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
