E.P.O. as an anti-inflammatory agent #2 of 25 blog post series

Sorry for the painful humor, it is just my odd sense of humor that comes out every once in a while.  Consider yourself warned.  O.k. really now, onto the summation of why it is important for you to take a supplement known as E.P.O. or Evening Primrose Oil.  

We all know we need healthy fats in our diet, right?  Well, EPO is a very important one that you are not going to find readily available in foods, expect for some nuts and a few grains.  That being said, in order to get the amounts you need to do what it needs to do, I highly recommend you consider looking at a quality supplement of EPO.

Why this fat?  Because of it’s ability to reduce inflammation.  It also can help with aiding precursors to glutathione, a very important anti-oxidant which is often low in people who have CF.  

Each tip that I write about will likely be connected to decreasing inflammation.  That is our biggest goal, as the body works it’s best when it is not having to deal with the effects of inflammation.  Don’t get me wrong, sometimes you want an inflammatory response, to fight off infection for example, but as you may (or may not) know, with CF the inflammatory cycle keeps on repeating into a viscous cycle making it difficult to get rid of the thick and sticky mucus that is accumulating as the bodies way to capture an infection. So inflammation backfires in this disease, and the  body gets  backed up with the mucus thereby trapping the very infection it is trying to get rid of.  

Please, grammarians, if you will overlook the fact that I just ended that last sentence in a preposition. Probably a bad run on sentence too. I know. I know.  Anyhow,  moving right along.  Grammar was never my strong point.

Adding in evening primrose oil can be done via gel capsules or in a liquid form.  I was not aware of this supplement being important for my son until he was old enough to swallow capsules, so I don’t have any suggestions on the liquid form, except that there are some.  You could wait to take this step until your child is old enough to swallow gel capsules, they go down easier anyhow.  Be sure to find out the size of the gel capsule you are buying before purchasing to ensure it is small enough if giving this to a child.

As always, I must remind you that I am not a doctor and I don’t play one on t.v. nor on my blog.  These are just methods that I have used with my son that gave us awesome results.  Please read on for the scientific article regarding use of this supplement in CF: