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Comment by foxes | Hacker News Reader

If you are interested in adding Omega-3 to your stack, make sure it is molecularly distilled fish oil. Otherwise there is the risk of excess lead and mercury.

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Because everyone in the world who distills things just distills them (and might feel fancy and say what kind of still they use), but fish oil purveyors molecularly distill the oil. At least it’s fish oil and not snake oil.

Look for independent lab reports, not the magic words “molecularly distilled.”

(P.S. mercury is quite volatile. Methylmercury appears to have a boiling point below that of water. I know nothing about distilling fish oil, but I would expect that mercury and it’s compounds could end up in the distillate if done carelessly and that the oils would oxidize or otherwise degrade. So they must either use a molecular still, whatever that is, or perhaps it’s done in an inert atmosphere or under vacuum.)

Yeah, molecular distillation is a type of vacuum distillation pretty ubiquitously used in distilling extracts from oils because minimizes decomposition due to heat. I looked it up.

You can also eat fish that are low on the food chain like sardines.

Fish don't synthesize Omega PUFAs, they eat algae (which unfortunately and inopportunely stains teeth)

From "Warning: Combination of Omega-3s in Popular Supplements May Blunt Heart Benefits" https://scitechdaily.com/warning-combination-of-omega-3s-in-... :

> Now, new research from the Intermountain Healthcare Heart Institute in Salt Lake City finds that higher EPA blood levels alone lowered the risk of major cardiac events and death in patients, while DHA blunted the cardiovascular benefits of EPA. Higher DHA levels at any level of EPA, worsened health outcomes.

> Results of the Intermountain study, which examined nearly 1,000 patients over a 10-year-period,

> “Based on these and other findings, we can still tell our patients to eat Omega-3 rich foods, but we should not be recommending them in pill form as supplements or even as combined (EPA + DHA) prescription products,” he said. “Our data adds further strength to the findings of the recent REDUCE-IT (2018) study that EPA-only prescription products reduce heart disease events.”

Now they're sayin'; so I go look for an EPA-only supplement, and TIL about re-esterified triglyceride and it says it's molecularly distilled anchovies in blister packages. Which early land mammals probably ate, so.

I found this comment too late... Already ordered a "kids" supplement that has a 2:1 ratio of DHA:EPA.

I do not think that you should be much concerned about this, because other studies show that more DHA than EPA is preferable when using other criteria.

So the conclusion is that nobody knows for sure if you should eat more DHA than EPA, to have a better brain, or less DHA than EPA, to have a better heart.

What is certain is that you need some minimum quantity of both DHA and EPA.

Especially for children, who do not have yet to worry about cardio-vascular problems, a supplement with more DHA than EPA seems actually a good choice.

> molecularly distilled fish oil

Where is a good place to buy these? I’ve been hesitant to buy vitamins/over the counter online. Do grocers carry molecularly distilled fish oil?

I buy Trader Joes Omega 3's, those are molecularly distilled. They also are 1200 mg per softgel, most others I've seen in stores are only 1000.

So, for example, you shouldn't eat algae Omega-3 because it hasn't been processed by a fish first? Aren't the fish why you end up with lead and mercury contamination?

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