Friday, September 11, 2009

Fish Oil Purity. The Number 1 Concern Of Omega 3 Supplements

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 fish oil goes into fish oil capsules, so there's risks of contamination of our capsules. Some have, in the past, been withdrawn for issues of Omega 3 purity, or lack thereof.

So an organization was set up called the International Fish Oil Standards (IFOS). This sets out maximum levels of contaminants in fish oil like arsenic, lead, cadmium, mercury, PCBs and dioxine.

This sounds wonderful, except all of this is voluntary and companies that make Omega 3 supplements don't need to comply, and can sell fish oil capsules that don't comply.

Now there's more, there's actually at least 4 sets of different standards for fish oil purity and none are binding.

It's so confusing that one company has decided to just set up it's own standards and it's done so, way stricter than those from the International Fish Oil Standards.

And it's standards are stricter than all 4 of the current International standards. On mercury, or example, it's standard is 10 times lower (ie 10 times stricter) than that of the International Fish Oil Standards.

Arsenic and lead are the same, 10 times lower than that set by the International Fish Oil Standards.

But of course setting standards and meeting them are 2 different things. If you set extremely strict standards, but no one knows if you meet them or not, then what's the point?

This company recognizes this problem, and for this reason gets every batch of fish oil tested by 2 different independent labs. Then just to prove that they comply with their own extremely strict standards they publish the Certificate of Analysis that they get when the testing is done. They publish it on their website so all can see it. The Certificate of Analysis currently shows NO levels of any toxins.

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.

Find out on my website where to source fish oil supplements with no detectable levels of contamination.

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