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Introduction
While dietary guidelines universally include fish as a food group that can be consumed regularly in a healthy dietary pattern, there are some potential risks of fish consumption that get raised. Some have some legitimacy, for example the frequency of consumption of high-mercury fish. However, other claims can go to extremes (“eating fish is bad for you”) that are based in ideology rather than evidence.
In this Quack Asylum episode, we use a video made by a medical doctor as an example of where quackery can raise its head on this topic. Specifically, there are four claims made in the video that we investigate and see if there is any basis to them.
Related resources
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- Enroll in the next cohort of our Applied Nutrition Literacy course
- [03:07]Clip of the claims by Dr. Brooke Goldner
- [04:57]Claim 1
- [29:10]Claim 2
- [37:17]Claim 3
- [47:53]Claim 4
The Hosts
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Dr. Alan Flanagan has a PhD in nutrition from the University of Surrey, where his doctoral research focused on circadian rhythms, feeding, and chrononutrition.
This work was based on human intervention trials. He also has a Masters in Nutritional Medicine from the same institution.
Dr. Flanagan is a regular co-host of Sigma Nutrition Radio. He also produces written content for Sigma Nutrition, as part of his role as Research Communication Officer.
Danny Lennon has a master’s degree (MSc.) in Nutritional Sciences from University College Cork, and he is the founder of Sigma Nutrition.
Danny is currently a member of the Advisory Board of the Sports Nutrition Association, the global regulatory body responsible for the standardisation of best practice in the sports nutrition profession.
Detailed Study Notes
Overview of Claims
In this episode, we focused on four claims made in a particular video (although heard elsewhere too), namely:
- Claim 1: “Eating fish does not improve your health”
- Claim 2: By Cooking Fish, you’re already eliminating a lot of the omega-3
- Claim 3: “Farmed fish are not fed the algae that normally have, and so instead of omega-3 they make mainly omega-6, so they are inflammatory”
- Claim 4: “When you are eating fish, you are eating pollution, which is toxic”