Holiday flavor!

We have been branching out from our standard blockbuster flavors this holiday season. November and part of December featured Dr. Dave's Mega-O Vegetarian Mojito, a delicious blend of mint, lime and rum extract. What a joy to receive omega-3s every day mixed with those tantalizing flavors. Last week, we brought back the ever-popular Dr. Dave's Mega-O Vegetarian Chai, sublty spicy and holiday-esque, perfect for your post-New Year's resolutions that surely involve weaving more omega-3s into your daily life. As always, you can order your omega-3 chocolates directly from our website, o3foods.com, or visit the Seattle-area Whole Foods Market Roosevelt Square.

Fish oil use in pregnancy: research article

It is now commonplace for pregnant women to take prenatal vitamins and a DHA omega-3 supplement on the premise that the DHA helps the brain development in the fetus and newborn after delivery. Initial research was excitingly positive, but yesterday the journal JAMA released findings from Australia that supplementation with 800 mg DHA (and 100 mg EPA) daily during pregnancy did not lead to significant cognitive improvement in the infant at 18 months of age, nor did it decrease the chance that women would have postpartum depression. The group taking omega-3s did have a decrease in the rate of preterm labor. There are many factors to consider when trying to determine whether or not to "believe" the results of this article. The researchers mention fish intake outside of the study could be a factor, as well as dose, EPA/DHA ratio, and the general applicability of the women being studied to women from other countries. The bottom line is that research into the effect of omega-3s will only help our clinical use of these important nutrients, and this study adds one piece of data to the overall picture. There is little to no risk to taking omega-3 supplements, so most women will probably continue to add them to their prenatal regimen on the chance that there is some benefit, the details of which will hopefully be elucidated by future research.

Here is the link if you would like to read more:

www.nytimes.com/2010/10/20/health/research/20fishoil.html?scp=1&sq=fish%20oil&st=cse

Stay tuned for a New Flavor!

Dr. Dave's Omega-3 Foods is proud to plant the seed of an upcoming new flavor. Since our company's inception in 2007, delicious flavors such as mint, orange, mocha, and ginger have made your daily omega-3s absolutely delicious, a treat to look forward to as you meet your health goals. In addition, special edition flavors such as chai tea, and cayenne-cinnamon were hot-selling (no pun intended), exciting variations on what your palates had come to expect from chocolate. What amazing flavor could possibly be coming next? Stay tuned!

Omega-3s and vision

Keen that omega-3s can be helpful for maintenance of healthy vision, we were recently contacted by a Seattle-based optometrist who expressed interest in using our chocolates as attention-assuring treats during a lunchtime talk about omega-3s and eyes. The data that surfaces on a search of PubMed seems to indicate slowing of macular degeneration, improvement of dry eyes, and some assistance with visual development in young children and infants. Thanks to our opthalmologic colleagues for weaving our omega-3 enhanced chocolate delights into their profession!

Your Summer of Omega-3s

A fun, and seasonal, combination of factors finds many people getting their omega-3s from salmon on the grill, while at the same time the extreme heat in most parts of the country makes for difficult Dr. Dave's Mega-O shipping. A customer contacted us recently and her 4 boxes of Dr. Dave's Mega-O Vegetarian mocha were a congealed mass of melted, then cooled, dark chocolate, algae oil, and other ingredients. Even with cooler packs, it is very difficult to ship our products to your door in the summer and have it arrive fresh. So, Dr. Dave's Omega-3 Foods LLC is planning to stop on-line orders August 1, resuming shipping this fall (approximately mid-September), following suit with many other chocolate companies that have done the same over the years. We encourage all of you lovers of Dr. Dave's Mega-O chocolates to branch out this summer, grill some salmon on the grill, experiment with salads full of plant-based omega-3s, and await the return of our omega-3 delights this fall.
One note: for those of you in Seattle, it is still possible to purchase our products in the Whole Body section of Whole Foods Market Roosevelt Square.

National Center for Creative Aging

The producer of the algae oil for Dr. Dave's Mega-O Vegetarian chocolates, Martek Biosciences, was involved with a recent event co-sponsored by the National Center for Creative Aging (www.creativeaging.org). The Beautiful Minds dinner served numerous foods enhanced with DHA, including our chocolates. See our facebook site for the attached menu of an incredible array of foods that can help provide brain-friendly DHA. The Center is an interesting clearinghouse of information about how creativity (music, arts, etc) can help to keep one's mind fresh and young; see their website for links and tips!

Dr Dave's Mega-O on Facebook

Yes, it's true. Dr. Dave's Mega-O arrives into the 21st century confidently and anything-but-covertly by engaging the Facebook medium for some of the same content you will find here, but with more photos and links. And, of course, you can see who else is a Dr Dave's Mega-O fan, perhaps learning their omega-3 truffle secrets and successes. Visit us! (www.facebook.com/pages/Dr-Daves-Mega-O/94609779602?ref=ts)

Two Dr. Dave's Mega-O tricks

As a physician with integrative medicine training, I am keen to the importance of nutrition in all aspects of health and healing. However, I also like to have a bit of fun with what I eat, and switch it up sometimes. Perhaps that is why my normal yogurt/cereal breakfast morphed into a two-truffle, yerba maté combination one day last week. It was wonderful, kept me satiated for a couple of hours and I could just feel those omega-3s coursing through my veins. Do this every day? Probably not. But, on occasion, this might be part of my regimen.

Trick two. I just spoke with one of my chocolatiers who reminded me that the ganache (inside) in our chocolates is creamier and tastier if left to warm up to room temperature. I recommend that Dr. Dave's Mega-O chocolates be refrigerated until eaten in order to preserve the omega-3s on the inside, but letting them warm up slightly before eating them would be just fine and might make them even more delicious! Try it!

A Good Omega-3 Summary

Europe is ahead of the omega-3 curve, both in research and in staying up-to-date about the latest news. This summary article about the state of affairs in omega-3 research and marketing is well done, pointing out what we know and where some of the holes are in our understanding. Give it a read and let me know what you think:

news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/8543172.stm

Dr. Dave's Mega-O makes top of Valentine's Day list!

Valentine's Day is a coming together of many interesting themes. At the same time that we honor our "sweeties" with sweets and flowers, the symbol of the heart conjures up images of everlasting love. In more literal terms, gifts of chocolate (arguably dark chocolate and, this somewhat biased blog would add, chocolates enhanced with omega-3s) may be directly heart-healthy, helping lovers to years and years of health and happiness together.

It was an honor, then, for Dr. Dave's Mega-O chocolates to be the top of Karen Leland's Valentine's Day chocolate list as mentioned in the on-line news source, The Huffington Post. Some excellent chocolatiers are mentioned there (including Theo Chocolates and Gail Ambrosius, two with whom Dr. Dave's Mega-O works to create these omega-3 delights). Enjoy!

www.huffingtonpost.com/karen-leland/10-top-dark-chocolates-fo_b_455811.html

Omega-3s and Aging

Lifestyle and nutritional interventions to prevent or reverse aging are hot topics nowadays. Research abounds, and a wide variety of products and services are available to help people feel younger. In some cases, the proposed mechanism(s) seem plausible, while in other cases the marketing efforts outweigh the underlying science. Add in the emerging field of epigenetics, where influences of nutrition, lifestyle, and possible dietary supplements can conceivably cause changes in our chromosomes (DNA), and we finally have a way to explain, if not evaluate, some of these claims. As with many other nutrients, omega-3 research can involve both aging and epigenetics.

Two weeks ago, the Wall Street Journal (online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703837004575013393566949312.html) featured the results from a study linking omega-3 levels in the blood to changes in the aging process. The study was published in JAMA, a well-known medical journal, and followed 608 people with stable coronary artery disease over five years, checking their blood DHA and EPA levels (the "marine" omega-3 fatty acids), and measuring the length of their DNA at the beginning and the end. As we age, the ends of DNA (called telomeres) gets deleted, so telomere length can be a crude measure of biological age; essentially, shorter telomeres mean that DNA is biologically older.

In this trial, the group of people with a higher level of omega-3s in the blood (presumably corresponding to a higher omega-3 intake), had longer telomeres and therefore were biologically younger. The researchers figured that this was due to antioxidant effects as well as effects on certain enzymes that helped to protect the DNA.

Another interesting thrust of the blossoming omega-3 research and one that beckons the question: further reason to eat Dr. Dave's Mega-O omega-3 enhanced chocolate?