Compare fish oil capsules by price and quality to determine which are the best fish oil supplements

So you’ve read enough and researched enough about the benefits of fish oil and the omega 3 essential fatty acids that are found in it and it’s time to choose some fish oil supplements to buy. But there’s so many omega 3 supplements on the market. How do you choose between them to decide which are the best fish oil supplements?

It’s not an easy question to answer unless you spend quite some time learning about the benefits of fish oil, the different types of essential fatty acids and the way in which omega 3 fats work to benefit your health. And even once you’ve decided which are the best fish oil supplements you need to decide whether they offer good value for money.

You see it’s a little more complex than just adding fish oil to your diet. The actual essential fatty acids which are the important omega 3 fatty acids found in fish oil are DHA (Docosahexaenoic acid) and EPA (Eicosapentaenoic acid). Of these 2 it is now considered that DHA is the most important.

Not all fish oil is DHA or EPA, these are just the important ingredients. In fact you will find that your average fish oil capsule has 18 percent EPA and 12 percent DHA. That means that in a 1000 milligram capsule you are getting 180 milligrams of EPA and 120 milligrams of DHA. You should be able to read these details from the label which should specify the percentages of DHA and EPA in the fish oil capsule together with the weight of each capsule, which is commonly 1000 milligrams.

Some fish oil supplements do not specify the amount of DHA or EPA contain you should avoid these because you have no idea how much of these essential fatty acids that you are buying.

In effect you are just buying the DHA and EPA contained in the capsule. The rest is just filler or carrier. It is the DHA and EPA that is of benefit to your health.

Whilst this 18/12 ratio is very common amongst omega 3 supplements the best fish oil supplements contain way more active ingredients. The very best fish oil supplements contain 280 milligrams of DHA which is roughly 2 1/2 times as much DHA as your average capsules. This means that if you are taking four capsules a day of your average capsules you can take two of the best fish oil capsules and still be getting more DHA than you were before.

The next thing to consider is the cleanliness of the fish oil in the capsules. It is now commonly recognized that fish are contaminated with a range of toxins including mercury, PCBs, pesticides and heavy metals. Although the amounts of these are small the FDA still recommends that we limit our intake of fish due to the presence of these toxins.

If you are to improve your health outcomes with omega-3 supplementation it is important to take your supplements daily. Even at very low levels of contamination taking daily doses of contaminated fish oil can add up over time and be dangerous to your health. You have to be confident that the fish oil capsules that you are taking are entirely free of contamination and safe to take daily.

The first thing to find out about your fish oil capsules is the fish that they are sourced from. There are companies that catch fish and there are companies that make fish oil capsules but the 2 rarely come together. What usually happens is that the fish oil capsule manufacturer buys their fish oil from a fish oil wholesaler and the source of the fish is pretty much unknown. Many of the fish used for fish oil come from the north Atlantic which is one of the most polluted oceans in the world.

The cleanest fish are found in the oceans furthest away from where people live. This is the southern ocean between Australia and New Zealand and Antarctica. Fish caught there have extremely low levels of contamination, and mostly undetectable levels of contamination.

The company that makes the best fish oil supplements sources its fish from this ocean. It contracts individual fishermen to catch fish for them and requires them to put the fish on ice immediately that they are caught. They are brought to shore straight away and processed immediately for their fish oil. This is the single most effective way of ensuring that they have a clean, fresh and uncontaminated supply of fish from which to extract the oil.

The freshness of the fish is very important. Because many companies that manufacture omega 3 supplements buy fish oil from fish wholesalers the oil may be a little too old by the time it reaches them. Like anything else fish oil can go off and does so because of oxidization. Fish oil that has gone off is rancid fish oil. You will know if fish oil is rancid because you’ll often get that fishy burp after taking your supplements. This is an indication that the fish oil in the supplements is rancid.

Some manufacturers use a masking fragrance to overcome the smell of rancid fish oil. As you can see the freshness of the fish used is crucial.

Even though they use the freshest cleanest fish the company that makes the best fish oil supplements still puts their fish oil through a double process of decontamination. In this way they can be absolutely certain that there are no contaminants at all and to confirm this they have every single batch of fish oil used in their supplements tested by 2 independent laboratories and they publish the results of these tests on their website. You can go to their website and view the Certificate Of Analysis produced by the testing laboratory and see the figures for yourself.

See if you can find a copy of a Certificate Of Analysis for your average fish oil capsules.

In our view the fish oil supplements made by Xtend Life are the best fish oil supplements that money can buy. They contain 28 percent DHA, have no contaminants at all and are made from the freshest fish sourced from the southern ocean between Antarctica and New Zealand. You can view their Certificate Of Analysis on their website.

But even though they may be the best fish oil supplements this doesn’t mean they represent the best value. Any comparison of Omega 3 capsules must also make a comparison on price and value and accordingly we publish for you below a table comparing fish oil capsules by price in the best way possible, by comparing the price per gram of DHA. And ultimately that is what you’re buying when you buy fish oil capsules.

You can see that the table compares 11 well-known brands of omega 3 supplements by price on a cost per gram of DHA basis. The capsules produced by Xtend Life are the cheapest doing a direct price comparison. You cannot compare the price of capsules directly because some capsules have less DHA than the best ones.

Here’s the table.

Brand Name	% DHA Per Capsule	Total DHA/Bottle	Cost/Bottle ($US)	Cost/Gram DHA
Xtend-Life Omega 3/DHA Fish Oil	28%	17,400	$16.85	.97 cents
Nature Made Omega 3 Max strength	14%	14,400	$19.99	$1.38
Omega 3 PGFO	20%	18,000	$23.75	$1.32
Ultramarine Omega 3	10%	9,000	$12.95	$1.44
Coromega	23%	20,700	$39.95	$1.92
ProOmega (Nordic Naturals)	23%	13,500	$26.95	$2.00
Dr Sears Omega RX	20%	12,000	$26.95	$2.25
Salmon Oil Plus	16%	14,400	$33.50	$2.33
Dr Weils Omega 3 complex	17%	10,020	$34.99	$3.50
Living Fuel Omega 3 & E	8%	9,600	$34.97	$3.64
Iceland Health Max strength Omega 3	20%	6,000	$49.95	$8.32

(Please note that the data for the basis of the comparison comes from the respective websites as shown in August 2009.) Read the rest of this entry

Written by - Healthy Omega 3 Fish Oils

(And make sure you read our page explaining why you need Omega 3 Fish Oil supplements, and find out how to choose the Best Fish Oil Supplements).

There’s lots of Omega 3 Fish Oil supplements around, but which are the best?

So you know you ought to be taking Omega 3 supplements for your health, but you’re wondering how to choose between all those fish oil capsules on the market to find the best ones.

So how do you find the best Omega 3 fish oil capsules, or are they all the same?

No they aren’t all the same. There’s quite a number of things you ought to think about. They boil down to 4 main areas. The amount of DHA that you get in your capsules, and the purity of the oil used in the capsules as well as the freshness of the fish oil and the anti inflammatory properties of the particular fish oil capsules.

We know there are some fish oil supplements that seem ridiculously cheap when you look at them, and if you ignore all other factors then they are cheap. But you can’t ignore all the other factors.

1. The amount of DHA in the fish oil supplements.

DHA is the main Omega 3 fatty acid that is of primary benefit to your health. It’s not the only one, EPA is also important, but DHA is the most important. So the first thing you need to do to compare fish oil capsules is to look at the amount of DHA, and to a lesser extent EPA, in the capsules that you are looking at.

Because if one brand of capsules are half the price of another but have half the DHA (and EPA) of the other then they aren’t any cheaper because you’ve got to take twice as many to get the same amount of Omega 3 fats.

Now you’ll find some Omega 3 capsules on the market that don’t tell you how much DHA or EPA are in them. Avoid these, it isn’t hard to put this on the label and if they don’t put it on the label you have to assume they’ve left it off for a reason. There isn’t a lot in there.

Many fish oil capsules are 18/12. This means that 1000 mg (1 gram) of fish oil contains 18% EPA and 12%DHA. This means that, if the capsules are 1000 mg capsules you’re getting 180 mg of EPA and 120 mg of DHA in every capsule.

Not all fish oil supplements are 18/12 though. The best fish oil supplements actually contain 280 mg of DHA, over double the amount of your average 18/12 capsules.

But this information alone isn’t sufficient to make a choice. There’s more.

2. The purity of the fish oil used in the capsules.

If you’ve read any of our site already you’ll know that fish generally is contaminated with various chemicals that are not good for us like mercury and PCBs. For that reason various US government departments warn against eating too much fish, particularly too much of certain top of the food chain fish.

Fish oil capsules obviously contain fish oil, from fish. So why aren’t the contaminants in the fish oil? They are, unless it’s decontaminated particularly rigorously. So you need to know a lot more about the purity of the fish oil used in the capsules, to be confident that the capsules you’re taking don’t contain any contaminants.

There’s a number of different decontamination processes, and a range of different standards that manufacturers can adhere to, (or not adhere to if they choose, none are mandatory), and there’s also varying levels of contamination in fish depending on where the fish come from.

The best fish oil supplements use oil from fish from the Southern Ocean south of Australia and New Zealand. The fish here are way less contaminated than those from the North Sea or the Atlantic where many are sourced, those seas being right between 2 major population centers, North America and Europe. Plenty of pollution from land, and from oil rigs.

The best fish oil capsules are molecularly distilled to remove any contaminants that may be there and they adhere to, and exceed, standards way in excess of the harshest of International standards. Basically they are contamination free.

The standards these fish oil capsules are tested to are totally rigorous. For example the best fish oil capsules are tested to a standard for mercury contamination 10 TIMES LOWER than international standards.

3. The freshness of the fish oil used in the capsules.

Fish oil can go rancid, often the reason why you get that “fishy” taste when you burp after taking capsules. Rancid, or oxidized fish oil contains free radicals and free radicals are bad for your health. You don’t want to be unknowingly adding to the levels of free radicals in your body.

The freshness of fish oil can be measured, but it gets quite complicated. If you want to know more about fish oil freshness and you don’t mind reading the technical stuff read this page.

Some companies even put masking fragrances in their capsules to mask the odor of fish oil that may be, ahem, a little less fresh than it could be.

4. The anti inflammatory properties of the fish oil capsules.

Inflammation is one of the major problems in our bodies, and one of the major reasons why Omega 3 fish oils are so good for us is that they are very high in anti inflammatory properties. But the best fish oil capsules are way higher in anti inflammatory properties than “average” fish oil capsules.

Tests show that the best rated fish oil capsules have anti inflammatory properties 2 1/2 times greater than average fish oil capsules. The reasons for this is the unique blend of fish oils from 2 different types of fish (hoki and tuna) that are combined to achieve an extremely high level of effectiveness. If you want to know more about the anti inflammatory properties of Omega 3 fish oil read this page.

So what are the best fish oil capsules?

To us it’s quite clear. The best fish oil capsules are those from Xtend Life, a New Zealand company. Here’s why.

• They have over twice as much DHA as regular 18/12 capsules.
• They use the freshest fish it’s possible to use in the production of fish oil, and the oxidation levels of each batch of oils are tested to extremely exacting standards.
• They source their fish from the cleanest ocean in the world, they process it to maintain maximum freshness and they molecularly distill it to make sure that it meets contmination standards way higher than other international standards.
• Tests show that the anti inflammatory properties of the Xtend Life Omega 3 fish oil capsules are around 2 1/2 times greater than “average” fish oil capsules. Read the rest of this entry

Written by - Healthy Omega 3 Fish Oils

(And make sure you read our page explaining why you need Omega 3 Fish Oil supplements, and find out how to choose the Best Fish Oil Supplements).