If your mother used to force feed you spoonfuls of cod liver oil as a child you may hope that 100-year-old Violet Archer is right when she puts her longevity down to the stuff. That might make up for your memory of the taste.
Violet, from Epping Forest in England, turned 100 at the end of 2015. Twice married and widowed, she remains independent and still cooks and cleans for herself. Apart from hearing problems she is renowned for her health. According to her niece Irene Bachelor (herself 85), Violet she puts that down to the cod liver oil: “Seven Seas, she has taken them for years. She takes five a day just on its own and is a really healthy lady.”
But could it really be the cod liver oil?
Plausibility rating: 8 out of 10. It certainly could help – but not necessarily for the reasons people first started taking it. A generation of children grew up with the taste of cod liver oil in the mouths not because they thought they’d live longer but because it was believed to protect against a scourge of childhood for centuries – rickets. And it did, though no one knew why.
Then around a century ago, cod liver oil was found to contain two nutrients that helped promote healthy growth and bones. The two nutrients were named ‘vitamins’ (A and D as it happens), and folk wisdom was vindicated. Not only that but a generation of parents now had sound scientific reasons to force cod liver oil on their unwilling offspring.
However as society grew healthier and children better fed, the threat of rickets declined* and so too did the sales of cod liver oil. There were other, easier ways to get your vitamins A and D, without that oily, fishy taste.
But then scientists began to wonder why Inuits had such healthy hearts, even though they have a high fat diet. The discovery of the health properties of omega-3 fatty acids in fish brought attention back to cod liver oil.
As the evidence stacked up, the UK Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition concluded there was very strong evidence of the beneficial effects of fish oils on the heart. And more recently research suggests that benefit may translate into longer life. This study, for example, found that people who ate a lot of oily fish had a 35% less risk of dying of heart disease. Oh, and as an additional benefit it helps with arthritis.
The UK government now recommends that you have at least two portions of fish a week, of which one should be oily fish. If you don’t like fish or don’t cook that much, you can get your dose from cod liver oil.
The taste hasn’t improved much, though, which is why can you find video advice about how to take it without gagging. If that advice doesn’t work you can use capsules, which are more expensive but less unpleasant (though not entirely without side effects: you might experience the self-explanatory ‘fish burp’. Avoidance hint: take the capsules with meals).
All in all, while Violet’s longevity secret is no longer much of a secret: it really could help you live longer.
*Or at least it had been. Now rickets is making something of a come back, a situation blamed on children spending too much time indoors and so not getting their daily dose of vitamin D from its most natural source: sunshine.
101 ways to live to 100 