[theologic]

Consumer Labs offers as a subscription service testing of various vitamins Including fish oil. They perform a great service, and I think it's economical in terms of determining if what you're buying is really what you want.

Heavy metal contamination is classically not a problem because the fish oil is distilled. My guess is your researcher friend has fallen victim to the marketing of the pharmacological industry-- Although I do want to indicate they do have value, probably not the 500 percent markup that they put on what in essence is a generic product.

Some natural fish oils are not distilled and do have this problem-- These are normally marketed as natural or cod liver oil or something that should hit your radar pretty quick. Your friend's concern about rancidity is clearly a problem And pretty well understood by people for years if you have any familiarity with chemistry. Omega threes get their name from the fact that you have a weird bend on the end of a long carbon molecule. This is susceptible to oxidation. This is true for any Omega 3 molecule regardless of its length Or it's sourcing.

This includes omega-3 "drugs" like Vascepa (pure EPA) and Lovaza (EPA and DHA combination).

Fortunately in testing, they have not found widespread issues with rancidity, although they definitely have found pockets. My normal suggestion to everybody is by a high volume manufacturer that you know is tearing through the product quite rapidly. My top suggestion is Costco. Then make sure you keep your fish oil in the refrigerator, and churn through it on a regular basis.

[p1esk]

If I eat raw salmon (sashimi) a couple times a week, would I still benefit from consuming fish oil?

[Aurornis]

Sashimi is typically served with very small portion sizes.

You're not getting as much fish oil from sashimi as someone taking concentrated pills every day. However, whether or not it matters is a different story. The benefits of fish oil appear be inversely proportional to the size of the study (as in this 1000-person study that has some hints of p-hacking) so I wouldn't worry about it.

[theologic]

It's strange to being using Hacker news as a nutrition advice, but this is something that I have been reading research on Pubmed for years. (Actually going back to the grateful med....).

Approximately 50-60% of brain weight is made up of lipids, of which about 35% consists of omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs). Of the omega-3 PUFAs present in the brain, DHA accounts for more than 40% of total omega-3 PUFAs in neuronal tissue, especially in gray matter.

Now I know this is slightly different than the OP, but I consider the primary reason for incorporating Omega3 in your diet is specifically to give your brain the basic building blocks that it needs to create the right structure. And the issue is you have to eat Omega-3. It's not something that you can manufacture: you can take a shorter chain and potentially increase the length of the carbon to get it all the way up to an EPA or DHA, but even this falls off as you age. So I don't consider taking flaxseed oil a good idea.

Without spending a long time on this, Long term supplementation I believe we can come up with an extremely strong line of evidence that suggests it helps neurological and emotional health. Now while there may be other benefits, this one is so massive and so clear to me, this is the reason that you want to make sure that you get this basic building block.

What is clear the western diet for the most part is severely lacking in in Omega-3 (or often called N3 PUFA in research), therefore if you're not thoughtfully measuring what you take in, you very well possibly could be running low especially considering that there is a significant Sigma in terms of what people need to have a healthy brain.

So now let's talk about the food supply. The problem is virtually every fish in the world has mercury higher than what you want. The only fish that looks like it has an acceptable level of mercury is salmon in certain geographies such as Alaska. My guess is you're actually eating some type of farm raised salmon, And I would have concerns unless you exactly understand the sourcing.

Without getting into the details, It is phenomenally difficult to come up with clear guidelines for biological humans that have wild diversity in terms of genetics and how your body processes food stuff. If anybody tells you they absolutely know the right dosage for you, immediately you should call BS. The data is way too far ranging to suggest a simple and clear case of what any individual needs.

Now keeping that in mind, I would suggest that most people probably need around one gram worth of EPA slash DHA in their diet basically forever. Depending upon your genetics maybe you could go down to half of this.

This is not a number you should guess at, and with things such as perplexity, You can find out how much EPA and DHA you are taking in in your salmon. You should be able to find out the number of ounces and talk to the cook about what they are serving. And 100 grams of salmon depending upon if you're eating clean salmon which has lower levels of EPA/DHA or farming salmon which has more oil but normally is dirtier, you should see somewhere between 1 to 2G.

[unsupp0rted]

> It's strange to being using Hacker news as a nutrition advice

Bodybuilding forums are always like 10-20 years ahead of cutting edge research in terms of off-label uses for things, hyper-efficient non-mainstream protocols, etc. Granted they're also 10-20 years ahead in terms of BS generation.

But I've learned a ton of useful things about nutrition from HN. It helps that nobody knows anything about nutrition anyway.

[FollowingTheDao]

I agree with all you say here. I’ve been studying this for over 15 years because my family suffered from early heart attacks, like below 50 years of age. My brother died of a heart attack at 48.

This heart disease risk along with psychiatric problems my family, including suicides led me to getting my genetics. Once I had them, it became clear how much I need long chain poly unsaturated fatty acids and specifically higher omega-3 than the normal European Caucasian population.

This is primarily because of polymorphisms I have in two genes FADS1 and FADS2.

Currently, I pretty much eat negligible amounts of short chain poly unsaturated fatty acids. The major components of my diet are cold water seafood, and muscles and oysters. Plus a lot of seaweed (this is from another prism I have, I am a FUT2 non-secretor. I also eat a very low amount of carbohydrates.

Now I’ve had serious psychiatric problems in my life. Three attempted suicides, for hospitalizations, and I was on a ton of medications. But guess what, I’m no longer on any medication‘s, my blood pressure has normalized, and my lipids are normal. And I can’t count the other of other minor bothersome symptoms I’ve had that have vanished.

No, I am a huge outlier, but I am also sort of a canary in a coal mine. Because while I am extremely sensitive to deficiencies of omega-3 fatty acids. Anyone who does not get at least the minimal amount of polyunsaturated fatty acids will end up having health problems. Whether you need long chain or short chain polyunsaturated fatty acids is going to depend on your genetics.

My genetic haplotype is K1, which is uncommon for Europeans to have. The dates back to over 10,000 years ago during the Ice Age. I also seem to have a lot of finish heritage, which I can possibly trace back to the Sami people who are a very high fat high omega-3 diet.

But anyway, you’re right, this is not a number. You should guess that because omega-3‘s can really thin out peoples blood. I need this but for other people this might be a huge problem.

[theologic]

By the way, thanks for sharing. Super interesting and I love the personal vignette.

[johnyzee]

Yes. A real, raw source is almost certainly better than a processed and treated source. Packaged fish oil is sometimes rancid, unnoticeable to you, and those oxidation products are harmful. It is also heavily loaded with antioxidants, without which fresh fish oil goes rancid within hours, and which have their own detrimental effects when in excess.

[anonymars]

I'm confused, it sounds like you very much don't recommend supplementing if already eating enough fish?

[johnyzee]

Sorry, that's what I meant (misread the OP). Better to just eat fish.

[jajko]

Well they are not that healthy these days (salmon or tuna). Maybe 1x a week is still fine, but we are just guessing the long term toxicity thresholds.

[wahnfrieden]

Isn't algae DHA better than fish oil for several reasons?

As I understand it the fish oil only has it because the fish consumes the algae, also.

[FollowingTheDao]

The best source is always going to be from fish. That’s because it comes with other things such as calcitonin and D3.

[pers0n]

Why not just get omega3 from flaxseed? No worries about mercury

[aziaziazi]

Flax only contains ALA, not DHA or EPA. You need three of them and your body can create the 2 later from the former, however that capacity degrade with age hence the EPA/DHA recommandation.