Grams of fat in fish oil softgels page

[Tealia]

Long time lurker, first time poster.

I recently bought wild salmon oil softgel supplements. On the front, it states the pills are 1300 mg with 200 mg 'omega 3 dha and epa'.
Is the other 1100mg just the softgel gelatin or additional fish oil that isn't specifically omega-3?

Recommended number of these supplements I should take a day?

[jimhensen]

That is an odd ratio to be honest. Standard caps are 1 gram of fat and 300 mg of dha and epa (usually 180/120 split). Your capsules have more overall fat but less epa and dha. Are you sure that it is 200mg combined and not 200 mg of just dha and epa? And the additional 1100 mg is fat. Don't your pills have a nutritional label on the back?

[Tealia]

Here's the back of the bottle:

Each Softgel Contains:

Wild Pacific Salmon Oil ......... 1300 mg

Omega-3 including EPA & DHA ....... 250 mg

Eicosapentaenoic Acid (EPA) ....... 107 mg
Doccosahexanoic Acid (DHA) ...... 93 mg

Non-medicinal Ingredients: Softgel (gelatin, glycerin, purified water), vitamin E

[Tealia]

That is an odd ratio to be honest. Standard caps are 1 gram of fat and 300 mg of dha and epa (usually 180/120 split). Your capsules have more overall fat but less epa and dha. Are you sure that it is 200mg combined and not 200 mg of just dha and epa? And the additional 1100 mg is fat. Don't your pills have a nutritional label on the back?

OH! Something about the way you stated your reply made me realise that 1300 mg is 1.3g NOT 13g of fat. Gosh I had a bad brain fart! I had thought each softgel was 13 grams of oil!

[ChocoTaco369]

Long time lurker, first time poster.

I recently bought wild salmon oil softgel supplements. On the front, it states the pills are 1300 mg with 200 mg 'omega 3 dha and epa'.
Is the other 1100mg just the softgel gelatin or additional fish oil that isn't specifically omega-3?

Recommended number of these supplements I should take a day?

Yes. Only 200mg of the 1,100mg is omega 6. The rest is a mix of monounsaturated fat, saturated fat and omega 6. I have pharmaceutical grade fish oil, which has 980mg of omega 6 in a 1.44g capsule. It was the best I could find.

Here's an example. The predominant oil on the market seems to be sardine oil. Here's the nutritional profile of sardine oil:

In one tablespoon:

Total Fat...13.5g
Saturated Fat...4.0g
Monounsaturated Fat...4.6g
Polyunsaturated Fat...4.3g
omega 3...3.25g
omega 6...0.27g

So eating 13.5g of fat worth of sardine oil, you're getting 3.25g of omega 3. The rest is a mix of all other fats.


http://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/fats-and-oils/633/2

[Fury]

Long time lurker, first time poster.

I recently bought wild salmon oil softgel supplements. On the front, it states the pills are 1300 mg with 200 mg 'omega 3 dha and epa'.
Is the other 1100mg just the softgel gelatin or additional fish oil that isn't specifically omega-3?

Recommended number of these supplements I should take a day?

Most of the clinical studies I've read on omega3 fatty acid supplementation that have shown benefits are using at least 1g each of DHA and EPA daily, and for some health conditions in excess of 2-3g each of EPA and DHA.

As ChocoTaco mentioned, pharmaceutical grade fish oil is ultra-concentrated but most stuff at retail is far less concentrated. Five of the pills you have is equivalent to 1 of the pharmaceutical grade, so at least 10-15 would be needed to reach clinical trail dosages.

I must say tho, anyone I mention it to looks at me like I'm semi-retarded when I tell them the studied dosages equal over a dozen of those giant pills. That's one reason to try a liquid fish oil supplement, its much easier to wrap one's head around being asked to take a tablespoon of oil daily than a mound of gelatin capsules

Oh, and as others have mentioned, fish oils contain a variety of fatty acids other than omega3s, IMO a rather healthy mix even ignoring the omega3s