MORE nutrients, MORE antioxidant capacity, MORE detoxification machinery, and MORE binders to deal with the mess created by the “health food.”

That’s not one bad study.

That’s not one bad brand.

That’s not one unlucky bottle.

THAT IS A PATTERN.

And I pay attention to patterns.

The Bottom Line

The supplement industry convinced millions of people to swallow concentrated marine oil every day because omega-3 fats were sold as inherently “healthy.”

Heart healthy!

Brain healthy!

Anti-inflammatory!

Healthy pregnancy!

Healthy babies!

And then you actually READ the research.

What do you find?

An oxidation-prone oil extracted from animals living in contaminated environments.

Finished products repeatedly found oxidized, mislabeled, or contaminated.

Highly unsaturated fats that generate reactive lipid-peroxidation products.

Aldehydes.

Oxidative damage.

Gut damage.

Immune suppression.

Worse infectious outcomes.

Pregnancy toxicity in animals.

Atrial-fibrillation signals.

And some of the very effects SOLD as benefits—like “reducing inflammation”—can exist at the exact same time that the animal is doing WORSE.

So my first recommendation has not changed.

STOP IN-TOXING.

If you took fish oil years ago?

Don’t sit around freaking out about it.

Give your body the raw materials and exit routes it needs to do what it is supposed to do.

Adequate protein.

Adequate nutrition.

The minerals your enzymes actually REQUIRE.

Support NAD+.

Support normal elimination.

Use appropriate binders to help keep compounds heading OUT instead of getting reabsorbed and sent around again.

Modified citrus pectin.

Alginates.

Other appropriate gut binders.

Zinc.

Selenium.

Molybdenum.

And most importantly:

STOP ADDING THE THING YOU’RE TRYING TO RECOVER FROM.

Please save your family and friends from swallowing this rotten, rancid, contaminated stuff because somebody told them it was “heart healthy.”

We have been sold fish oil as one of the healthiest supplements in the world.

After actually looking at the research?

I think it deserves consideration as one of the SHYSTERIEST supplements the industry has ever sold us.

Full References Folder