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Tuesday, February 24, 2009

Beware Of Omega 3 Supplements.

By Peter Sunartic

There's plenty of evidence that omega 3 dietary supplementation is good for us, but it has it's problems.

Omega 3 supplementation is one of the biggest businesses in the nutritional supplements industry. Omega 3 tablets are huge sellers, and for good reason. Omega 3 fatty acids are good for you.

Lets look at what omega 3 is and why you ought to take omega supplements, and also have a look at the downside as well.

There's plenty of health advice about fats. Reduce your intake of the bad fats and oils. But there isn't only bad fats, there's good fats too, and gradually science is finding the good fats. Rather than avoid fats the better advice is to reduce bad fats and increase good fats.

Bad fats are animal fats, for example. Saturated fats from meat or from animal products like eggs or milk.

But we also ought be aware that there are good fats, and omega 3 is the king of the good fats. Why so? Because omega 3 fats are high in something known as DHA.

You find omega 3 fats mainly in oily fish, and deep sea fish, though you can also find omega 3 in eggs. And the omega 3 from deep sea and oily fish contains Docosahexaenoic acid which is DHA for short. Sorry it's a bit long.

This fatty acid is one of the most essential fats in our bodies. It is the major fat in our brains, and is responsible for brain growth and development in infants and full brain function in adults.

So if we are deficient in DHA as adults this can lead to impairment of brain function and even brain deterioration leading possibly to Alzheimers disease or dementai with aging.

So if we can supplement our supplies of DHA using dietary supplements containing omega 3, or even specific omega 3 supplements, this has to be good.

And it's not just our brain. Evidence for omega 3 supplementation includes reduction in heart disease, improvement in arthritis, improvement in diabetes, reduction in athreroschlerosis and more.

So clearly there are solid reasons to supplement our diets with omega 3 capsules, or at least a daily nutritional supplement containing omega 3.

Now to the dark side, because there's a problem. You would think deep sea fish would be extremely clean, but it isn't. There is plenty of evidence that fish can be polluted with various pollutants like PCBs and mercury, and more. And even in krill, and some omega 3 is sourced from krill.

So before you choose your source of omega 3 capsules you need to be EXTREMELY CAREFULL about choosing your supplier.

Because it's not so hard to test for contaminants like mercury, and there are well known standards to follow.

You can get omega 3 capsules that exceed all the standards, but you won't find them on the shelf of your local store.

So there are good reasons to take omega 3 supplementation, but make sure you're taking omega 3 that is clean.

Make sure you choose your omega 3 carefully.

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