PajMon Information Blog

Posts Tagged ‘fish oil’

It’s confusing isn’t it. DHA, EPA and more. How do you choose your Omega 3 supplements?

And it gets worse when you start reading all about converting ALA to DHA, then about long chain and short chain fats and so on.

I recently had one of my readers ask me about choosing his Omega 3 capsules. He had read all about long and short chain fats and the differences and had just got overwhelmed about how to go about choosing the best Omega 3 supplements.

It’s understandable how he got confused and so I’ll talk a little about it and then tell you how to go about choosing your Omega 3 fish oil supplements.

Of the three main Omega 3 fats (DHA, EPA and ALA) the most important by far is DHA. It makes up a major part of your brain.

You get ALA from plant sources like flax seeds, and your DHA comes from sources like deep sea fish. And DHA is a long chain fatty acid, whilst ALA is a short chain fatty acid. But the most important is DHA.

But DHA, the most important Omega 3 fatty acid along with EPA, is what you need from your Omega 3 supplements. And all Omega 3 fish oil capsules contain DHA.

Every brand of fish oil capsules has DHA.

So if you’re better using fish oil supplements are they all the same? If not how do you choose between the different fish oil supplements?

There are two factors in choosing the best fish oil supplements. You need to consider the quantity of DHA you get in each capsule and you need to look at the purity of the fish oil. That’s all.

You can’t decide which are the best value fish oil tablets without knowing how much DHA you get from them.

For example if you consider supplements with a third of the DHA, but at a half the price, of others you’re not getting good value.

And you also need to consider the purity of the supplements because many fish oil capsules can contain oils contaminated with small amounts of mercury, for example, because many of our deep sea fish are contaminated, and that’s where the oil comes from.

That’s the 2 things you need to consider when choosing your Omega3 capsules.

But actually doing that comparison isn’t as easy as you’d think and you may struggle. I have run the sums and one brand comes up as the best fish oil supplement on both DHA quantity and also on oil purity.

I tell you which brand on my website.

Do you realize there have been thousands of studies that have shown omega 3 fish oil to be natures most effective and potent anti-inflammatory available today?

And did you also know omega 3 fatty acids have been found to be just as effective (if not more so) and certainly a lot safer and less expensive than the three best selling prescription drugs.

For some reason however, Americans spend nearly $30 billion dollars on the top three classes of drugs; antidepressants, high blood pressure drugs and anti-inflammatory arthritis and headache pain relievers as compared to only $300 million on fish oil supplements.

Of course, it goes without saying that these prescriptions drugs are highly controversial as well as they are dangerous. Actually, they are only effective on a small percentage of prescribers and when they are effective it is only at masking the symptoms not curing the disease.

Let’s face it, all drugs, no matter how attractive they’re made out to be in hundreds of TV commercials, are very dangerous and should be avoided whenever possible and taken only after more natural alternative treatments are explored.

When you get right down to it, almost all bad health is caused by poor lifestyle choices. Lousy diet, smoking, alcohol abuse, lack of exercise and excess weight gain. It has nothing to do with a deficiency of drugs.

Do you realize there are safer, more natural ways of dealing with and even preventing depression, high blood pressure and inflammatory pain without resorting to prescription drugs? One of the best and safest alternatives is to eat fatty fish such as salmon, sardines, herring or tuna at least two or three times a week and take a good quality daily fish oil supplement.

Let’s take a look at the evidence.

Depressed people have significantly lower total omega 3 levels (Journal of Affective Disorders, Vol. 26, No. 38, 35-46), while omega 3 supplements showed significant benefits in just three weeks of treatment (American Journal of Psychiatry, Vol. 159:477-479). In other studies, omega 3 fatty acids were found to be an effective treatment for bipolar disorder (Archives of General Psychiatry, Vol. 56 No. 5) and borderline personality disorder patients (American Journal of Psychiatry, Vol. 160:167-169).

And fish oil is so highly effective at lowering blood pressure the American Heart Association (AHA) and the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) recommend everyone eat cold water, fatty fish at least a couple of times a week.

The AHA and NIH that people with symptoms of heart disease such as high blood pressure take daily fish oil supplements that contain at least one gram of combined omega 3 DHA and EPA fatty acids also recommend it.

Omega 3 fish oil has also been found to be the safest and most effective of the natural cures that help alleviate the pain from headaches as well as inflammatory arthritis when compared to over the counter NSAIDs such as Advil, Motrin, Nuprin and Aleve and other anti-inflammatories (Arthritis and Rheumatism, Vol. 38: 1107-14.)

In fact, in many of the scientific studies reviewed, patients were able to greatly reduce and even totally eliminate prescribed pain medications after starting an omega 3 fish oil treatment program.

If you are concerned about fish oil toxicity you can rest assured. The Harvard University School of Public Health recently confirmed fish oil benefits far surpass any threat of mercury or other toxins in fish by as much as 500 to one. (Journal of the American Medical Association 2006, Vol. 296: 1885-99)

Besides, there are high quality omega 3 fish oil supplements on the market that are fully guaranteed to be absolutely pure and totally free of all toxicity (www.omega-3.us).

So before starting or continuing on a program of drugs for depression, high blood pressure or inflammatory pain relief, consider eating fish two or three times a week and taking daily omega 3 fish oil supplements. Wouldn’t be great if you got equal or better results, avoided side effects and saved a lot of money by taking fish oil rather than drugs? Sounds pretty good to me!