Pioneering medical doctors like Andrew Weil, Nicholas Perricone, and Joseph Mercola—and top public health researchers like Harvard’s Walter Willett, M.D.—agree that fish have few peers on the list of healthful, disease-preventive foods. And, you probably know that wild salmon is one of the richest sources of EPA and DHA—the omega-3 fatty acids that most people consume too little of, and that make fish uniquely healthful.
"That’s great," you may say, "but I don’t really want to eat fish as often as the experts recommend." To address this concern, we decided to offer our customers the healthful essence of wild sockeye salmon in convenient capsule form, so that you can enjoy its unsurpassed nutritional and health-promoting benefits—no matter what’s on your menu!
We obtain our pure, natural, non-distilled oil from Alaskan sockeye salmon because it is among the purest of all ocean fish, consistently testing free of hazardous levels of contaminants. Sockeye are also the richest of all salmon species in the powerful biological antioxidant, astaxanthin—a natural carotenoid that imparts a rich red color to our oil and eliminates the need for added tocopherols present in other brands.
The levels of EPA and DHA and other fatty acids in our capsules—and the proportions of each in relation to one another—reflect those found in wild salmon. This nature-identical blend of fatty acids likely enhances the bioavailability of our salmon oil’s omega-3s, and certainly reduces the risk of over-consumption that may exist in highly concentrated, denatured alternatives.
Fish oils: Is high-potency hazardous?
In October of 2003 I attended the Fatty Acid BioMedical Symposium in Atlantic City, and came away with a much deeper understanding of the subtleties of cellular metabolism involved in omega-3 nutrition and manufacture of fish oil supplements.
The main speaker was Dr. Patricia Kane, M.D., a leading researcher in the field of fatty acid nutrition and its effect on both preventive health and neurological disorders. Dr. Kane employs scientific blood-lipid analysis to gauge patients’ nutritional status. She sees many patients who have overdosed on high-potency omega-3 supplements: apparently another case of marketers effectively promoting a ‘more is better’ message, and consumers suffering for it. It’s vitally important to realize that omega-3 fatty acids work in concert with omega-6s to regulate inflammation and other functions in our bodies. For optimum health both molecules must be present in the correct ratio: too many of either one can be detrimental.
According to Dr. Kane, high-potency fish oils are sometimes suitable for short-term therapeutic use—but are generally unwise to consume on a regular basis. As she confirmed to me in a subsequent email, "Excessive consumption of high-potency fish oil actually suppresses the omega 6 molecule. The resulting deficiency of arachidonic acid—the omega-6 fatty acid which (ideally) comprises over 12 percent of every cell membrane—can be as detrimental as a deficiency of omega-3s."
To date, human dietary intake requirements for the various fatty acids have not been established by the U.S. Institute of Medicine. However, an expert scientific panel1 at a workshop hosted by the National Institutes of Health in 1999 recommended that adults consume 2.22 grams of alpha-linolenic acid, and a combined 0.65 grams of EPA and DHA (minimum 0.22 gm of each). People get ALA—a small percent of which the body converts to EPA and DHA—mostly from nuts, seeds, and leafy greens. The only food sources of EPA and DHA are seafood and certain algae.
What constitutes a robust but safe daily dose of omega-3s? The U.S. government hasn't decided, but as leading fatty acid researcher Artemis P. Simopoulos, MD told me in a recent email, "Many people [colleagues] feel comfortable with an upper limit of one gram of omega-3s per day." This informal estimate applies only to healthy adults. People with clotting, cardiovascular, or other serious health problems—or who are on blood-thinning drugs or herbs (e.g., ginkgo, licorice, coumadin, warfarin, aspirin)—should not take omega-3 supplements without a doctor's guidance.
Nutrition and fish oils: natural vs. denatured (distilled)
As with any food, extensive processing of fish oils can degrade their nutritional value. At the conference, Dr. Kane related anecdotal reports from some researchers indicating that molecular distillation of fish oils appears to diminish their beneficial effects. While the reasons for this are not yet known, some suspect that the distillation process degrades the oil by reducing the bioavailability of beneficial components, if not removing them altogether. (Note: While we consider Dr. Kane a credible source, this information is anecdotal, and we have not yet seen any peer-reviewed documentation validating it.)
In many fish oil supplements, distillation is used to produce an oil with very high concentrations of EPA and DHA, whose levels then rise to 80 percent, versus the 20 to 30 percent found in the raw fish oil. By necessity, this concentration process sharply reduces the levels of every fatty acid except EPA and DHA—including those whose benefits remain undiscovered.
But as Nicholas Perricone, M.D. said in his number one NYT bestseller, The Perricone Prescription, "… there are probably dozens of unidentified fatty acids in salmon that play a crucial role in optimum health and deceleration of the aging process." Supporting Dr. Perricone’s hypothesis, independent laboratory analysis of our sockeye oil revealed an amazing 32 long-chain fatty acids—including omega 5s, 6s, 7s, and 9s—in addition to the omega-3s EPA and DHA.
Just as in whole sockeye salmon, omega-3 fatty acids make up a full 26 percent of our natural, non-distilled salmon oil, with each 2,000 mg serving (two capsules) offering 528 mg of combined omega-3s. And, not only do these key omega-3s comprise 60 percent of the total omega 3s in our oil, EPA and DHA are present in a 1.3 to 1 ratio, or almost exactly the 1:1 ratio recommended by most medical experts
Naturally pure—and tested to be sure
Most fish oil suppliers obtain their oils from the cheapest possible sources, including farmed salmon and small prey fish like sardines and anchovies from South America, coastal herring, and menhaden (a toothless fish considered inedible by most). This practice yields low-quality fish oil that must be distilled or otherwise processed to remove contaminants, and threatens food sources critical to subsistence fishermen, sea birds, marine mammals, and important commercial species (e.g., striped bass).
Because our oil comes only from extraordinarily pure wild sockeye salmon, we don’t need to process it to remove contaminants, which would degrade its nutritional quality. Instead, we use independent labs to test our sockeye oil, and we only encapsulate oil that meets the strictest purity standards. And, as you would expect, our Sockeye Salmon Oil capsules contain no artificial preservatives, color, dairy, starch, wheat, or yeast.
We are very proud to offer the first salmon oil supplement in the world to carry the Marine Stewardship Council Certification (www.msc.org). Like all of the fish sold by Vital Choice, our salmon oil is produced from sustainably harvested species. It's part of our passionate commitment to your health and the health of the wild salmon resource.
