I read some good things about krill oil and decided - no more expensive supplements unless they prove themselves. So I planned a test for krill oil. I was going to use my CRP(C-reactive Protein) tests to determine effectiveness. But careful plans can go astray, and my test plans didn't work out as clearly as I hoped. In August 2006 I had a baseline CRP reading of 1.32, down from 3.26 in Jun 2005. (I attribute the drop to 1.32 to adding curcumin to my supplements).
But I was surprised, my April 19, 2007 CRP reading was 5.25. What happened? A bad batch of fish oil is my guess. I use Costco fish oil and usually the fish oil smells slightly fishy, but this time the oil smelt stronger, but did not taste rancid. I decided to use the fish oil. Not smart because soon I had a lot of arthritis pain and a high CRP reading screwing up my expected baseline testing.
It seems that krill oil was effective. My expected baseline was 1.32 using 10 grams of fish oil and 800 mg of LEF curcumin to reduce inflammation. So the May 14 lab results of .85 was encouraging. A reduction from the expected baseline 1.32. The true reduction could be more because I probably hadn't recovered completely from the arthritis attack.
Damn, I wish the arthritis had’nt confounded the testing. But I still have some evidence that fish oil/curcumin/krill oil is better than fish oil/curcumin alone. More than half of my supplements are taken without any evidence that they work, so this is good. My next routine CRP test will show if a further reduction will happen using krill oil. And after that, I will try dropping the fish oil and relying on krill oil alone.
Keep in mind that my fish oil is taken at 10 grams a day - for a total of 3 grams of Omega3. Substantially more than most folks take. My arthritis is a hard task master forcing me to take lots of fish oil and regularly.
My standard for fish oil smell is now a slight fishy odor. Anything stronger goes back to Costco. 10 grams/day of rancid fish oil hit me hard. I did complain to Costco and now will follow up with a call giving them the CRP readings. Of course, all of this is what happened to me, YMMV.
Cheers
