An Ingredient Geek’s Guide to Buying Fish Oil

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4 Steps to Getting the Good Stuff​

Smart people take fish oil. Really smart people know the exact kind to buy and how much to take. Here's your guide.​

I bought my first supplements at age 16: some chalky protein powder and a "kit" of assorted mystery tablets. I'm not sure what that kit contained, but the guy on the package had big muscles. Research complete!

Thankfully, I later educated myself about supplements. I became a total ingredient geek. I've been a supplement consumer ever since and an employee of a supplement company for over 25 years.

I used to assume that everyone took a similar path: they hear about a supplement's benefits, they do some research to know exactly what ingredients to look for and how much to use, and then they carefully read labels and compare products.

Well, most people don't do that. Take fish oil for example. Millions of people hear about the health benefits (which are indeed awesome), and then they either grab a bottle of the cheapest stuff at the grocery store or order whatever is 20 bucks or less on Amazon. Predictably, many don't get any of the benefits.

The Geek's Guide​

Step 1: Purity​

First, I want a clean fish oil supplement. This was a problem in the past. When fish oil first hit the market, many were rancid and all stank to high heaven. The refining process sucked. Some cheapo products still have these issues.

High-quality fish oil supps use molecular distillation. They're rigorously tested for PCBs, dioxins, mercury, and other heavy metal contaminants. They're also self-emulsifying. This removes all or most of the aftertaste and "fish burps."

Step 2: DHA Content​

I want a fish oil with a lot more DHA than EPA. The latter is good stuff, no doubt, but the more we learn about fish oil, the more we realize that DHA is the powerhouse omega-3 fatty acid.

For example, DHA plays the biggest role in preventing or slowing Alzheimer's, boosting sexual health, preventing heart arrhythmias, lowering diastolic blood pressure, and increasing lifespan in general. DHA is the more powerful inflammation smasher.

Men especially need more DHA in their fish oil. Men have lower amounts of DHA despite eating the same amount of fatty acids as women. The natural biosynthesis of DHA is much higher in women than it is in men. (Woman privilege!)

DHA also has the biggest impact on glucose utilization and neurotransmission, meaning that if you take fish oil for its anxiety-squashing benefits, you want it to contain mostly DHA.

So, why do most fish oils contain more EPA than DHA? Because that's what fish naturally contain. A supplement company has to do some manufacturing ninjutsu to make their product higher in DHA, which takes more effort and makes the product cost more. But most supplement makers don't care. They know their average customer doesn't know a thing about DHA and just wants to feel good about taking fish oil.

Here's another dirty trick the cheap fish oil makers use: They don't tell you the ratio of EPA and DHA. Instead, they lump those numbers together on the label: it's often 500 mg or less. Since whole fish usually has about a 2:1 ratio, that means the actual EPA/DHA ratio is more like this:

• 333.33 mg of EPA
• 166.67 mg of DHA

That's a puny amount of DHA and part of the reason why those supplements are under $20.


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Step 3: The Amount Needed for Benefits​

Almost every good study on fish oil shows its numerous health benefits, but not all of them. If you dig deep into these studies, what you often find is that the researchers simply didn't use enough.

For example, in the studies looking into fish oil's effects on anxiety and depression, the effective doses are typically 2000 mg or more. Lower doses didn't do the trick. Another example: One study looked at fish oil's ability to combat heart attacks and strokes but only used 840 mg. a day of EPA/DHA. The scientists concluded that fish didn't help much with the stroke part. However, other studies show it does if you use 2,200 to 3,000 mg.

Knowing this, the supplement connoisseur (geek) looks for highly concentrated fish oil.

I looked up some of the best-selling brands on Amazon, products that sell up to 20,000 units per month. One such product only contained 1000 mg. If you follow the directions on the label, you won't be getting enough fish oil to reap any benefits.

Sure, you could take more, but now that bargain price isn't such a bargain, is it?

Step 4: The Bioavailability​

Pharmaceutical companies don't just think about the drug itself. They think about how to get that drug in you to do its job: its bioavailability and absorption efficiency. That's the best way to ensure consistent results.

Cheap fish oil makers gather up a bunch of fish, squeeze them dry, and encapsulate the oily fat. Okay, they probably do more than that, but they don't consider bioavailability.

High-absorption fish oil is made using self-emulsification, a process where the fish oil is formulated to naturally form a stable emulsion when it comes into contact with an aqueous phase, like the digestive fluids in the gastrointestinal tract. This process enhances the bioavailability and absorption.

If a fish oil product doesn't say it uses self-emulsification, then you're probably just getting juiced fish.