The Right Dosage and Ratio of DHA/EPA Omega-3s
Many fish oil supplements are underdosed and made only for women. Not this one.
When T Nation and Biotest launched in 1998, most of our staff took fish oil. The benefits were clear, but we didn't love the products we were using. They were underdosed and, well, stinky. But we gagged down a dozen capsules a day anyway.
Not long after, we took a look at our then underdeclared motto ("We Only Make What We Want to Take") and decided to fix fish oil. Enter Flameout (Buy at Amazon).
As research and technology evolved, so did Flameout. Today, it's perfect: high dose, high DHA, ideal delivery system, super clean. But every time we write a positive article about a new fish oil discovery, some half-baked study comes out and claims that fish oil is overrated.
The VITAL Fiasco
This debacle involved a clinical trial (the VITAL study) published in the New England Journal of Medicine. It attracted a lot of attention by purportedly throwing doubt on the idea that fish oil reduces the rate of cardiovascular events or other health problems.
Well, there were a couple of big problems with the alleged findings. For one, the dosages and potencies of the fish oils used in the study were far below what experts recommend. Secondly, the media glossed over some of the relevant data.
Despite the woefully inadequate dosages of fish oil used, one sub-group analysis reflected a 28% reduction in the risk of heart attack and a 50% reduction in fatal heart attacks, but no reduction in deaths from stroke.
Unfortunately, the researchers needed fish oil to check all the cardiac-related boxes to get a passing grade, but the low-dose fish oil failed when it came to strokes. In a way, it was like dismissing a Major League baseball player as sub-par because, in his quest for the Triple Crown, he only hit the most home runs and had the highest batting average, but not the most runs batted in.
Because of fish oil's "failure," the media ignored the positive findings of the study and instead focused on some of the study's under-dosed endpoints to discredit fish oil, and that ain't right.
The Right Dosage
Most of the studies supporting the use of fish oil found that the greatest degree of protection occurred in people who had the highest percentage of omega-3 fatty acids in their blood. That's why the real experts recommend anywhere from 2,200 to 3,000 mg. of DHA/EPA (the two most biologically important omega-3 fatty acids found in fish oil) daily.
So how much did the VITAL study use? A measly 840 mg. a day of EPA/DHA. That's only a third or fourth of the amount deemed most effective in combating heart attack or stroke.
Put the Fire Out
But let's forget about cardiovascular stuff for a bit. Fish oil does a lot more than prevent heart problems, and volumes of studies confirm it.
First, fish oil is a powerful anti-inflammatory and, cellularly speaking, our bodies are on fire. Quenching that fire can help ward off asthma, arthritis, macular degeneration, autoimmune dysfunction, mental-health maladies, and a host of other issues, along with decreasing muscle soreness and joint pain.
Properly dosed fish oil also leads to significant decreases in body fat levels through increased insulin sensitivity (thus helping prevent Type II diabetes), increases in metabolic rate, and activation of leptin to control appetite.
What to Look for In Fish Oil
The best fish oil supplement has the following attributes:
- The proper dosage of the purest, most highly concentrated DHA and EPA fatty acids available.
- A product purified by molecular distillation and stringently tested for PCBs, dioxins, mercury, and other heavy metal contaminants.
- A product that includes a self-emulsifying delivery system so they're virtually odorless and more bioavailable.
- A product that contains more DHA than EPA because DHA is the real powerhouse of the omega-3 fatty acid duo.
Flameout (Buy at Amazon) checks all those boxes. It's so highly concentrated that you'd have to double or triple the dosage of similar products to get even close to one serving of Flameout.
Most Fish Oil Is Made for Women
Most fish oil products contain more EPA than DHA because, well, that's what you find in fish. Companies, by and large, bring in raw fish that's been cut into pieces. They cook it with steam and then centrifuge it to separate it into fat-free dry solids and liquid (water and oil). This water and oil mixture, called "press liquor," is further processed to separate the two liquids. The oil is then "polished" to remove impurities.
A more succinct version of that process is that they just squeeze the oil out of the fish and put it into capsules. Not very sophisticated, is it?
Compare that to Flameout's manufacturing process where the individual bioactive fatty acids are separated from the fish oil, further purified, emulsified, and then measured out in specific ratios to achieve the right DHA/EPA ratio, one that unlike the vast majority of fish oil products on the market, has a lot more DHA in it than EPA.
There are a couple of reasons for this. For one, men have a much higher incidence of heart attacks than women. Men also have lower amounts of DHA than women, despite eating the same amount of fatty acids.
See the connection? And it's not just fanciful conjecture, because DHA has anti-arrhythmic effects, reduces blood pressure, and even, according to one study, increases HDL by 29% (as compared to EPA, which reduces it by only 6.7%), all of which can help to prevent heart attacks.
The fact is that men need more DHA than women, probably because there appears to be an inverse relationship between testosterone levels and DHA. In any event, most fish oil products, or even fish itself, leave men woefully underdosed on this vital fatty acid and more vulnerable to heart attack.
Another interesting aside about DHA comes to us through Japan. Apparently, regardless of sex, DHA levels appear to positively correlate with longevity. Japanese researchers found that out of over 1,000 people over the age of 60, those with the highest amounts of DHA in their blood had the lowest mortality rates.
The Numbers
Flameout (Buy at Amazon) contains five times more DHA than EPA:
- DHA: 2000 mg
- EPA: 400 mg
The total amount of this triglyceride form of fish oil is 4200 mg and you get it all in just a three-softgel serving. There's no need to triple the dosage to get the benefits.
Clearly, this isn't something you just buy from a Walgreen's, a big box store, or even your average local vitamin shop.
References
- Kris-Etherton PM et al. "Fish Oil, Omega-3 Fatty Acids, and Cardiovascular Disease." Circulation. 2002;106:2747–2757.
- Otsuka R et al. "Fish and Meat Intake, Serum Eicosapentaenoic Acid and Docosahexaenoic Acid Levels, and Mortality in Community-Dwelling Japanese Older Persons." Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2019 May 21;16(10):1806. PubMed: 31117268.
- Fulton H et al. "Rebuttal to Recent Trials on Vitamin D and Fish Oil." Life Extension. 2019 Nov:71-76.
- Thorsdottir I et al. "Randomized trial of weight-loss-diets for young adults varying in fish and fish oil content." Int J Obes (Lond). 2007 Oct;31(10):1560-6. PubMed: 17502874.