If you're looking for the best fish oil supplement have you considered krill oil? True, it's not strictly fish oil in that it's derived from a shrimp-like organism, but it's the best source of omega-3 fatty acids and it's getting more and more media attention, and for very good reasons.
Fish oil and krill oil supplements contain the same amount of EPA (eicosapentanoic acid) and DHA (docosahexanoic acid), which are very important types of omega-3 essential fatty acids, but krill oil has several advantages over fish oil.
Let's consider a few reasons why krill oil can be considered the best fish oil supplement:
Many people have decided to avoid fish and fish oil because of fear of contamination from heavy metals. One of the main advantages of krill oil over even the best fish oil supplement is the lack of toxic contamination with heavy metals that may affect fish oil. This is due to the very low toxicity levels of the Antarctic Ocean where it's harvested from.
Krill oil is made from Euphausia superba (a shrimp-like creature), which is one of the most abundant organisms. Antarctic krill is the largest biomass on earth.
In spite of this, the harvesting of krill from the sea is strictly monitored and controlled by the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR) and only 1% of the allowable limit is actually harvested making it a very sustainable resource.
The World Wildlife Fund (WWF) recently proclaimed krill as the world's largest under-exploited fishery.
In fish oil, the omega-3 fatty acids are bound to triglycerides - another type of fat in the blood - which can be responsible for some health problems; in krill oil they're bound to a double chain phospholipid structure (the same as in our cell membranes) so they're much better absorbed as they enter the mitochondria and the cellular nucleus more easily.
If you take in omega-3 fatty acids as fish oil, your body must first break down the triglycerides that contain them and then re-synthesize them into phospholipids, a process that requires both enzymes and energy. The need for these two processes makes fish oil much more difficult to be incorporated into cell membranes.
The great advantage of krill oil is that it contains the omega-3 fatty acids already incorporated into phospholipids.
Choline is found in krill phospholipids as part of the phosphatidylcholine molecule, which is not found in fish triglycerides.
Choline has critical functions as a precursor to the neurotransmitter acetylcholine, which protects attention, focus, memory and even muscle function.
Attached to the EPA leg of the phospholipid is a molecule of astaxanthin, a carotenoid and an extremely potent anti-oxidant.
Dr. Paris Kidd, well-known advisor and writer on nutritional supplements, has written that in direct ORAC comparisons - or Oxygen Radical Absorbance Capacity, which is a method of measuring antioxidant capacities to block free radicals - milligram for milligram, the value of krill oil was found to be some 48 times that of fish oil and 34 times that of co-enzyme Q-10.
This helps explain the exceptional stability of this oil against oxygen, heat and light. And this powerful effect is bound to continue within the cell membranes of the body.
Astaxanthin is what gives salmon its red colour. Because krill feed primarily on phytoplankton, which are the actual manufacturers of astaxanthin, they contain a much higher amount of this anti-oxidant.
Krill oil contains other anti-oxidants such as vitamin E, vitamin A, vitamin D, selenium and canthaxanthin, another potent anti-oxidant.
This is why krill oil is a powerful weapon against free radicals that can cause much damage to the cells and organs of the body.
Another advantage of this antioxidant protection is that krill oil doesn't spoil quickly like fish oil does (You must keep even your best fish oil supplement in the fridge, but there's no way of knowing how long it's been hanging around on the supplier's shelf!).
There's no need to keep krill oil in the fridge as it has a very long shelf life!
A common complaint with even the best fish oil supplement is regurgitation and fishy after taste. This doesn't happen with krill oil supplements.
So if you're after the best fish oil supplement, krill oil seems to be the sensible choice:
You can purchase just one supplement and yet have the full benefits of three of the most health-protective supplements available - omega-3 fatty acids, anti-oxidants and phosphatidylcholine.
The idea of using krill oil rather than fish oil is fairly new and for this reason there are only a few recorded clinical trials of krill oil itself (although results of new studies come in daily), while the very wide ranging benefits of omega-3 fatty acids, phospholipids and carotenoids have been established over and over again and thousands of studies have been carried out that show their effectiveness.
To know more about specific studies comparing fish oil to krill oil go to Part 2 - Krill Oil Benefits or click Next.
Antarctic Krill Oil from Nutrigold is the one I use and am extremely happy with it. They always have incredible offers on, so this is your opportunity to try it for yourself. |
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