First you need to understand that fish oil has a lot of benefits. The
omega-3 fish oil belongs to the essential fatty acids which our body needs.
Our body does not have any capabilities of producing the omega-3 so we rely
on external sources, mainly fish rich in oil, as our main source. The fact
that it is labeled essential fatty acid means that our body really needs it
and the lack of which could result to a variety of health consequences.
Among the known benefits of taking omega-3 includes reducing the risks of
having heart disease, can reduce the development of cancer cells, prevents
pregnancy complications, improves eyesight and helps prevent depression. We
can have a longer list but I won’t trouble you with that, needless to say
the benefits of fish oil are real. But unknown to quite few, the fish oil
supplements that we all think of as friends has the dark side too, has side
effects which when left uncheck can be quite harmful and can even prove to
be fatal.
If our list of benefits is quite long, the side effects not as many. The
side effects only manifests when one overdoses with the intake and can even
disappear after a few days. Sometimes that body just needs to get used to
the fish oil and once it has adjusted, the side effects would disappear.
Some of the minor and immediate side effects include a fishy after taste
and diarrhea.
These two often appears during the first few days of taking the fish oil.
These symptoms should disappear after a couple of days but in case they
don’t changing brands of fish oil supplements might help. But setting up a
meeting with your doctor would be the best idea.
After a couple of weeks of taking fish oil capsules, you might notice some
fishy burping before and after each meal. This can just be because your
body is still adjusting. Give it a couple of days and the burping might
stop. Although, you should check the expiry dates of your of your
supplements. You might also want to consider that what you have been taking
are bad quality produce. Changing brands might help. Some suggest keeping
the supplements in a freezer to prevent the various gastrointestinal side
effects.
On the other hand, blood thinning is something that you cannot eliminate by
just simply changing brands. You see omega-3 from fish oils is great for
the heart because it is a natural blood thinner. They help coagulate the
blood which helps prevent blood clots which helps prevent heart diseases.
But because omega-3 is already a blood thinner, people who are already
taking blood thinning medications should avoid the intake of either the
fish oil or the blood thinning drug. The possible problem with this is that
people will get too much blood thinners resulting to patients bleeding out.
The bleeding could be internal which can damage organs and could result to
something fatal.
You should watch out for signs of internal bleeding like black stools or
the presence of blood in the stool or vomiting of blood which are all signs
of gastrointestinal bleeding. When you bleed in the brain the signs could
be changes in your vision or speech, numbness of an arm or leg, and severe
headache.
The dark side of fish oil is just that, one part of a fairly good
supplement. There are ways to prevent the side effects and most of them
through proper consultations before you even start taking those fish oil
supplements.
