The potential benefits of seal oil

[truth seeker]

In reading the recent ice cream thread, I started to wonder if if there wasn't some way to make ice cream with mainly lard (I was trying to think of ways to increase the fats in our diet). In looking that up, I found that such a thing does exist. It's called

agutuk/akutaq

or Alaskan ice cream.

The fact that it contains seal oil made me wonder if perhaps they aren't on to something as a good deal of their diet consists of fat so I started to do a bit of research on that and found this:

Lower prevalence of impaired glucose tolerance and diabetes associated with daily seal oil or salmon consumption among Alaska Natives.
Adler AI, Boyko EJ, Schraer CD, Murphy NJ.
Source

Department of Epidemiology, University of Washington, Seattle.
Abstract
OBJECTIVE:

To examine the association of seal oil and salmon consumption with impaired glucose tolerance (IGT) and non-insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus (NIDDM) among Alaska Natives.
RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS:

Screening was performed on 666 Yup'ik Eskimos and Athabaskan Indians > or = 40 years old in 15 villages. Self-administered questionnaires were used to obtain partial food frequency data. A case was defined as IGT or NIDDM, either newly discovered or known. Newly discovered cases (11 patients with NIDDM and 17 with IGT) were determined by random blood glucose testing followed by a 2-h 75-g oral glucose tolerance test (OGTT) for those with values > or = 6.72 mmol/l or for subjects with unconfirmed histories of glucose intolerance. Known cases included 26 patients with NIDDM and 1 with IGT. Control subjects had random blood glucoses < 6.72 or normal OGTT results.
RESULTS:

Compared with less-than-daily consumption, both daily seal oil (odds ratio [OR] 0.2, 95% confidence interval [CI] 0.1-0.8) and daily salmon consumption (OR 0.5, CI 0.2-1.1) were associated with a lower prevalence of glucose intolerance, controlling for age, ethnicity, body mass index, and sex. The effects were similar when limited to newly discovered cases: OR 0.3, CI 0.1-1.3 for seal oil and OR 0.4, CI 0.1-1.3 for salmon. Consumption of seal oil at least five times per week was required to reduce risk.
CONCLUSIONS:

Consumption of seal oil and salmon, high in omega-3 fatty acids, appears to lower the risk of glucose intolerance and is a potentially modifiable risk factor for NIDDM in Alaska Natives.

also this:

Duodenal administered seal oil for patients with subjective food hypersensitivity: an explorative open pilot study.
Gregersen K, Lind RA, Valeur J, Bjørkkjær T, Berstad A, Lied GA.
Source

Institute of Medicine, University of Bergen, Bergen, Norway;
Abstract

Short-term duodenal administration of n-3 polyunsaturated fatty acid (PUFA)-rich seal oil may improve gastrointestinal complaints in patients with subjective food hypersensitivity, as well as joint pain in patients with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). The aim of the present explorative pilot study was to investigate whether 10-day open treatment with seal oil, 10 mL self-administrated via a nasoduodenal tube 3 times daily, could also benefit nongastrointestinal complaints and quality of life (QoL) in patients with subjective food hypersensitivity. Twenty-six patients with subjective food hypersensitivity, of whom 25 had irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), were included in the present study. Before and after treatment and 1 month posttreatment, patients filled in the Ulcer Esophagitis Subjective Symptoms Scale (UESS) and the Gastrointestinal Symptom Rating Scale (GSRS) for gastrointestinal symptoms and subjective health complaints (SHC) inventory for nongastrointestinal symptoms in addition to short form of the Nepean dyspepsia index (SF-NDI) for evaluation of QoL. Compared with baseline, gastrointestinal, as well as nongastrointestinal, complaints and QoL improved significantly, both at end of treatment and 1 month posttreatment. The consistent improvements following seal oil administration warrant further placebo-controlled trials for confirmation of effect.

and this:

The effect of seal oil on paclitaxel induced cytotoxicity and apoptosis in breast carcinoma MCF-7 and MDA-MB-231 cell lines.
Wang Z, Butt K, Wang L, Liu H.
Source

School of Pharmacy, Memorial, University of Newfoundland, St. John's, Newfoundland, A1B 3V6, Canada.
Abstract

Some studies have suggested that omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) have an inhibitory effect on the growth of cancer cells and therefore have the potential to increase the efficacy of cancer chemotherapeutic drugs. Considering that omega-3 PUFAs are present abundantly in harp seal oil, we investigated the effect of seal oil on the cytotoxicity and apoptosis induced by paclitaxel in 2 breast cancer cell lines, MCF-7 and MDA-MB-231, respectively. Cytotoxicity evaluated by 3-(4,5-dimethylthiazol-2-yl)-2,5-diphenyltetrazolium bromide (MTT) assay revealed that the concentration of paclitaxel that is required for 50% inhibition of cell growth in the presence of seal oil was significantly lower than that of paclitaxel alone. Apoptosis assessment based on morphological changes and DNA fragmentation results indicated that more cells treated with paclitaxel in combination with seal oil underwent apoptosis than with paclitaxel alone. Western blot analysis showed that the expression of B cell lymphoma-2 (Bcl-2) protein, an apoptosis inhibitory protein, in both cell lines was decreased more significant by paclitaxel in combination with seal oil than by paclitaxel alone. In addition, seal oil alone was found to induce apoptosis in both cell lines tested, which appeared to be due to the increased intracellular lipid peroxides produced. It is therefore concluded that paclitaxel in combination with seal oil demonstrated enhanced cytotoxicity and apoptosis in MCF-7 and MDA-MB-231 cells compared to paclitaxel alone, and the use of seal oil may be beneficial in the treatment of breast cancer.

There would have to be quite a bit of research done to find out if this was accurate, but does this make sense to anyone? Also, it seems that seal oil is illegal in the states but is available in other places.

Shark oil has also been mentioned - I'm currently looking into that. Some of these oils are said to have been tainted so I'm not sure if commercial brands may be completely safe. It's also possible that the untainted ones may be helpful in cases of topical use as well. Fwiw.