Concentrated Fish Oil - How To Avoid Being Duped Into Buying Harmful Products

Unfortunately, there are lots of unethical supplement companies out there which are willing to dupe consumers into buying their products for a quick profit. Here are 5 key points you must consider before deciding which concentrated fish oil supplement to buy.

1. Check the certificate of analysis. Make sure the company you buy from has a public COA done by an independent laboratory, attesting to the product's purity and potency. The COA should prove that the product actually contains the nutritional values the manufacturer claims in the ingredients list and that the product has no harmful contaminants present at all. Companies which do not provide this information to you may have something to hide.

2. DHA content. When it comes to fish oil, DHA is much more important than EPA. Most supplements on the market today are deceiving consumers. They have a higher content of EPA. The simple reason for this is that EPA is a much cheaper ingredient. This is done purely for economic reasons. The best products on the market have more DHA than EPA and provide many benefits to our health, which inferior products can only promise, but not deliver.

3. Avoid oxidized products. Omega-3 fatty acids are very fragile. They must be packaged in an opaque container and not in see-through glass, thereby stopping all light from entering the bottle. The oil must be mixed with natural tocopherols (vitamin E) to protect it from going rancid. Many fish supplements on the shelves today are rancid. A simple test for this is that you should never have to burp up fish flavours when taking fish oil capsules after a meal.

4. The product should be molecularly distilled and concentrated. This removes the impurities and yields a much more potent product, which can in turn provide health benefits. Many of the available products actually provide no benefit whatsoever, and can actually be harmful, due to their contamination levels.

5. Fishing zones. Make sure that the fish used to make the supplement you choose are from a clean fishing zone with low industrial contamination.

Personally, I take a pure, concentrated fish oil made from Hoki fished in the southern ocean of New Zealand, which constitute some of the cleanest waters in the world. My entire family has been having great success with this regimen.