Fish Oil products

[Guest guest]

Yesterday I posted a product review regarding 2

specific fish oil brands that had recently come on the

market.

I was sent a friendly e-mail by one of our gang, also

a former fish oil researcher, named Tom Aciukewicz.

He requested that I re-post with some more

information, so here it is.

Tom seemed to be quite put-off at what appeared to him

to be primarily a sales pitch by me to go and purchase

these 2 products, rather than providing more general

advice.

I'm not going to go back and read my post from

yesterday, because I want to move forward.

However, if it did come off as mainly a sales pitch, I

apologize for this, as I don't want to be endorsing or

pushing these products. I had meant it to be my

personal experience with these products, sort of a

Product Review, as these products had been mentioned

in posts but I never read a post from someone who had

actually tried them. I want to clearly state that I

have absolutely no affiliation with either of these

companies, and they don't know me from Adam.

I agree with Tom 100%. If the message is " buy this

stuff " , rather than general information, it's not a

good message.

So here's some general information about fish oil,

some provided by Tom, with his vast knowledge of the

subject, and some tossed in by myself.

Tom pointed out that a fish oil's visual clarity and

taste may or may not give insight into the health

benefits of that particular oil. The perception of

rancidity (by taste) does not guarantee the oil is

free of peroxides (from the oil becoming oxidized),

which should be a consumer's main concern.

However, he also points out that short of analyzing

each bottle of fish oil with one of several

peroxidation tests, there's no way a consumer can know

if the oil contains peroxidation products.

Tom also points out that marine fish oils may have

high levels of pesticides and heavy metals. However,

the only way to find this out is to get a certificate

of analysis of the product, which he says that he has

never found a company that was willing to share this.

Tom would recommend that consumers choose a fish oil

based upon the following facts:

1. Look only for fish oil with added anti-oxidants,

like vitamin E. Otherwise, the oil is sure to become

rancid (both products I reviewed have vitamin E

added).

2. Look for a product with a dark colored gelatin

capsule, since light promotes oxidation. He notes that

then you would have to puncture the capsule and place

the oil in something to get a visual check of clarity.

My opinion is that this is too much trouble. I prefer

inspecting the oil for clarity simply and easily by

just looking through the gelatin capsule at the oil

inside.

3. He recommends calling a company that manufactures

fish oil and speaking with the quality control people,

and that if the company doesn't have knowledgeable

customer service representatives, look elsewhere.

4. Use fish oil that has been distilled.

This minimizes the rancid flavor products but also the

levels of pesticides, heavy metals and lipid

peroxides.

I couldn't agree more. By the way, the two products

that I reviewed are both molecularly distilled. At

least one of the products is distilled twice. I

didn't mention this because it was one o'clock in the

morning, and I wanted to keep the message shorter than

my usual Michener length posts.

5. Finally, Tom recommends that fish oil be stored in

the freezer to further retard oxidation. I think

that's probably a great idea. I've just put some fish

oil in my freezer on a trial basis.

I'll through in one further recommendation myself:

buy only pharmaceutical grade oils. Please realize

that supplements, botanicals, herbs, etc. are

unregulated. By staying with pharmaceutical grade

oil, you are moving way up on the quality scale.

By the way, in addition to the two products I

reviewed, which are the highest quality fish oils that

I have personally tried (molecularly distilled,

pharmaceutical grade, clear as can be, with a mild and

pleasant taste)--oops, I think I'm pushing products

again----Tom uses a fish oil product made by Jarrow.

As Tom would obviously be a very wise selector of a

fish oil product, I'm going to go out and purchase

Jarrow's fish oil product, and compare it to the other

2 products that I use. I would be quite surprised if

the Jarrow product was not every bit as good as the

products that were reviewed yesterday.

Also, I'm sure there must be other fish oil products

out there that have been distilled, are pharmaceutical

grade, are crystal clear, and taste very mild and

pleasant. Any such product should merit strong

consideration.

Perhaps we can exert some consumer pressure on these

companies to provide us with their annual certificate

of analysis, so we can be assured that the product

does not contain heavy metals, pesticides, and

peroxidation products.

Bessen

rjb112@...

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