Fish oil, mercury contamination, and more... | Natural Holistic Health Blog

Fish oil, mercury contamination, and more…

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Posted on: February 7th, 2007

Question: from Carla

I received my 4 bottles of your Omega 3/ DHA Esters. Thank you so much for the prompt delivery. I was advised by a natural Doctor I was seeing awhile back who was trying to treat me for depression without drugs. I was purchasing the Pharmax Fish Oil (finest liquid state) 200 ml for a few years and really liked it. However, I have been reading more on fish oils and wondering how safe is it really. I read your on-line report on the fish you use in Australia but can’t understand why you don’t sell it in its purest liquid state. It’s hard for me swallowing any pills.

Also, I am hoping you can answer a few questions to ease my mind before I start taking your capsules (I’m assuming they are capsules since I have not opened a bottle yet and just in case I have to return them.)

1. I’m not really sure after reading the explanation given on your website exactly what esters are. Does it mean the capsule the oil is put in?

2. Do you sell your fish oil in liquid form? I really prefer taking it that way instead of capsule form. I read where the capsules are more likely to contain mercury. The Pharmax Brand states on their label on the bottle No contaminants and NO mercury. When I went on their website that was changed to LOWEST traceable amounts of Mercury than any brand on the market.

Does your Omega 3/DHA Esters contain ANY MERCURY at all?

3. Does the capsule type instead of liquid state have to be heated to be purified?

4. My final question and so sorry for taking up your time reading all this! Do all Fish oils, including your product, contain mercury? Do all fish contain mercury? I have been buying salmon at a local fish market and told that their fish is caught from the Atlantic ocean and not farm fed. I now have been reading that the Atlantic ocean salmon has a lot of mercury in it as well. Is this true? I do hear of Wild salmon but I can’t find it anywhere. Is that the only type of salmon I should be eating. Is the Atlantic ocean polluted too? Is there any traces of mercury in your esters. Again, please clarify esters instead of stating fish oil. Is this fish oil I have purchased?

I notice that the capsule fish oils are so much cheaper than the purest liquid state. Why is your fish oil not sold in liquid state or do you? Also, is it dangerous taking too much fish oil. I know that the body stores a lot vitamins including VITAMIN E which I noted is in your product. Why have you added that to the fish oil? I didn’t notice that until I read the label when I received your product at home. I get enough Vitamin E is my multi-vitamin I take daily.

Answer: from Warren Matthews of Xtend-Life

1. Omega 3 fish oil is either in two forms. Triglyceride or ester form. It has nothing to do with the capsules, just the oil itself. We use the ester form because we believe it has better bio-availability. This is because the body has to convert the triglyceride form to the ester form in order to absorb it.

2. No, we don’t supply our Omega 3 in liquid form. This is primarily because it is concentrated. You only need a total of 2 grams a day which is well less than a teaspoon full. Unfortunately you have been misinformed about the capsule form of Omega 3/fish oil being more likely to contain mercury. In fact, the reverse is true. The oil supplied in liquid form is generally less concentrated than oils in capsule form and is unlikely to be molecularly distilled and therefore much more likely to contain contaminants such as mercury. Nonetheless a lot of fish oil in capsules is not purified and so there are obvious exceptions to that.

With regard to Mercury any fish oil supplier that you ask should be able to give you a quantitative statement regarding the amount of mercury in their product based on their analysis of each batch.

For example: When we test each batch of our Omega 3 DHA/ Esters for mercury contamination we go down to a level of 0.01 ppm (parts per million). This is the practical level of sensitivity for the equipment of the independent GMP laboratory that we use for testing.

If there is absolutely no mercury present and/or the level is less than 0.01ppm it will not show up in the testing equipment. So a result <0.01ppm means ‘less than’ 0.01ppm. Every batch of our product to date has had this result.

Does that mean that there is absolutely no mercury present? Not necessarily. It just means that the amount present, if any at all is too small to be measured. Mercury is present in many foods including vegetables but more particularly in fish.

For example, some larger fish such as shark and swordfish may have mercury levels as high as 1ppm which is more than 100 times the levels of 0.01ppm that we test to. Even big eye tuna is around 0.5ppm so you can see the purification process that we put our oil through reduces the mercury level to that of a lot lower than raw fish. Added to that you only consume 2 grams of our fish oil a day which is significantly less than a serving of fish?

The New Zealand hoki fish which we use exclusively does not have any detectable levels of mercury, even before we start the purification/concentration procedures. A factor in this is that they are caught in pristine waters in the Southern Ocean and are not subject to the contaminants that many northern hemisphere fish are.

3. There is some heating required as part of the purification/molecular distillation process. It is the only practical way to remove all contaminants effectively. There is no degradation to the oil due to this process.

4. As I mentioned above there is no detectable mercury in our Omega 3 oil right down to 0.01ppm.

With regard to Atlantic salmon I have read reports claiming that they are fairly high in mercury. However they would not contain as much mercury as shark or swordfish. I have not seen any data differentiating between the mercury levels of salmon captured in different locations.

You would have to take of lot of fish oil capsules to overdose with it. We recommend between 2 and 4 per day, although I know some physicians will recommend more than double that…some triple. You can overdose on cod liver oil however, which is regarded to be the ’sewer of the sea’. It also contains a lot of Vitamin A which can be detrimental to your health.

Vitamin E is added as a natural preservative. The amount is negligible…1.5IU per softgel so it does not interfere with any other Vitamin E you are taking.

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