subject: Choosing a Fish Oil Omega 3 Supplement is Trickier Than You Think [print this page] Choosing a Fish Oil Omega 3 Supplement is Trickier Than You Think
Fish oil omega 3 has two specific essential fatty acids - DHA and EPA. There are six others that are found in various other sources. We will concentrate on DHA and EPA because that is where the health benefits are and where the marketing gurus do there best to confuse you.
First, there is no such thing as "super fish oil omega 3" for children, or the joints, or vision, or cardio or enhanced for the brain. Omega 3 is omega 3. Every title that I have seen is accurate in the sense that fish oil omega 3 is good for children, the joints, the eyes, the brain and the heart.
I have even seen some manufactures try to sell you different bottles of fish oil - one for the heart, one for the brain etc. None of this is needed. A single quality supplement will help in all those areas.
There are several good products on the market. In the end, you will have to decide which one is best for you, like I have personally done. You just need to make a good choice. A quality fish oil omega 3 product can literally be a life saver. A bad one can be so rancid or ineffective that you may might want to sue somebody. Years ago, when I first tried fish oil supplements, I wanted to sue myself - for stupidity.
It should have been clear that the more a product is promoted the less trustworthy it is. Something else to watch out for is disclosure - or lack of it. More products are now bragging about having an enteric coating. What they hope you do not know is that fish oil is absorbed in the stomach, not the small intestine. The only need for an enteric coating is to disguise the taste and smell.
More products are using a process called molecular distillation to remove toxins from the ocean. This is good. In fact, be very wary of any that do not do this. Still be careful though. This next ploy is very clever.
Marketing research shows that consumers are getting more sophisticated so some promoters use molecular distillation to remove things like mercury or arsenic. They then make claims about the contaminant free nature of their fish oil omega 3. The small print in their website will sometimes reveal information that they cut corners during extraction and processing. There may not be any mercury, but there could be crushed rock like talc or titanium dioxide (paint additive) or even hydrocarbon solvents like hexane instead.
