The Best Fish Oil Supplements - The Top 3 Things to Look Out For When You Buy Them

As is the case with anything you want to buy, selecting the best fish oil supplements is a matter of obtaining reliable advice on what to look out for. In this article, what I will do is give you the top 3 selection criteria that I used, when I was doing my research about fish oil.

Let's start.

Purity

Purity is measured by the amount of contaminants that the fish oil contains. The less the contaminants, the purer it is.

Contaminants are heavy metals, PCBs (types of man made chemicals) and dioxins that exist in ocean waters and are quite harmful for your health. So, it is very important to investigate where the fish that the oil was extracted was fished from.

As of today, molecular distillation is the most effective process to purify fish oil. In this process, contaminants are separated from the oil based on weight.

What you can do to determine whether the fish oil that you buy is pure, is to see how it measures up against the three recognized international standards which currently exist and set minimum acceptable quantities for the best known pollutants. These are the "Council for Responsible Nutrition (CRN)", the "European Pharmacopoeia" and the "Norwegian Medicinal Standard". There is a fourth one called "International Fish Oil Standards (IFOS)", but it is not widely recognized.

Look for the relevant information in your supplier's Certificate of Analysis (COA) which should accompany the product.

Freshness

The second most important criterion for the best fish oil supplements is how fresh it is. Apart from the nasty "fishy" taste and smell, fish oil which is not fresh is harmful to your health, because it is loaded with free radicals.

A quick test that you can perform yourself is to cut open the gel and smell it. If it is fresh, you should get a light "ocean" odor with no distinct fragrances to mask it.

Another indication of non-freshness is that "repeating" sensation or "burbing" which, as the folks who suffer from it agree with me, is so exasperating!

You can also consult the COA and specifically look at a figure called Total Oxidation (TOTOX) value. This should not be higher than the corresponding figure set by the international standards.

Composition

As you probably know, there are three types of omega 3 acids: DHA, EPA and ALA. From a chemical perspective, what distinguishes them is the number of carbon bonds they have. DHA has the most (22), while ALA has the least (18). EPA has 20.

An additional difference is that DHA and EPA are found in fatty fish, while ALA is found in plants.

Now, ALA is considered to be inferior to the other two, because our body cannot assimilate it directly, requiring it to be converted to DHA or EPA first. Because of its chemical makeup, however (has fewer carbons), this conversion doesn't always happen smoothly.

Between the other two, DHA and EPA, DHA is the best. It can readily be converted to EPA if our organism requires it and it is very crucial for our brain functions.

Therefore, the type of fatty acids that it contains and their ratios are those that set the best fish oil supplements ahead from the rest. In order to be high quality, they should contain more DHA than EPA or ALA.

So, my advice is, in the documentation of the fish oil you intend to buy, always look for what the producer tells you about its composition in terms of proportions of fatty acids.

Visit my website to see which omega 3 fish oil I personally recommend and what it can do for your health. Even though it is one of the best fish oil supplements around, you don't have to pay a fortune to have it, less than $20 a month.

The Truth About Molecularly Distilled Fish Oil

Supplements & Vitamins

Supplements & Vitamins