Yesterday, I was so excited about the petition getting approved and only been a class and a week from graduating. Today, I had a doctor's visit to follow up for the problems I had at GenCon and a checkpoint on the pre-diabetes thing. I ended up not eating before I got there so I had a fasting blood sugar. Their little prick test put me at 105. Which is very good news since I was 137 the last one (which was a fluke) and around 122 for the rest of them. And the A1C test came back as 5.5, which is right in the "perfectly healthy" range of things for a three month average. So, just to get that level down just a little bit more and keep on exercising. The doctor doesn't think I need to worry about it too much, but I'm going to keep on it mainly because the fear of diabetes is getting me to change my health. Which is probably the best, long-term thing at this point. In completely other news, I got my personalized license plates today.
Over the decades there have been many different things said about cod liver oil, and whether we should be taking it. It used to be a standard supplement for children and pregnant woman, before falling out of favour. It is interesting to note that both Vitamin A and Vitamin D are needed for reproductive health, and infertility is now quite common. It’s certainly not the whole reason, but it seems likely that it’s part of the picture. In Dec 08, some findings by the Vitamin D council have made this even more contentious. The Weston A Price foundation defended cod liver oil, while Dr Mercola has revised his recommendations and told people not to take it. Below is Sally Fallon’s article addressing his concerns, but first, here’s my thoughts. Even the best of foods isn’t good for everybody, and there will be some people who it isn’t beneficial for at certain times.
I often use kinesiology and muscle test my clients to see whether specific supplements are good for them, including CLO, so you could find a kinesiologist in your area who can test what you need. Otherwise, have a think about where your vitamin A and D are coming from. Unless you’re eating a lot of liver butter or seafood, it’s probably beneficial. But personally, I prefer to get my vitamins from food, so would choose nutrient dense whole foods, including cod liver oil, and ditch the multi-vitamins. Unless, of course, Glyco Careglucose metabolism you are taking Vitamin A or D under medical supervision. If you choose to take cod liver oil, the other thing to take into account is that modern processing has ruined a perfectly good food for us, and almost all cod liver oils now have only synthetic vitamins in them. To my knowledge, the only cod liver oil that still has natural vitamin A and Glyco Careglucose metabolism vitamin D is the Green Pastures fermented cod liver oil and skate liver oil range.
Dave Wetzel, the owner of Green Pastures, has written an article about how the fermented range came about, and the benefits of this traditional food. So now, scroll down to read about the benefits of cod liver oil in general. Dave’s article and two others on Cod Liver Oil appeared in Wise Traditions in Food, Farming and the Healing Arts, the quarterly magazine of the Weston A. Price Foundation, Spring 2009. A pdf containing these three articles can be downloaded here. The warning accompanies a report on a review article co-authored by Dr. John Cannell, head of the Vitamin D Council, and fifteen other researchers, entitled "Cod Liver Oil, Vitamin A Toxicity, Frequent Respiratory Infections, and the Vitamin D Deficiency Epidemic" in the November issue of Annals of Otology, Rhinology and Laryngology. Most of this paper is a review of studies showing the benefits of vitamin D in protecting against various illnesses, including respiratory infection.
THIS PAPER DOES NOT PRESENT ANY INFORMATION WHATSOEVER INDICATING THAT COD LIVER OIL IS TOXIC, and, in fact, admits that vitamin A can significantly reduce the incidence of acute lower respiratory tract infections in Third World children. A portion of the review article is an attempt to explain why a 2004 study providing 600 to 700 IU of vitamin D and 3,500 IU of vitamin A in the form of cod liver oil and a multivitamin failed to meaningfully reduce upper respiratory tract infections when studies from the 1930s found that cod liver oil could reduce the incidence of these infections by 30 to 50 percent. This conclusion is essentially the same as the conclusion reached by the Weston A. Price Foundation and the research of Chris Masterjohn; we have continually pointed out that vitamins A and D work together and that without vitamin D, vitamin A can be ineffective or even toxic.