Can Cod Liver Oil Help Prevent Diabetes?
Sept. 22, 2000 -- It tasted awful, but according to mothers everywhere, cured everything. It's cod liver oil derived from, obviously, the liver of cod. Its history as an old wives tale is giving way to science, which is now looking into some of the potential benefits of this legendary fish oil.
Now, researchers have found that babies of mothers who took cod liver oil during pregnancy are less likely to develop type 1 diabetes in childhood, according to a Norwegian study. The researchers, whose work is published in the September issue of the journal Diabetologia, say the big question now is how and why it works.
"I think it is a very interesting study," Marc Hellerstein, MD, PhD, tells WebMD. "I think it is something that has to be explored aggressively, but it is pretty much a preliminary result." Hellerstein, a professor of nutrition at the University of California, Berkeley, was not involved in the study.
Type 1 diabetes, sometimes called juvenile diabetes, is a disease in which the insulin-producing cells in the pancreas are attacked and destroyed by the body's own immune system. Because insulin regulates blood sugar, type 1 diabetics must carefully monitor their blood sugar levels and take insulin shots several times daily. Although scientists are unsure of the exact causes and triggers of diabetes, both genetic and environmental factors are believed to be at fault. Some studies have suggested that several of these factors are at work during pregnancy.
Cod liver oil is an excellent source of vitamin D, which affects the immune system in several important ways and may be tied to the development diseases such as type 1 diabetes. In one study, children who took vitamin D supplements during the first year of life had a reduced risk of developing type 1 diabetes, and some animal studies have shown vitamin D has a protective effect as well.
To explore the association between cod liver oil, vitamin D, pregnancy, and type 1 diabetes, the researchers invited the families of children diagnosed with type 1 diabetes to answer a questionnaire, and 85 responded. They also sent the survey to families with children of the same age, selected at random from the general population. All the families lived in Norway.