Fish oil: useful for omega-3 intake?

Fish oil capsules are among the most popular nutritional supplements, they contain valuable omega-3 fatty acids. But do you really need fish oil?

Pretty much everyone knows that Omega-3 fatty acids are important for health. The unsaturated fatty acids are essential – our body cannot produce them ourselves. Unfortunately, only a few foods have a significant proportion of omega-3 fatty acids. That is why it is often easier to use capsules with fish oil. There are different variants from over-the-counter products in the drugstore to prescription drugs.

Fish oil: production and ingredients

As the name suggests, fish oil consists of fat from fish. It is a by-product in the production of fish meal, which is used, for example, as fish feed. The MSC According to herring, anchovies and krill (small crustaceans) are particularly popular for fish oil preparations. According to the organization, 14 million tons of wild fish are used to produce around one million tons of fish oil annually.

Fish oil capsules contain the long-chain fatty acids EPA and DHA, which are particularly important for the body. According to the NDR However, the relationship between the two fatty acids is only specified for prescription-only preparations. The contains a commercially available fish oil capsule German pharmacist newspaper according to about 840 milligrams of omega-3 fatty acids.

Do fish oil capsules work?

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As the Consumer advice center writes, manufacturers of fish oil capsules can advertise with these health promises: fish oil

• contributes to normal vision, brain and heart function.
• maintains normal blood sugar, blood fat and cholesterol levels.

However, it has not been proven that fish oil can help against cardiovascular diseases or strokes.

The Deutsche Apotheker Zeitung cites two seemingly contradictory studies:

• In a placebo-controlled study From 2019 with over 25,000 participants between the ages of 50 and 55, one group took a commercially available fish oil preparation over a period of five years, the other group received a placebo. The result: The overall mortality rate, strokes, heart attacks and cancers hardly differed in the two groups. Apparently the fish oil capsules had no significant effect.
• In the same year, a placebo-controlled one also appeared study, this time with around 8,000 participants who had previous illnesses such as diabetes or cardiovascular problems. They were given a medical preparation with four grams of chemically modified fish acid per day. In this study, the additional omega-3 fatty acids reduced the risk of dying from cardiovascular disease.

Seemingly only high-dose medical preparations help in people who have pre-existing conditions. Such preparations are not available without a prescription: high-dose omega-3 fatty acids can have strong side effects. In order to clearly demonstrate the effect, more research needs to be done.

Side effects of fish oil capsules

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According to the consumer advice center, five grams of omega-3 fatty acids a day can do this Side effects cause:

• Nausea and vomiting
• increased risk of bleeding

You can achieve five grams, for example, if you take one high-dose fish oil capsule a day and also eat foods that contain omega-3. A tablespoon linseed oil provides up to four grams of vegetable omega-3 fatty acids, for example.

Stiftung Warentest Has further warnings for fish oil preparations:

• Fish oil can interact with medication. Among other things, the omega-3 fatty acids can increase the effect of blood thinners.
• Fish oil may reduce the effects of chemotherapy.

For safety reasons, you should take a longer-term Have your blood tests and liver tests checked regularly.

Fish oil capsules are for these people, according to Stiftung Warentest and the consumer center not suitable or only suitable to a limited extent:

• People who take blood thinners or have impaired blood clotting or those who are currently undergoing chemotherapy
• Children and pregnant women (the latter only if urgently needed) because there are too few studies on the safety of fish oil preparations
• People with cirrhosis of the liver, an inflamed pancreas or gallbladder or disturbed fat digestion in the small intestine
• Diabetic, as omega-3 fatty acids can make it difficult to set stable blood sugar levels

For these reasons, you should use fish oil supplements only take after consultation with a doctor.

Other disadvantages of fish oil capsules

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Fish oil supplements have the side effects just listed other disadvantages:

• They taste fishy.
• If you store fish oil capsules in the fridge, they are one to two months beyond the best-before date durable. However, the fatty acids can oxidize quickly and become rancid if they are not cooled. Some manufacturers therefore add the preparations Preservatives or Antioxidants how Vitamin E. added. The consumer center criticized that there is no legal regulation of how much vitamin E the fish oil capsules can contain.
• Just like their origin (fish), fish oil preparations with pollutants such as Dioxin be burdened. The Bavarian State Office for Health and Food Safety (LGL) reports on a test with 36 products from 2004. The investigators found residues of various pollutants in many preparations, which, however, were below the permitted limit values.

Added to this is the aspect of sustainability. The MSC believes that fish in general is now well aware of the problems of overfishing, bycatch and aquaculture. However, this awareness is not given for fish oil. So there are hardly any MSC-certified products.

A look at the Fish guide from WWF shows that the popular fish herring and anchovy have stable stocks only in some selected areas. The guide does not provide any information about the krill stock, after all, the small animals are rather unsuitable for direct consumption. Greenpeace reports, however, that krill fishing threatens the sensitive Antarctic ecosystem.

Fish oil: what do experts recommend?

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The German Nutrition Society recommends in its ten rules for one balanced nutritioneating fatty sea fish once or twice a week to get enough omega-3 fatty acids. Also the Federal Center for Nutrition (BZfE) makes this recommendation. However, here you have the same sustainability problem as with fish oil.

The Federal Institute for Risk Assessment on the other hand believes that an adequate omega-3 intake is possible only from plant sources. These do not contain the crucial omega-3 fatty acids DHA and EPA, but alpha-linolenic acid. The body can partially convert the latter into DHA and EPA. If you take in about 1.3 grams of alpha-linolenic acid per day as an average adult, that should be enough. In any case, it is difficult to quantify the exact need for omega-3 fatty acids. Among other things, it depends very much on the amount Omega-6 fatty acids you pick up.

With these plant-based foods, you can meet your need for omega-3 fatty acids:

• linseed oil (According to the BZfE, one to two teaspoons cover your daily requirement of alpha-linolenic acid) or flaxseed
• Walnuts or walnut oil
• Rapeseed oil
• some types of algae

In addition, there are not only omega-3 preparations with fish oil, but also those based on algae. However, these are not really sustainable, as you can read here: Algae oil: the vegan alternative to fish oil? There are also products with added plant-based omega-3 fatty acids, such as margarine.

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