Exposing The Dirty Little Secret About Refined Fish Oil

You are probably thinking why should I pay good money for refined fish oil? This is a question I asked myself a while back. After all doesn''t dietary fish such as salmon, mackerel, tuna, sardines, and herring contain a large amount of omega 3 rich fish oil? Once delving into the subject it becomes crystal clear that while natural foods are a good source of omega 3 fatty acids they can contain high levels of heavy metals such as mercury. So the challenge lies in eating enough fish to get the benefits of fish oil but not consuming so much that we poison ourselves with mercury or other toxins. So, the natural choice is supplementation with refined fish oil.

Sometimes when reading or investigating a subject you just want to scream. Why can''t it just be simple? After all, for goodness sake you are just trying to find a safe and effective fish oil supplement for achieving better health. The stress alone of reading about refined fish oil and trying to ferret out the benefi ts are enough to put your stress level into the stratosphere. Well since you are already frustrated let me go ahead and put you over the top with some more psychobabble about the differences in fish oils currently on the market.

*The first type is the triglyceride form. This form is collected when a squeezing process is used, extracting the natural oil. The problem here is you get the good and the bad. Yes, you get the benefits of fish oil rich omega 3 oils but with it come contaminants such as PCBs, dioxins, and heavy metals such as mercury. Most would agree that this option may not necessary produce the results we are searching for.

*Behind door number two is the ester form. Ethyl ester oil occurs when natural triglyceride oil is taken and concentrated using a molecular distilling process to eliminate the impurities. The ester form is technically in a natural state because of the way the digestive system absorbs it.

*Our third candidate is synthetic t riglyceride oil. This is another form of fish oil commonly seen on the shelves of your local superstore and touted as natural. This form occurs when natural triglycerides are converted to ethyl esters and then reconverted back to triglycerides producing synthetic triglyceride oil. Certainly it is easy to see how such as conversion might change the overall structure of the oil thus making it foreign and ultimately reducing its benefits.

The bottom line is that over processing of refined fish oil, especially when it changes the molecular structure of the product may not allow the body to easily absorb the omega 3 oils, thus reducing the benefits of the fish oil. So the bottom line is the more natural the molecular structure the greater the chances are of receiving the optimum number of benefits.

What Next? Your next step is to search for the most natural refined fish oil harvested from v irtually unpolluted waters. This is no easy task but there seems to be one product which combines the benefits of fish oil from the New Zealand hoki fish with that of tuna oil. In a recent University study it was determined that this combination doubled its anti-inflammatory properties. Most would agree that this is a development just might be a topic worth reading more about.