- Do you have a nagging concern your diet does not contain enough omega 3s?
- These essential fatty acids are thought to have a whole range of health benefits
- You don’t have to pay a fortune to get them, the capsules can cost as little as £13
Diana Pilkington for the Daily Mail
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Not a fan of salmon or fish oil supplements? You may have a nagging concern that you’re not getting enough omega 3s.
These essential fatty acids, found in oily fish, are thought to have a range of health benefits, including preventing heart disease.
But what may surprise you is just how low in these crucial fats many of us actually are and what this means for health.
In an experiment for Wednesday’s episode of the BBC’s Trust Me, I’m A Doctor, a group of 60 otherwise healthy volunteers were given blood tests to determine their omega 3 index, a measure of how much of the fat in the blood cells is omega 3.
Not a fan of salmon or fish oil supplements? You may have a nagging concern that you’re not getting enough omega 3s
Anything under 4 per cent is thought to indicate high risk of cardiovascular disease and the majority of the volunteers — none of whom took supplements or were big eaters of fish — were around 4 per cent mark, with some as low as 3 per cent.
The good news is that it doesn’t take long to boost your levels – in a further experiment with Liverpool John Moores University, the volunteers who ate oily fish twice a week or took a daily omega 3 supplement, saw their omega 3 index leap up to 7-8 per cent (the threshold for low risk) in just eight weeks.
But it’s better to have oily fish such as mackerel and salmon instead of supplements as you get the benefit of other nutrients contained within the fish, the programme suggests.
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If you do wish to pop a pill however, there is a wide range of supplements available but what’s the best and are more expensive pills better?
The exact recommendations vary depending on whose advice you follow, but we are meant to have a combined daily intake of somewhere between 200 and 450mg of two key fats called EPA and DHA (which are two types of omega 3).
The programme researchers found that you don’t need to spend a fortune to get an adequate amount.
You could spend as little as £13 in a year on supplements – or as much as £300.
But one thing to be aware of is that the oil in the capsules may not be as fresh as you think: one brand tested was found to have gone rancid despite being 11 months within its use-by date. Another was on the verge of spoiling.
The oil in the capsules may not be as fresh as you think: one brand tested was found to have gone rancid despite being 11 months within its use-by date
Not only can this deplete the benefits, there’s evidence that rancid oils may be bad for our health – a New Zealand study recently found that feeding rancid fish oil to pregnant rats harmed their pups’ development.
Unfortunately, it’s hard to tell if the oil in a capsule has turned bad.
But by choosing a product with the longest possible shelf life and with an accreditation badge (which shows it has been tested or monitored by an independent body) — and by picking a smaller bottle — you can maximise the chances of it staying fresh before you’ve finished it.
Exposure to air, heat and light and can cause the product to spoil, so store them in a cool dry place. Or better still, learn to love salmon.
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