Fish oil has many health benefits because it contains omega 3 fatty acids; however getting these benefits depends on the quality of the brand you buy. To be honest with you, before I started researching on nutritional supplements, I never knew that there was any difference among the different brands. What I used to do whenever I needed to buy fish oil was go to any drug store and pick any one that had attractive packaging. I never bothered to read the labels; to me, all fishoil were the same. What a big mistake!

Well you shouldn’t blame me much because I wasn’t an informed consumer then – not that ignorance is an excuse in law! I don’t want you to make the same mistake I was making in the past; that is why I am writing this to tell you what you need to know before you buy fish oil.

Thanks to my research I now use a good quality brand of omega3 fishoil supplement. Did you know that fish contain toxic substances such as mercury? Yes that is why doctors advise that we should not eat a lot of certain types of fish. The worst culprits are big predator fish such as swordfish, shark and catfish, it is not that others do not contain impurities, they do but some contain more than the others. They get this contaminants from the polluted oceans.

This is why it is very important that you buy fish oil supplements that are purified well through molecular distillation. This is is the only proven process that ensures that the contaminants are removed from the oil making it fit for your consumption. If you buy any one that is not purified through this method, you would be gambling with your health.

You should also look for those that contain high amounts of omega3 fatty acids, remember you do not buy fish oil just for the oil, you are buying it because of the omega3 it contains. Omega 3 is among the essential fatty acids; this means that it is an important nutrient our body needs but can not manufacture on its own. So we get it through foods or supplements. The omega-3 should be at least half the content of the oil ( 500mg in 1000mg of oil)

The three components of omega-3 fatty acid are DHA (Docosapentaenoic acid), EPA (Eicosapentaenoic acid) and DPA (Docosapentaenoic acid). Much research hasn’t been done on DPA to find out its benefits, but between the other two, DHA is more important, first, it makes up 30% of our brain. Its deficiency has been linked to brain related conditions such as alzheimer’s and depression.

Secondly, our body can convert it to EPA when the need arises but it can not convert EPA to DHA. Therefore make sure that you buy fish oil supplement that contains about twice the amounts of DHA than EPA. The recommended quantity of DHA is 250mg per 1000mg of fishoil capsule.

Now that you are well informed, I believe you will henceforth make the right buying decisions. So what next? Well, you can surf the net to find out where to buy fish oil supplements or you can visit my website for more information on the benefits of fishoil and the brand I personally take.