Fish Oil Dosage - How Much Do You Need? - How Many Capsules Should You To Take A Day?

You would think buying, and taking something simple like a fish oil capsule each day would be pretty straightforward -- "Wrong"

There's more to it than meets the eye! You need to understand there are hundreds of different fish oil products on the market. Many contain lots of oil, but not much else! -- Low DHA levels and suspect purity. The secret to finding the best product is to understand just a couple of often-confused issues.

Fish Oil Dosage

How much do you need a day?

Well it all comes down to how much Omega3 fatty acid is in the capsule and how good it is. This is a very important; make sure all this information is displayed on the manufacturers label.

The suggested serving of good quality fish oil for an adult is around 2000-3000mg a day. However, the real issue is the oil blend -- how much Omega3 fatty acids are included. And what's the breakdown of essential DHA and EPA plus other omega acids and ingredients.

For example the supplement I take daily is 50% natural oil extract from the deep cold-water fish variety Hoki and 50% molecularly distilled concentrated tuna oil. Each 1000mg soft gel capsule contains 500 mg of Omega3 fatty acids with a DHA content of about 55% and EPA just on 25%.

The suggested dosage is two capsules a day, giving a total 1000mg of Omega3 fatty acid intake.

So... How many soft gels should you take a day?

This number usually varies between 2 and 12 per day depending on the brand and what condition you are targeting. This is where it gets a bit tricky, so you need to carefully think it through.

In the above example taking 2 capsules once a day results in ingesting 2000mg of fish oil in total, with 1000mg being omega3 fatty acid with about 560mg of DHA.

The brand I used to take had a recommended dosage of 6 per day -- 2 x 3 times a day. At the time I didn't understand the issues and it was cheap, because the supermarket always had it on special to suck customers like me in.

The label stated they were 1000mg fish oil capsules with 120mg DHA. So I was taking 3 times as many gels (6000mg of oil each day) to get a tiny bit more DHA and had no idea of the purity of the ingredients. They say ignorance is bliss!

Another brand recommended taking 12 gels a day to help your arthritis and it was the cheapest. Can you picture yourself shoving that many capsules down your throat every day?

The point is don't swallow any more of them than you really have to. After carefully researching and evaluating the fish oil marketplace, I determined the best and most convenient fish oil dosage is 2 capsules a day, which includes a total of 2000mg fish oil -- 1000 mg of omega-3 fatty acids, and a very high level of DHA.