What is Pharmaceutical Grade Fish Oil?
The doctor’s reply: “Well it’s the only type I will use for myself, my patients and my fish oil customers but it depends on who you talk to. Critics of fish oil slammed the term as pure marketing hype. Ironically, if the oil is treated to the processing needed to make it as pure as possible, it removes most of the PCB’s, meets all FDA standards, has no detectable levels of lead or mercury and is consistently close to what is claimed on the label much like a drug. In short, if the FDA makes fish oil a drug, which is now much closer to reality as it is with all supplements, a real Pharmaceutical Grade fish oil would pass muster.”
What do you think of alternative sources of EPA and DHA like krill?
Dr. Dave states, “I still use only fish oil supplements. There are over 10,000 independent (not manufacturer sponsored) studies on fish oil dating back decades and more come out every day practically. Krill lost credibility with me when some of the manufactures claimed it was “better than fish oil”. They were told to stop those ads, which they soon did because that is a very broad sweeping statement with no proof. Krill has only been studied by manufacturer studies to my knowledge. It is part of a sensitive ecosystem just like fish. And just like fish it is subject to extensive farming and pollutants as well, in this case OPC’s (organochlorine pesticides).
I haven’t seen anyone testing krill. Just saying it’s clean doesn’t cut it with me. I do think the perfect solution to keeping our fish stocks well fed with Omega 3’s in their food chain is to use the krill added to standard fish meal to feed the farmed fish. That would solve a lot of sustainability issues but krill is rather expensive for the amounts of Omega 3 you get. And fish can convert other fatty acids to Omega 3 in a fashion human beings can’t so the sustainability issues can be solved with a little work and conscientious behavior. By the way, no human population ever lived on krill so there will never be any population based studies!”
Finally, he added, “For the first time in history a supplement has been so robust and scientifically grounded that even traditional medical doctors are using it extensively. I think the future is very bright for fish oil and it remains the gold standard of Omega 3’s for scientific studies and human supplementation for the foreseeable future.