Which is Better For Your Health, Omega 3 Supplements, Fish, or Flaxseeds?

You want to get the benefits of cold water fatty fish because you know it can improve the health of your brain, your heart, your immune system, your joints, etc., but you wonder if fish oil supplements could be better for your health, your pocket or your taste buds. Here are some answers.

When Fish is No Alternative to Omega 3 Supplements

There are many areas of the world where these high omega 3 fish are almost impossible to buy, or so is expensive that the only fish you can get is low in omega 3. Here, the benefit of fish oil supplements is obvious, you have no alternative.

Another case where fish oil supplements are irreplaceable is when you hate the taste of fish, like in my case. I love different types of seafood, with the exception of fish.

Some individuals believe that they can get the benefits of omega 3 by eating fried fish. I am sorry to tell you that this may not be the case. When you fry a fish generally several crucial mistakes are made.

• Normally vegetable oils are used at high temperatures. Vegetable oils at high temperatures become oxidized . These oxidized omega 6 oils attack our cells in different ways producing inflammation, damaging our circulatory system, making us fat, disrupting our omega 6 to omega 3 balance, and many other 21st. century disorders. If you ever fry something, which is always bad for your health, make sure to minimize the damage by using butter ( saturated fats, do not oxidize as easily), or coconut oil.

• Whatever fish you use to fry, even the highest omega 3 fish, when you cook it at high temperatures the omega 3 is destroyed, it oxidizes. Its famous health qualities disappear. Forget it. You don’t have any more active omega 3.

Mercury in Fish and in Omega 3 Supplements

When fish eat algae, plankton and smaller fish they absorb mercury. This mercury comes from the millions of tons of daily coal burning in electricity generation, all over the world.

What is wrong with mercury? It is a very toxic element. Even small doses can kill us. Methyl mercury is a neurotoxin that may adversely affect the development of the brain and nervous system in children. Cooking does not remove any appreciable amounts of the toxin. The further up you travel in the food chain, the higher the concentrations will be. Therefore, large predators (tuna, shark) will have higher levels than small predators.

Furthermore, there is compelling evidence of significant links between high mercury levels and Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease, congestive heart failure, kidney damage, hearing loss, and high blood pressure. You don’t want to get much of this stuff in your system. It accumulates.

You may not get sick from eating fish from time to time. But if you are seriously thinking of getting the benefits of omega 3, you better believe me, all fish is contaminated with mercury. For example, just one 1000-mg capsule of fish oil (my minimum dosage recommendation is 3 grams perday) provides about the same amount of valuable marine fatty acids as 4 ounces of salmon. That is a lot of daily salmon if you want to get the minimum amount of omega 3, even if you love it.

Omega 3 Supplements - Other Sources of Mercury Contamination

• Mercury in amalgam has been called safe for the last 100 years. Nevertheless, the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine published an editorial calling mercury fillings the chief source of mercury exposure to the US population. Mercury leaks out of your fillings causing Multiple Sclerosis (MS) and Central Nervous System Disorders.

• Mercury in vaccines may cause autism. By the age of two, American children have received 237 micrograms of mercury through vaccines alone, which far exceeds current EPA "safe" levels of 1 mcg/kg per day. That's one-tenth of a microgram, not one microgram. This means that children are getting many times the amount of mercury that the EPA deems safe from the shots that are prescribed by the government.

Here are , some of the organs damaged by mercury poisoning:

• Brain and nerve cells.
• Eyes
• Immune system
• Gastrointestinal system
• Muscle control
• The speech center.
• Alzheimer's Disease.

Can You Get The Benefit Of Omega 3 Supplements?

Besides, normal people only get about 5% rate of conversion from ALA to EPA and DHA. In other words, even if you make the conversion from ALA it may be difficult to get proper dosage of EPA and DHA to get most of the benefits of omega 3. On top of all that, studies link flaxseeds to increase rates of prostate cancer.

You can find more information on the health benefits of flaxseed oil here.

Omega 3 Supplements

Most of the omega 3 fish oil you find today on the general market is produced by a process called molecular distillation. The consumer information written on these supplements indicate that they are safe to take.

For example, ConsumerLab.com found no detectable levels of mercury (less than 1.5 parts per billion) in more than 40 fish oil products analyzed. Consumer Reports also recently tested several popular brands and found that none contained significant levels of mercury, dioxins or PCBs. All that confirms the benefit of fish oil supplements. For more information you can visit http://www.consumerlab.com/results/omega3.asphttp://www.consumerlab.com/results/omega3.asp

This good news about the benefit of omega 3 supplements is important for those taking high therapeutic doses to treat neurological disorders, such as bipolar disorder, schizophrenia and depression. For more information on this matter go to to Omega 3 for Depression. Distillation processes used by most manufacturers to remove contaminants may also explain the lack of heavy metals and other toxins.

One way to assess the benefits of fish oil supplements, product purity and label accuracy of any supplement, is to contact the company directly and request documentation of product verification by a third-party laboratory.

There are different fish oil supplements on the market. They have various concentrations of EPA and DHA. The cheapest ones usually have 180 mgrs of EPA and 120 mgrs of DHA, for every 1.000 mgrs of fish oil capsule. The more concentrated, and more expensive ones, have about twice those amounts per capsule.

Now, some web sites would like you to believe that their fish oil is the only one you should take, the purest of all and that you should avoid all others, in order to charge you enormous amounts of money for their wonderful product. I tend to mistrust that information.

I am sure you have heard of Flax seeds as a healthy food. Learn more about its dark side at Flax seed side effects and benefits.

Many heart attacks and strokes occur because of hardening and narrowing of the arteries due to the build-up of plaque and fatty deposits within them. You may want to check this information.

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