Diet, Nutrition and SupplementationPost here for supplement reviews or nutritional advice. If you're trying to get "ripped abz" THIS is where you should be.
Additional benefits of fish oil. If you're not taking this what are you waiting for?
Seems like a no brainer to take some every day, right?
Quote:
Originally Posted by NeilC
Why do they use grams of oil for recommended dosage when it varies reasonably widely in the two main active ingredients: EPA & DHA?
It is annoying, huh? I've noticed that most people who recommend it in grams per day (like 6 grams of fish oil per day) are meaning a fairly standard of fish oil. Costco's fish oil, for instance, has EPA or 180 and DHA of 120, in a 1 gram capsule. Most typical brands are dosed like this.
It's only the ultra cheap ones that have a similar dose in TWO caps, or higher end caps that are more EPA/DHA rich (like Flameout).
It's funny, when I was looking up fish oil caps, I saw that Costco now carries Iceland Health Maximum Strength (a "premium brand"). Only two of those caps is 300mg EPA and 200mg DHA. Only 220 (110 doses) in the bottle, for 3 times the price. So, these maximum strength caps are 6 times the cost AND you actually have to take more of them to get the amount of EPA/DHA that you're looking for. I'm sure their purity is tops though.
I just figure the cost per g of EPA/DHA combined. So far, 1 tsp of Carlson's gets me 800mg EPA & 500mg DHA at the best price per g. Flameout caps (from the t-nation folks) looks good but I haven't priced them out.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Lost Dog
I'll have to rethink my amounts. I've just been going on the 6g combined thing. Maybe I'll tone it down. Although, I don't eat much fish and have no immune system concerns at the moment, 2-4g combined is a less expensive window to stay within, too.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Lost Dog
I've noticed that most people who recommend it in grams per day (like 6 grams of fish oil per day) are meaning a fairly standard of fish oil. Costco's fish oil, for instance, has EPA or 180 and DHA of 120, in a 1 gram capsule. Most typical brands are dosed like this.
It's only the ultra cheap ones that have a similar dose in TWO caps, or higher end caps that are more EPA/DHA rich (like Flameout).
It's funny, when I was looking up fish oil caps, I saw that Costco now carries Iceland Health Maximum Strength (a "premium brand"). ..... So, these maximum strength caps are 6 times the cost AND you actually have to take more of them to get the amount of EPA/DHA that you're looking for. I'm sure their purity is tops though.
I am overwhelmed reading about fish oil here, and would love some simple direction...
1. Do folks here think the inexpensive fish oil COSTCO offers is high enough quality?
2. I bought this, but it was expensive, but probably great quality, from Vitacost.com HOW MUCH should I take per day??
Nordic Naturals Omega-3 purified fish oil: serving size 2 softgells; cal 18, fat 2gm
Omega-3
EPA 300mg
DHA 220mg
Other omega 3 140 mg
Total Omega-3s 60-mg .. percent daily value 38%
From what I've read here, I should add up the 300mg EPA + 220mg DHA + other Omega 3 140mg = 680mg in 2 soft gels. This would mean I need
2g = 6 softgels
4g = 12 softgels
6g = 18 softgels per day
This can't be right. HOW MUCH should I take per day??
Are 2 softgels per day adequate for health?
OK, I admit it. I am scared of fish oil. I am scared of a fishy taste. I am scared of them coming back up. They gross me out. I am dry heaving typing this.
Am I really missing out on something SOOOO great?
If I am, make me feel warm and fuzzy about fish oil, please.
OK, I admit it. I am scared of fish oil. I am scared of a fishy taste. I am scared of them coming back up. They gross me out. I am dry heaving typing this.
Am I really missing out on something SOOOO great?
If I am, make me feel warm and fuzzy about fish oil, please.
Too funny. Yes, you're missing out!
I know you're willing to pay a little more for something you like the taste of, so check out Coromega. This is the fish oil I take. It has a nice taste, rather like an orange sherbet push-up (remember those?) except that the texture isn't icy but oily. I keep mine cold in the refrigerator. I buy mine at VitaCost.com, which has been the best price I've found, but it's available other places, too.
OK, Lisa.....you got me. That's the first I've heard of this and I am intrigued. And, you are right -- I'm willing to pay a bit more for taste! I sent away for a free sample and I already order things from Vitacost, so that's where I will go once I try it! Thanks for helping a fish-oil phobic recover.
the Carlson's liquid lemon flavor (also best price at vitacost) is pretty good - and no after effects.
I followed Lisa's advice. I don't know why. Just kidding Well I did and the stuff tastes really good, and, I feel very spoiled and am thinking I will get something that has a little raw edge to it next time.
If it tastes that good I'm probably paying too much don't ya think?
Just recently after using Lovasa, a very expensive prescription fishoil, 100% the two recommended ingredients, I decided to switch back to OTC stuff. So wife picked up some at WalMart, and lo and behold, unlike before it only specified that each capsule contained 300 mg of omega 3s. So had son pick up a couple things of Costco fish oil. It turned out to say the same thing. So I assume that both Walmart and Costco get their fish oil from the same place. Anyone have any idea what is going on?
I don't know what's going on, but CostCo's has always been 300 for the capsule (for their basic $8.99 big bottle of caps?). Sounds like an improvement for Walmart. A couple of years back, theirs had something like 450 for TWO 1200 and they called it extra potent or something. Something like "each serving contains 150% more than standard strength fish oil!" True? Semantics? Trickery.
I didn't save the bottle of what every I had from Costco a few months ago, but it listed the DHA, EPA, and yes it was for 2 capsules. I carefully calculated what it was take to equal the Lovasa. I need to record that sort of stuff. Costco does change what they sell from time to time. Not only fishoil, but the "eye" antioxident, PeptidAC generic, likely others. Henceforth I will record this in diabetes notebook. Anyway I have gone from 4 capsules a day to 12 - gad. I think it is likely about 3 grams of DHA/EPA
Costco has 3-4 different fish oils. The bottle that you're talking about, an "extra strength" one like Walmart's, plus an enteric coated one. Then, there's a name brand one that's 5 times the cost of the worst CostCo bottle.
$70 for a 3 month supply of Lovaza, but maybe $70 a month. It is a good product, about 100% DHA/EPA, and because my last doc wanted it for triglyceride lowering he wanted me to take 4 capsules a day. The OTC stuff seems to be about 30% DHA/EPA which means I needed to take a dozen. Last time I calculated priceit was not too far off - you are right about that. That doctor Rx'd all sorts of extra high priced supplements, as well as one of the oral diabetic medications that clearly was not safe. I will discuss this again with my new doctor in January. Unfortunately Medco does not have a generic high content DHA/EPA fish oil available.
$70 for a 3 month supply of Lovaza, but maybe $70 a month. It is a good product, about 100% DHA/EPA, and because my last doc wanted it for triglyceride lowering he wanted me to take 4 capsules a day. The OTC stuff seems to be about 30% DHA/EPA which means I needed to take a dozen. Last time I calculated priceit was not too far off - you are right about that. That doctor Rx'd all sorts of extra high priced supplements, as well as one of the oral diabetic medications that clearly was not safe. I will discuss this again with my new doctor in January. Unfortunately Medco does not have a generic high content DHA/EPA fish oil available.
It's been a little while since I talked to Lovaza rep but you might ask the dr if he has coupon. I can't remember if they had one or not.
Sorry about the high priced supps and stuff. It's terrible how expensive this all can be.
Just curious what was the diabetic med you didn't like?
if you price out cost/gm of fish oil and factor in "how many do I have to take" to make your gram goal, Carlson's Liquid from vitacost and the Flameout from Biotest (t-nation) come out pretty good values and not too much to swallow (at least for my gram goal) - but the EPA/DHA ratio might be different than what you are aiming for as they are very different between the products. Just another place to look. And you could mix'n'match to change the ratio I suppose if needed to meet targets.
Carlsons: 1 tsp = 800 mg EPA, 500 mg DHA for 1.3g total. 100 tsp per bottle at ~$23/bottle (+4.95 shipping)
Flameout: 4 caps = 2200 mg DHA, 800 mg EPA , 90 capsule bottle for $29.95 (and free shipping usually available)
Diana - Zetia was the drug. here is a quote NYT and Jenny's site. Actually I googled it when I got home from this former doctor, and after reading essentially what Jenny reported, threw the samples and the Rx away. Got new doctor.
Quote:
On January 14, 2008 the New York Times reported that the drug companies finally released their big study on Zetia/Vytorin. Here is what the report stated:
While Zetia lowers cholesterol by 15 to 20 percent in most patients, no trial has ever shown that it can reduce heart attacks and strokes — or even that it reduces the growth of the fatty plaques in arteries that can cause heart problems.
This trial was designed to show that Zetia could reduce the growth of those plaques.Instead, the plaques actually grew almost twice as fast in patients taking Zetia along with Zocor than in those taking Zocor alone.
In short, not only did the drug not prevent heart disease, it appears to make it worse!
So now we know why they tried to suppress the publication of the study and "redefine" the measured endpoint--which included the thickness of plaque.
Guess that made me hard core by just using straight up unadultered cod liver oil for 2 years straight ..
Now I take 2 omega-3 supps:
5 caps of Jarrow's concentrated fish oil (630mg EPA+DHA combined) x 5 plus
1 cap of neptune krill oil , where the omega3s are bound to phospholipids and have all kinds of neat effects on health.
currently I'm making the switch to 3 caps of fish oil + 3 caps of borage oil (GLA) because the borage oil supposedly helps against allergy flare-ups I've been having since upping carbs.
I'm interested in krill oil but share my supps with someone who is sensitive to shrimp. Have you heard anything about cross-over with shellfish or shrimp allergies and the krill oil?
Generally I'd not really recommend krill oil to anyone with a shrimp allergy. Technically speaking, krill is a kind of shrimp, albeit a very teeny tiny one. It would depend on how specific the allergy is, right?
E.g. I'm allergic to dairy but it's aspecific, so goat's milk bothers me too, but neither cow's or goat's milk bothers me enough to never have it.. so I indulge in moderation.
Is your friend's allergy so severe that she might get an attack just because you are eating shrimp etc. ?
If someone is slightly sensitive to shrimp, having e.g. GLA in addition would help to turn down some of the effects (GLA helps with diminishing allergy response).
I'm interested in krill oil but share my supps with someone who is sensitive to shrimp. Have you heard anything about cross-over with shellfish or shrimp allergies and the krill oil?
Lisa,
Like Espi said when I researched it (I'm allergic to fish so I can't take fish oil) my understanding is that it is like shrimp so I'd be really careful there.
Here is the current prices of Costco, Amazon, and Walmart
Costco - $8.99 for 400 softgels, 300 Omega 3s per capsule - 180, 120 EPA, DHA
Amazon $7.99 for 100 softgels, 360 Omega 3s per capsule - 216, 144 EPA, DHA
Lovasa - about $100 for 120 capsules, 840 O-3s per capsule - 465,375 EPA, DHA
Walmart - website does not list EPA/DHA, but similar to Costco or Amazon. Websight does not give any information, I think their price is about the same as Amazon.
I try to get about 3 grams of O-3s a day, and Costco is obviously the winner on price. The bottle does not give the EPA/DHA breakdown, but the web site does. 400 softgels is about a month's supply for me.
Last edited by RobLL : 12-28-2008 at 01:18 PM.
Reason: found Lovasa info in my med diary
Leigh suggested this for reducing stiffness from arthritis due to age:
> fish oil intake to 6-10 grams
So how many capsules is that?
Now I have Nature's Way Fisol enteric coated:
1 softgel 5 cal; total fat .5g;
fishoil 500mg
omega 3 250mg
EPA 150mg
DHA 100mg
Do I add all the oils and get 1 g, or is it 1/2g because it is .5g fat? that would mean I need to eat 12 to 20 of these softgels / day??? That seems too many pills.
The last bottle I had was:
Nordic Naturals Omega-3 Purified Fish Oil - 180 Softgels
TWO softgels: 18cal; total fat 2g
fishoil ????
omega 3 330mg
EPA 330mg
DHA 220mg
Total Omega-3s Volume 38% 690 mg
This just continues to be confusing to me... One serving is 1softgel and the other is 2softgel and still the product contents arent' the same, so it's hard to compare.
And I can't believe I'm supposed to take 12 to 20 of these..
Would someone simplify and explain (simply) to me what 6-10 gm of fish oil means?
And I just ordered NKO Neptune Krill Oil (60 Softgels) by Jarrow Formulas, thinking I would take one of these with the other fish oil each day.
2 Softgels (1,000 Milligrams)
Etana, most recommendations use the weight of the content of 1 capsule, but that's with 2 assumptions
1 the capsule's content being 1 gram , so if it's 0.5 gram you would need to double amounts
2 the capsule containing standard fish oil , which generally has 300mg of EPA+DHA combined per 1000 mg (1000mg = 1 gram)
Combine those 2 and you get the recommendation to get 6x300=1800 up to 10x300 = 3000mg EPA+DHA combined.
Your first brand:
Nature's Way Fisol : 500mg (0.5g) has 250mg EPA+DHA.
For the recommended dose, that's : 1800 to 3000 / 250 = 7.2 - 12 caps
Nordic Naturals Omega-3 Purified Fish Oil :
ONE softgel = 1000mg
ONE softgel = 165mg EPA+110mgDHA = 275mg combined (standard concentration)
So here : 1800 up to 3000/275 = 6.55 - 10.9 caps
The brand I'm currently using
Jarrow's EPA-DHA Balance : 1 cap = 1000mg (1g) with 420mg EPA + 210 mg DHA = 630mg /cap. This means I only need 1800-3000/630 = 2.9 - 4.8 caps to hit the required dose. One of the nicer aspects is that it is derived from the smallest fish (anchovy & sardines) which means there's less natural contamination.
As for the krill oil, you don't really take them to get in x or y grams of EPA/DHA since the costs would run up far too high. The 'magic' of krill oil is more that the 'delivery' agent of these fatty acids aren't like in normal fats that are triglycerides = 3 fatty acids + backbone of glycerol, but are phospholipids, the same as present in the bilayer of all cells of the human body = phospholipid + 2 fatty acids.
What I mean to say is that you only need to take 1 extra krill oil caps on top of your normal fish oil consumption and don't even try to hit your required EPA-DHA 'dose' for either health or fat loss.
What the exact reason is as to why phospholipid based EFAs are better is unclear to me. Thought the absorption would be better, but no. It must be the phospholipids themselves that exert some of the extra effect. At least this is my understanding from both research & communication with Neptune.
BTW, there's many more companies now that offer krill oil, so Neptune is no longer the only source of them (there's many brand but there's only few producers)
Etana, most recommendations use the weight of the content of 1 capsule, but that's with 2 assumptions
1 the capsule's content being 1 gram , so if it's 0.5 gram you would need to double amounts
2 the capsule containing standard fish oil , which generally has 300mg of EPA+DHA combined per 1000 mg (1000mg = 1 gram)
Combine those 2 and you get the recommendation to get 6x300=1800 up to 10x300 = 3000mg EPA+DHA combined.
So this 3000mg does not mean 3grams of fish oil?
It means 3 grams of EPA+DHA
Espi, thanks for the detailed reply. It took me 10 minutes' reading again and again to understand...! I'd like to really understand this so I can buy brands/examine labels on my own...
So if I look at a bottle and it is 1000mg/softgel, and then I add the EPA + DHA. If they are 300 I take 1 capsule per recommended dose (6-10 recommended grams would be 6-10 capsules). But it there is less or more EPA+DHA, I add the EPA+DHA and then divide that into the "standard dose" ... hmmm... okay I think I understand.
The 1800=3000 confused me because what do they have to do with 6g-10g.... but that's where your 2 assumptions come in. They are the standard relationship betw EPA+DHA compared to the whole capsule
Leigh suggested this for reducing stiffness from arthritis due to age:
> fish oil intake to 6-10 grams
Is 6-10g a standard recommendation / day, or has Leigh increased my dose because of arthritis?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Espi
The brand I'm currently using
Jarrow's EPA-DHA Balance : 1 cap = 1000mg (1g) with 420mg EPA + 210 mg DHA = 630mg /cap. This means I only need 1800-3000/630 = 2.9 - 4.8 caps to hit the required dose. One of the nicer aspects is that it is derived from the smallest fish (anchovy & sardines) which means there's less natural contamination.
Great suggestion. 3-5 caps sounds much better than 6-12; thanks!
Quote:
Originally Posted by Espi
What I mean to say is that you only need to take 1 extra krill oil caps on top of your normal fish oil consumption...
Yes, I understand that.
thanks again for taking the time to detail the answer...
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