Saturday 5 September 2009

Finding Omega 3 Supplements With No Fish Oil Purity Issues

By Peter Bertonach

You really ought to be taking Omega 3 supplements for your health. The evidence for this is now totally clear. But before you start l want to look at fish oil purity.

What does purity have to do with taking Omega 3 supplements? Sadly, quite a lot. Most fish is contaminated with such toxins as mercury, PCBs and dioxine. In fact the FDA tell us not to eat too much fish for this reason.

And if manufacturers use fish oil for their supplements, as they do, then there's a risk of contamination of our capsules. Some have been withdrawn in the past for issues of Omega 3 purity, or lack of it.

And so the International Fish Oil Standards (IFOS) was set up to specify maximum levels of arsenic, lead, cadmium, mercury, PCBs and dioxine in fish oil.

This sounds great until you realize that this is all voluntary, no fish oil supplement manufacturers are required to comply with these standards, and they can sell supplements that don't comply.

There are now at least 4 different sets of standards for fish oil purity, none binding.

This confuses the issue. What standard does a manufacturer comply with, if any? One company that makes Omega 3 capsules has decided that it's all too hard, and the standards are too lax anyway, and set it's own standards.

It has set stricter standards than all 4 of the existing fish oil purity standards. An example is mercury. Their standard is 10 times lower, or in other words 10 times stricter, than those of the International Fish Oil Standards for mercury.

And it's the same for lead and arsenic, 10 times stricter than those of the International Fish Oil Standards.

But you can set all the standards you want, yet you have to meet them. And who knows anyway.

And this company sees the problem. To make it all independent and transparent they get 2 separate independent laboratories to test every single batch of fish oil they use, then publish the Certificate of Analysis that they get on their website so that you and I can see it. Their Certificate shows no detectable contamination at all.

So it's sad to say but it's true, there are contaminants in fish and so there can also be in your supplements. You really do need to consider issues of fish oil purity.

You need to do this to make sure your Omega 3 capsules are improving your health instead of damaging it.

I tell you on my website where to source fish oil capsules with no detectable levels of contamination.

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