Even though these days practically everyone has heard about Omega 3 and how beneficial it can be for health, very few people actually know where the best sources are. However, before we discuss that we should say a few words on what Omega 3 actually is.
What is Omega 3 and why do we need it?
Omega three at its most simplest, is a type of fat that the body needs in order to become and remain healthy. We cannot produce Omega 3 ourselves so the only way we can get it is through our diet.
At a more complex level, Omega 3 consists of different types of fatty acids that we call essential fatty acids, essential because if we didn't get any we wouldn't be able to survive and these are the long chain essential fatty acids known as Alpha linolenic acid (ALA), Eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) and Docosahexaenoic acid (DHA), the latter two being the most important.
We need DHA during pregnancy in order for the unborn child's brain and eyesight to develop properly and young children need adequate supplies of this fatty acid during the first few years of life. However, from then on until the end of our lives, we all need a regular source of EPA in order for our brains to function properly.
Omega 3 is known to be anti-inflammatory, anti-coagulant and inhibits tumour growth and therefore it is helpful in preventing heart disease, arthritis, strokes, skin problems, some types of cancer and even depression as well as many other health conditions.
Where can we find ALA, EPA and DHA?
Alpha Linolenic acid is the precursor of Eicosapentaenoic acid and Docosahexaenoic acid. We can find ALA in vegetable sources such as Walnuts, Rapeseed Oil, Flaxseed Oil and Hemp Seeds to name but a few, and in theory our bodies can convert this into EPA and DHA. However, it's not as simple as that in practice.
Our ability to convert these fatty acids depends on a number of factors and researchers reckon that it could be as low as 5 percent or even lower. This means that no matter how much ALA we consume in our diet, we are not going to be able to get enough of the more important EPA and DHA that we need for health. However, if we get enough EPA we can quite successfully convert that into DHA which makes Eicosapentaenoic acid the essential fatty acid that we really must get enough of.
Now if we need EPA so badly but cannot get it through consumption of ALA then the only other way is to consume it directly. This is where it gets problematic. The only really reliable sources of Eicosapentaenoic acid are in fatty fish like sardines, herring, mackerel, tuna, salmon and swordfish but no one is going to eat too much fish these days due to the risks posed by mercury and other toxins that have polluted the sea and everything in it.
Nowadays we are advised to limit our intake to a couple of portions of fish a week, only one of which should be oily. So is one portion of oily fish a week enough to give us adequate supplies of Omega 3? In a word no! Fortunately there is a solution and that is to supplement our diets with pure EPA fish oil.
Is Pure EPA fish oil safe?
As fish oil is sourced directly from oily fish then there is always the possibility that toxins are present in fish oil too, unless of course the fish oil has been purified using techniques like molecular distillation to filter out the toxins leaving behind only purified fish oil. This kind of fish oil is considered perfectly safe to take even for children and is arguably the best Omega 3 source there is on the planet today.
