Rancid Fish Oil Caplets – Quality Control Is The Issue by Laurel Cohen

Let’s face it. With the popularity of DHA omega 3 fatty acid dietary supplements growing, many people are experiencing the effects of rancid fish oil caplets. More and more nutritional supplement companies are jumping on the omega 3 bandwagon all the time, and with so many sources out there it leads to quality control problems in some cases. There is no official body that regulates the quality of these nutritional products.

There are groups out there that provide quality standards to the companies that produce DHA omega 3 fatty acid supplements, but they don’t actually have any power to enforce them. The International Fish Oil Standards, Council for Responsible Nutrition, European Pharmacopeia, and Norwegian Medicinal Standard merely offer suggestions. It is up to the company manufacturing the products to meet these standards or not.

So far as purity goes, there is a lot to be desired from some of the supplement companies out there, and toxins in the product are a more a bigger threat to you than rancid fish oil caplets. Independent testing has found that many brands of fish oil contain high levels of toxins, and several companies are being sued by a California environmental group for having excessive amounts of PCBs.

Due to the number of natural and manmade contaminants currently in our oceans, rivers, lakes, and streams the fatty fish from which oil is obtained accumulate extremely high levels of toxins. Your fish oil product must go through both a proprietary purification process and molecular distillation if the mercury, lead, cadmium, nickel, dioxins, furans, PCBs, and other contaminants are to be thoroughly removed.

There is no excuse for purity issues when it comes to you omega 3 fatty acid supplements, as it is the responsibility of the manufacturer to remove anything from the product that could possibly harm the user. Still you get some manufacturers that simply don’t care. Where contamination is the result of poor purification efforts, rancid fish oil caplets is the direct result of careless handling.

Freshness is tremendously important when it comes to fish oil, because oil that has become oxidized is loaded with harmful free radicals. What free radicals do is steal the electrons from chemical structures through out the body, which leads to these structures’ decomposition. Free radical damage is said to be the number one cause of what causes our bodies to break down as we age.

In order for a company to avoid selling you rancid fish oil caplets very strict protocols have to be followed in all stages of manufacture. Prior to encapsulation the oil must be stored in nitrogen cooled containers, and maintained at roughly two degrees Celsius. Once the oil is encapsulated it is perfectly safe to ship, but I would still recommend keeping the capsules in the freezer when you get them home.

Oh well. Storing omega 3 fatty acid caplets in the freezer may seem like a bit of overkill, and maybe it is. I would rather be safe than sorry when faced with the negative aspects of rancid fish oil caplets.