Which is Better Fish Oil Supplements, Fish, or Flaxseeds?

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, could fish oil supplements be better or worse than the natural thing?. That is the dilemma many consumers have after reading confusing information in many Internet sites. You don’t have to go anywhere else to get a clear response.

You want to get the benefits of cold water fatty fish because you know it can bring better health to 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. Here are some answers.

When Fish is No Alternative to Fish Oil Supplements.

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

Other case where fish oil supplements are irreplaceable is when you hate its taste, like in my case. I love different crustaceous and marine animals but don’t enjoy fish, with the exception of deep fried fish.

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

• Normally vegetable oils are used at high temperatures. Vegetable oils at high temperatures become Trans Fats . These trans fats and omega 6 oils attack our cells in different ways producing inflammation, damaging our circulatory system, making us fat, rising our insulin, disrupting our omega 6/ omega 3 balance, and many other 21st. century disorders. If you ever fry something, which is always bad for your health, make sure to cause the least damage using butter( saturated fat, do not breaks down as Trans fats, as easily), or coconut oil.
• Whatever fish you use to fry, even the highest omega 3 fish, when you put it at high temperatures the omega 3 is destroyed. Its famous health qualities are no good anymore. Forget it. You don’t have any more active omega 3, it becomes again Trans fats. Those terrible things.

Mercury in Fish and in Fish Oil 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 electric generation, all over the world.

What is wrong with Mercury?. It is a very toxic element. Even small doses can kill us. Methylmercury 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 associations 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 the 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 minimun dosage recommentation is 3 grams/day) provides about the same amount of valuable marine fatty acids as 4 ounces of salmon. That is a lot of salmon,if you want to cover the minimun omega 3, even if you love it.

Other Sources of Mercury Contamination

• Mercury in amalgam is 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 amalgam dental fillings, commonly referred to as 'Silver' dental fillings, contain between 48 to 55 % mercury. Mercury leaks out of your fillings causing Multiple Sclerosis (MS) and Central Nervous System Disorders. Gum chewing greatly increases the exposure to mercury. It was found that heavy gum chewers had twice the amount of mercury in their blood and three times the level in their urine and breath exhalation than did infrequent chewers.
• Mercury in vaccines may cause autism. By age 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 mandated by the government.

Here, some of the damages of mercury poisoning:

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

Well, yes and not...... Let me explain. Flaxseeds has Alpha Linolenic Acid, ALA, which is a precursor of EPA and DHA, the ultimate acids our body use. In order to do that, the body employs enzymes that convert ALA to EPA and DHA. Some people lack these enzymes and do not make the conversion.

Besides, even normal people only get about 10% 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.

Fish Oil Supplements.

Most of the omega 3 fish oil you find today in the general market is produced by a process called molecular distillation. The consumer information written on theses 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.asp

These good news of the benefit of fish oil supplements are 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 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 in the market. They have various concentrations of EPA and DHA . The cheapest 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, have about twice those amounts per capsule.

Now, some Internet sites would like you to believe that their fish oil is the only, 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.

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.