Pharmaceutical Grade Fish Oil - Reality Or Fiction?

It is true that in this day and age more and more people appreciate the wonderful health benefits of fish oil. But, as it always happens with products that are high in demand, nowadays there is a proliferation of various fish oil supplements in the market. In their effort to promote them and increase their credibility, many product marketers claim their products as being "pharmaceutical grade fish oil".

The question is: Should we, as consumers, trust fish oil supplements labelled as "pharmaceutical grade", or is this a slick trick used by product marketers to lure us into buying their product?

After doing my due diligence, what I discovered was that there is no standardization behind the term "pharmaceutical grade fish oil". In other words, any product manufacturer can use this term freely, without any obligation on his part to provide evidence that his company's products have been verified by a third party official authority.

What usually happens is that product marketers use this label in order to lead consumers into believing that their "pharmaceutical grade fish oil" has been verified by the US Pharmacopeia (USP). For those who don't know this, USP is the official public standards-setting authority for all prescription and over-the-counter medicines and other health care products manufactured or sold in the United States.

Of course, USP actually has set some standards for fish oil supplements. But, adherence to these standards is voluntary and manufacturers provide evidence of conformity by carrying the "USP verified" seal of approval in their product documentation.

So, having said the above, the obvious question is raised: Given that there is no mandatory conformity to official standards, how do I ensure that the fish oil I want to buy is high quality?

As mentioned above, the products which carry the "USP verified" seal of approval are considered to be high quality. But, that does not mean that the rest are inferior. In fact, in some cases, products that are not "USP verified" are in reality superior to their counterparts.

You see, in the absence of strict official guidelines, other institutions such as the US Council for Responsible Nutrition (CRN), have developed their own standards, taking into account various European and World Health Organization standards. Reputable manufacturers all over the world strive to meet, or even exceed these standards.

So, the answer to the question above is that you should always investigate whether a particular manufacturer can readily provide you with official documentation that will back his claims about the purity and the quality of his fish oil.

To be more specific, what you should look for is the Certificate of Analysis (COA) for the fish oil that you consider buying.

In this COA, you can first check the purity. This measures the levels of heavy metals, PCBs, dioxins and other pollutants that are contained in the fish oil. The COA should provide figures for the volume concentrations of all the most important known pollutants and show how they measure up against the international standards.

The second thing you should check is the freshness, which is determined by the level of oxidation. This is indicated by the Total Oxidation (TOTOX) figure.

The last and very important parameter is the percent breakdown of the capsule contents in terms of the type of essential fatty acids that the supplement contains (omega 3, 6 or 9). The most important of these acids are DHA, EPA and DPA. In general, the higher the DHA concentration, the better the quality of the fish oil.

In conclusion, you should never rely on labels alone to judge the quality of fish oil. What you should do instead, is to always look for official documentation that will verify all marketing claims.

What I personally recommend, is a fish oil which has more stringent specifications than all the international standards. This comes from a fish species called hoki that lives in the waters south of New Zealand, one of the least polluted parts of the world. Visit my website to learn more.