Some of the fat you eat becomes part of your cell membranes, and plays an valuable role in the way those cells behave. Your body is essentially a collection of billions of tiny cells. And the health of your cells will imitate the health of your body.
Fish is a special food since it contains two long-chain omega-3 fatty acids — eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA). Fish don't actually produce EPA and DHA. Rather, they're synthesized by single-celled marine organisms that fish eat.
Fish Oil Supplements –Present Fish Dangers
Fish oil can be consumed by eating fish directly or by drinking fish oil which is often available in the form of supplements such as tablets, capsules, pills, soft gels, etc.
What are the benefits of fish oil supplements? Why not eat fish instead?
Ideally we ought to be taking the omega 3 we need from fish, like our ancestors had been doing for thousands of years. We could be eating a diet rich in fish, as many nutritionists still propose. There are several problems with this thought.
Normally our ancestors had their fish uncooked and from clean uncontaminated waters; today we cook at high temperatures, oxidising the delicate omega 3 fats ( making them useless) and all oceans are tainted with so much pollutants that it is difficult to have a piece of mercury free fish. As you know mercury is highly toxic for humans.
You could ask, if all fish is polluted, are omega 3 supplements safe? Well, according to what consumerlab.Com has to say, yes. Today most fish oil supplements are produced by a process called molecular distillation that eliminates almost all pollutants.
They are safe enough to get the benefits of fish oil supplements. You could also ask, what about commercially produced fish, is it safe?. This fish also may have some degree of mercury pollution but the real drawback is that this fish has less omega 3 than wild fish because its feeding is loaded with omega 6. They use grains, producing a high omega 6 low omega 3 fish. You may be wasting your money if what you are looking for is omega 3.
In order to improve your health, you not only should boost your intake of omega 3 but should decrease also your omega 6, watching your diet and exercising at least 3-4 hours a week.
If you just take some omega 3 and don’t lessen your omega 6 consumption you may still have a very excessive omega 6/ omega 3 ratio. This way, you can get some of the benefits of fish oil supplements but miss some others. Your best bet is to lower to a minimum the grains and grain oils.
For more on this, please go to my main fish oils page..
