Bad science strikes again: Bogus study claims fish oil increases prostate cancer

Thursday, July 25, 2013 by: Jonathan Benson, staff writer
Tags: fish oil, omega 3, junk science

(NaturalNews) In case you missed it, the mainstream media is currently engaged in a gratuitous misinformation orgy following the release of a new observational study published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, which absurdly claims that omega-3 fatty acids, and fish oil in particular, are a cause of prostate cancer. And perhaps the most ridiculous aspect of this junk science binge is the fact that no actual fish oil was used in the study.

This inconvenient fact, which not a single mainstream "news" source has reported on, as far as we can tell, is one of many that expose this new "study" as nothing more than blatant anti-supplement propaganda. And yet millions of men are likely now questioning whether or not to continue taking fish oil supplements out of fear that these nutrients might somehow cause them to develop prostate cancer.

To help diffuse some of the hysteria, here are the facts about this new fish oil "study" that you will not hear about from the mainstream media:

1) No actual fish oil was used in the study

You read that correctly. If you take a look at the actual study itself, you will realize that the researchers involved, many of whom happen to be cancer industry shills, merely looked at existing blood levels of both EPA (eicosapentaenoic acid) and DHA (docosahexaenoic acid) in participants. At no time during this so-called study, in other words, were fish oil supplements ever administered to any participants.

But this obvious discrepancy has not stopped the mainstream media from running wild with ridiculous headlines indicting fish oil supplements as a cause of prostate cancer. Suddenly decades of research proving that omega-3 fatty acids are beneficial for virtually all systems of the body is scrapped in favor of a single observational study that did not even test the product now being slammed as dangerous.

Wild salmon and other fish also contain EPA and DHA -- does this mean that these foods are also a cause of cancer? Nothing could be more ridiculous, and yet this is what those reporting on this study imply with their pseudo-journalistic quackery.

'Researchers' did not control for anything, including diet

Which brings us to the next point: the study's researchers did not control for any outside factors, including participants' general dietary habits. Establishing proper controls is fundamental for any study that is to be considered at all reputable, and yet the team involved with crafting this latest embarrassment controlled for absolutely nothing.

Most of the study participants who developed prostate cancer were fat smokers who drank lots of alcohol

When researchers fail to control for external factors, they end up wandering down a rabbit hole of pseudoscientific nonsense and coming to ludicrous conclusions. This is exactly what happened in this latest study, as a majority of those who developed prostate cancer turned out to be obese chain smokers with alcohol addictions, another important detail that was left out of mainstream media reports.

It is more than likely that these obvious factors were the real cause of prostate cancer in the study, not the presence of omega-3s in the bloodstream. But rather than report from this logical perspective, the mainstream media, like the study's authors, are instead blaming fish oil, which was not even included as part of the study.

What happened to 'correlation does not equal causation?'

The major irony in all this is that drug and vaccine industry shills constantly try to debunk the scientific merits of nutritional supplements like fish oil by claiming that "correlation does not equal causation." This tired and painfully overused mantra is a common go-to phrase used to shut down any discussion about the benefits of food and vitamins as evidenced by scientific research.

And yet this latest study claiming that fish oil causes prostate cancer is the epitome of what this phrase actually embodies. Beyond fallaciously blaming the presence of omega-3s in participants' bloodstreams as some kind of causative factor in triggering prostate cancer, this latest quack study provides absolutely no evidence whatsoever to even hint that its insane findings represent anything more than agenda-driven correlation with no basis in reality.

Sources for this article include:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com

http://rawfoodsos.com

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

http://science.naturalnews.com