Wednesday 8 July 2009

Choosing Omega 3 Capsules? Confused?

By Peter Bertonich

With all the talk of EPA and DHA and ALA, how do you choose your Omega 3 capsules?

It just gets more and more confusing. After DHA and EPA comes long and short chain fatty acids, then ALA. And converting ALA to DHA.

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.

I can understand how he got confused, so here's a little more about it and some ideas on how to choose the best Omega 3 fish oil supplements.

The three Omega 3 fats weve mentioned (DHA, EPA and ALA) are polyunsaturated fats. They are all good for your body but by far the best and most important is DHA. Remember DHA is the fat that makes up a large part of your brain, though of course that isnt the only reason.

You find ALA in plant foods like flax seeds but you find DHA and EPA in sources like fish. ALA is the least important and whilst ALA is a short chain fatty acid DHA is a long chain fatty acid. It gets complicated here, so I'll stop with the chemistry.

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.

All fish oil supplements have 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?

Theres 2 things you need to look for to find the best rated Omega 3 fish oil capsules. You need to look for the quantity of DHA in the capsules, and the purity of the oil.

To decide which are the best value fish oil capsules you must consider how much DHA are in them, not just the price.

So if you look at supplements that are half the price of some others they may seem good value, but if you get a third of the DHA they aren't.

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 process of choosing your Omega 3 supplements. There's only 2 things to consider, so forget long and short chain fats and so on.

It isn't easy to do that comparison though. I have spent some time doing it and the good news is that there is a brand of Omega3 capsules that do offer good value on DHA quantity as well as the highest purity in the industry.

If you want to find out which brand visit my website.

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