Read this article before you buy fish oil supplements

There’s no doubt about the health benefits of fish oil, or more specifically the Omega 3 fatty acids DHA and EPA that are found in fish oil. But does that mean you should immediately head to the drugstore to buy a bottle of Omega3 supplements? Or if not what do you need to know about fish oil capsules before you buy your supplements?

Firstly to the health benefits. It is quite clear that there are a substantial range of health benefits from increasing your intake of Omega 3 essential fatty acids. These health benefits include reducing the risk of coronary heart disease. As coronary heart disease can lead to death from heart attack this is a significant health benefit. But it is only one benefit of many. To find out more about specific health conditions benefited from increasing your intake of Omega3 fats by way of dietary supplements, browse our categories of health benefit on the right.

Increasing your dietary intake of essential fatty acids may reduce your risks of a whole range of health problems, regardless of your age.

For this reason sales of fish oil tablets are increasing faster than any other dietary supplement in history. Research has shown that virtually everyone in the US is deficient in the Omega3 essential fatty acids, and that therefore virtually everyone can attract substantial health benefits from dietary supplementation with the best fish oil supplements.

But back to our original question. Should you therefore head down to the drugstore looking for fish oil tablets? Not before you understand some simple facts that will help you choose the best Omega3 supplements available.

Here’s what you need to know before you buy fish oil supplements:

1. You cannot compare fish oil supplements by price.

Unfortunately finding quality fish oil tablets is about more than just price. That’s because there is a wide variety in the amount of active ingredients found in different brands of Omega3 supplements.

The 2 most important fatty acids found in fish oil are DHA (Docosahexaenoic Acid) and EPA (Eicosapentaenoic Acid). Of these DHA is the more important. It is crucially important to know how much DHA, and EPA, that you’re getting in every 1000 mg capsule.

If one brand of Omega 3 supplements is 20 percent cheaper than another, but has 50 percent less DHA then it is actually more expensive. Without doing a direct comparison of the total amounts of the active ingredients in each brand of supplements it is impossible to compare prices.

The best fish oil supplements are actually quite cheap doing this comparison, (see below).

2. The purity of the oil used in the supplements.

It’s possible to buy fish oil supplements quite cheaply. But disregarding for the moment the amount of active ingredients in the capsules it is also very important to know whether or not the supplements are free of contamination.

It is now well known that fish can be contaminated with such toxins such as PCBs, mercury and dioxane. For this reason the FDA recommends that we be careful with how much fish we consume.

It is crucial that the product that you choose uses fish sourced from the cleanest parts of the sea. Much fish used in Omega 3 products is sourced close to land and close to sources of pollution.

And it is also essential to know how the oil is decontaminated and it is important that the company manufacturing the products provides consumers with an up-to-date Certificate of Analysis on the website to demonstrate the cleanliness of their supplements.

3. The freshness of oil used in the supplements.

Just like other things oil from fish can go off. This is known as “rancid”. If the oil has been left too long before processing and has gone rancid this produces free radicals which are not good to your health.

Rancid oil can also lead to something experienced by many consumers of Omega 3 fatty acids supplements, namely “fishy burps”. This is an indication that the products contain rancid oil.

In summary

There you have 3 things that you must research before you buy Omega 3 supplements. The best fish oil supplements are actually quite competitive in price if you do a price comparison taking into account the amount of DHA and EPA in the different brands of products.

Here’s a table giving you a price comparison by amount of active ingredient. You’ll see that the Omega3 dietary supplements from Xtend Life are actually cheaper than others when a comparison is done taking into account the volume of DHA.

(Not only that but the Omega 3 supplements from Xtend Life also come out on top for freshness and purity, and you can examine the results of their Certificate of Analysis on their website.)

There’s no doubt about the health benefits of DHA and EPA, and that taking the best Omega 3 dietary supplements containing DHA and EPA are one of the best things you can do for your health, even if you are quite healthy now. Taking more essential fatty acids may reduce your risk of death from coronary heart disease and heart attack, and reduce your risk of stroke, amongst others. You need more essential fatty acids in your diet no matter what your age. Read the rest of this entry

Not all 1000 mg fish oil capsules are the same.

If you’ve read our website then you’ll know about many of the health benefits of fish oil. The Omega 3 essential fatty acids DHA (Docosahexaenoic Acid) and EPA (Eicosapentaenoic Acid) are found in greater abundance in fish oil than any other naturally occurring substance.

The health benefits of increasing your intake of these 2 most important essential fatty acids are numerous, including various improvements to heart health and a reduction in coronary heart disease including a reduction in the risk of death from heart attack and stroke.

The omega-3 essential fatty acids found in fish oil have been shown to improve your health in a wide variety of ways. Browse our categories on the right to find out more about how you can reduce the risk of various specific health problems.

But today we wanted to look at specific details of the 1000 milligram capsules that are the traditional way of taking Omega 3 essential fatty acid dietary supplements. How do you choose between them?

Most fish oil softgels are available in a 1000 milligrams capsule size. Not all are, but most. And for this reason many people seek to compare the value of the different fish oil supplements available merely by comparing the price, on the assumption that what they are buying is the same for every 1000 mg capsule.

In fact nothing could be further from the truth, and if you’re looking to buy some Omega 3 fish oil 1000 softgels it is not adequate to compare them purely on price. So here’s what you look for when making comparison of 1000 milligrams fish oil capsules.

1. The amount of DHA and EPA in the softgels.

As mentioned the 2 most important of the essential fatty acids known as Omega 3 fatty acids are DHA and EPA. There are others, however those two are the most important of all. DHA is the most important.

If you examine the label on anybottle of Omega 3 supplements you’ll see how much DHA you are getting in each 1000 milligrams softgel of fish oil. Some brands of Omega 3 supplements, usually the cheapest brands, have less than 10 percent (or 100 mg) of DHA. Others, usually more expensive brands, offer up to 30 percent (or 300 mg) of DHA .

As it is primarily the DHA, along with EPA, that offers the health benefits is important to remember that you’re not buying 1000 milligrams of fish oil. You’re buying the amount of DHA, and EPA, found in those 1000 milligrams softgels.

So if one brand of supplements is twice the price of another, but contains 3 times as much DHA, it is actually cheaper to buy. If you were to buy the cheapest brand without understanding that single fact then you’re not getting the best value.

Below we’ve included a table that does a direct cost comparison between many different, and well-known, brands of Omega-3 fatty acid supplements. This table breaks the costs of the 1000 mg capsule down into cents per gram of DHA.

(Note – the table is in $US and was correct at the time of publishing, but these things vary all the time with exchange rates and so on. But you can see the trend.)

You’ll notice if you examine the table that some of the more expensive brands of fish oil supplements are actually some of the cheapest in terms of cost for the amount of DHA you are getting. The Omega3 supplements from Xtend Life, which we consider to be the best both in quality and value, actually come out much cheaper when you do a cost comparison on this basis.

Here’s the table:

2. The quality of the fish oil.

It’s very important to consider the quality of the fish oil. 1000 milligrams of rancid fish oil is of no value to your health whatsoever, and can actually be harmful.

Oil from saltwater fish can go off just like anything else. The technical term for fish oil which has gone off is “rancid”. Rancid oil creates free radicals which is not good for your health.

It is essential, when buying your Omega3 supplements, that you find the supplements with the cleanest freshest oil. Many supplement manufacturers merely purchase their oils from a wholesaler. They have no control over where the oil comes from, how it is caught, how it is extracted and how old it is.

If you take Omega 3 capsules and have “fishy burps”, or have the fishy taste repeat on you, it is usually an indication of oil which has gone rancid. And for this reason some manufacturers will even use an enteric coating on the capsules to lessen the chances that the capsules will be digested in the stomach, because that is the place where the rancid oil turns into fishy burps. (They get digested in the intestine, and you can’t get the fishy burps from there, hence the reason they use the enteric coating).

The company that makes what we consider to be the best quality, and best value Omega 3 supplements has total control over the process of catching the fish right through to extracting the oil and processing it into capsules. That way it knows exactly what fish is being used, how old it is, and it controls the extraction process. That way it can guarantee, (and it does) that its fish oil supplements are of the highest possible quality.

Those are the 2 most important factors when considering buying your Omega3 supplements. 1000 milligrams of fish oil is of no use to your health if the oil is rancid, and 1000 milligrams of fish oil containing only a few percent of DHA is usually very poor value. Read the rest of this entry

Should you be looking to locate the best fish oil supplements by price?

Lets say right at the outset, price is NOT the measure of the best fish oil supplements, and we are not advocates of buying your fish oil pills on price alone. Like everything, cheapest is not always best.

However that doesn’t mean that the price of your Omega 3 capsules doesn’t matter when it comes to buying your supplements. Not everyone can spend up big on buying supplements, especially if you have a family, and also considering that taking your Omega 3 capsules is for life.

Price still plays a big part.

If you’d like to find out how to compare fish oil supplements by quality read our article about finding the best fish oil supplements.

The most important things when looking to find the best high quality fish oil capsules are the amount of DHA in your fish oil pills, and the cleanliness, or lack of contaminants in your fish oils.

The amount of DHA in various brands of capsules varies considerably, as you will see below, so whilst most capsules will be 1000 mg of fish oil, that doesn’t mean that  you are getting 1000 mg of DHA. And it’s the DHA (along with EPA) that you want in your diet.

So to find out what is the best omega 3 fish oil supplements by price the first thing you need to do is to find out how much DHA is in there. Because that’s what you’re paying for.

You can only compare price when you know what you’re buying.

As you’ll know from reading this website, we very strongly believe that the Omega 3 supplements from Xtend Life are the best brand of fish oil capsules on the market. They have an extremely potent mix of Omega 3 fatty acids, they show better anti inflammatory properties, and they have more than twice as much DHA in them as most other brands.

But lets do a price comparison between these capsules and some other well known brands.

Here’s a price comparison. It’s not just comparing the price of one capsule against anther, it’s comparing the price of the DHA that you’re getting from your capsules. Because as we say, it’s the DHA that you’re buying, the rest doesn’t matter that much, it’s just what the DHA comes in.

It’s a value for money comparison, rather than just a price comparison. Note that the prices for the sake of comparison are in $US, these do, of course, vary with exchange rates from time to time so won’t be exact, but will be sufficient for the purposes of the comparison.

There you have your value comparison based on price per gram of DHA.

Not only are the Xtend Life Omega 3 capsules the best omega 3 supplements generally, they also come out, on a value comparison, to be the best value. In other words the cheapest comparing what you’re buying, and it’s DHA that you’re buying.

And they come out as the best fish oil supplements on all the other considerations as well. You can see why we recommend those supplements above all others. Read the rest of this entry