I’ve been taking various Nordic Naturals products for quite some time now. When they asked for a review about one of their products I had purchased (and no longer purchase) I gave them an honest one.
For quite some time I’ve been on the Omega-3 bandwagon. Spent quite a few years taking Mega Red only to find both my good and bad cholesterol going up. Quite a bit of reading seemed to point to the use of farm raised krill instead of wild caught. Many claims that all of the studies about Omega-3s were done with wild caught. Don’t know if they were true or not, but I did find a lot of people taking Mega Red asking why both numbers were going up.
Wild vs. Raised
Hey, I grew up and still live on a functioning family farm. We don’t raise livestock anymore, but did. I can honestly tell you that wild shot pheasant has a gamey flavor and farm raised tastes like chicken. Why? When you raise it in the same coup with the same bedding and feed as a chicken, it is going to taste like chicken. Wild pheasant eat whatever they can find while trying to avoid being eaten themselves.
I can honestly tell you that eggs from cage free chickens allowed to wander around outside during the day look and taste a bit different than “factory raised” chicken eggs. Oh, you can give them both the same chicken feed, the ones that get to go outside will taste different. Chickens will eat anything they can find. They’ll even kill and eat mice. My niece has chickens for a school/4H (I don’t remember which) project. I’ve actually seen them fight over a mouse that either got killed by the equipment during harvest or they killed. They eat untold numbers of bugs while outside. It’s either boredom or they prefer bugs because they have plenty of feed.
Decision to Try Nordic Naturals
As a result of my admittedly non-scientific research on-line I decided to find an Omega 3 supplement made from wild caught. Those fish obviously were more active than tank raised because they had to avoid being eaten while finding food. Tank raised just got the same feed every day. They didn’t have an ocean to swim in nor did they have predators to run from. Their predators were feeding them.
After poking around I decided to try some of Nordic Naturals stuff. I mean I was already taking the Omega-3 supplement because of a family history of heart issues. Now there are even real studies pointing out some actual benefits in that area. Some of the eye claims and brain help may or may not be true. I know my grandmother used to actually take spoons of fish oil every day. As a kid I could smell it on the other side of the kitchen when she cracked the bottle open. I’m not willing to do that! I am willing to take a pill that hides the smell and doesn’t give me “fish farts.”
The Numbers
I don’t remember what my cholesterol numbers were exactly. I just remembered my doctor telling me
“They aren’t quite high enough I have to do something about it, but they are close.”
My doctor before
As a diabetic I go in for at least an annual, if not a quarterly, blood workup. Everyone has to track their A1C at some point. I do know that just trying to cut back on red meat while I was on Mega Red wasn’t changing the conversation.
Don’t really know how long I’ve been using various Nordic Naturals for my Omega 3 source. I do know that, other than helping around the farm, I’m not “exercising.” Especially not during the winter. Like most people my good cholesterol is lower than my bad. I have a different conversation with my doctor now.
“Your good cholesterol is way too low, but your total cholesterol is only 110 so it doesn’t really matter.”
My doctor after
I’ve tried quite a few Nordic Naturals Omega 3 products. I order several months supply and when I run out I order something else. I think I started out with Ultimate Omega. For a time I was taking one of their Omega products with CoQ10 in it because my doctor, like most doctors, reflexively had me on a low dose statin since diagnosing Type 2. It was “standard care.”
Then I stumbled onto more than one article about a study claiming statins increase Type 2. Yeah, I really would have preferred the article be someplace like the New England Journal of Medicine. Timing was everything. My A1C was going up and there was no reason for it. Nothing had changed. I had to take CoQ10 because of the side effects of the statin. Really bad leg cramps.
I got rid of the statin and the CoQ10 and went back down under 6.5 without really changing anything else. I may bring back the CoQ10 because I have noticed when I take it I have less joint stiffness and pain.
Still Too Low
Been having that same cholesterol conversation with my doctor. Noticed Nordic Naturals had an LDL product with CoQ10. It was time to re-order so I ordered that. These things were horse pills. Wish I had taken a picture. I choked more than once trying to get them down. Yes, when you first crack open the bottle they were soft and flexible. Well before you got to the bottom of the bottle they had been exposed to enough air they were rocks. Not “easy to swallow” like the add said.
Adding insult to injury, my numbers didn’t wiggle. I still logged in a 110. There was no reason to keep risking my life trying to take those horse pills when they were unable to achieve the desired result. I wrote it off as a failed experiment and moved on to a DHA product.
My last refill I bought the Omega Memory product. I haven’t been on it long enough to determine if it is a placebo effect, but I am more alert in the office. Short term memory has not improved. I can still forget what I went down the hall for. I am able to focus for longer periods though. When writing words or software, that’s not nothing.
The Review Request
I really hate being spammed with every receipt to “take a survey” and “talk to us first if you won’t give five stars.” Out of the blue I got an email from Nordic Naturals wanting me to review the LDL product. I gave them an honest review.
Like Al Gore they choose to delete data that doesn’t support the conclusion they want.
Summary
I don’t want this to come off as me pitching Nordic Naturals products. Everybody has different eating and exercise habits. I can only, over the past couple of years, start to eat salmon. Growing up poor (and not really knowing it) on the farm we had canned salmon during Lent every year. The smell and the taste scarred me for most of my life. I can only eat salmon in restaurants and haven’t gone to one of those in over a year. The other fatty fish listed in that Harvard article . . . nope. Especially not tuna!
Every morning I take a Centrum Silver for men. I split my two pill dose of Omega-3 to after eating in the morning and after eating supper at night. Taking meds after I eat seems to make them work better. Certainly the case for my Metformin.
I gave the product a shit review because it deserved a shit review.
