Most Fish Oil Is Already Rancid: How to Spot Quality Omega-3

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Most Fish Oil Is Already Rancid: How to Spot Quality Omega-3

Now keep in mind that a lot of the fish oil that you get off of the shelf, especially in your run of the mill supplement brands, is going to be rancid already before you even get it.

This is not a storage problem in your kitchen cabinet. The oil goes bad somewhere between the fish and the capsule, and by the time it reaches you the damage is already done.

Omega-3s are uniquely fragile, and the reason comes down to their chemical structure. A saturated fat is a chain of carbon atoms with hydrogen packed onto every available spot, so there is nothing for oxygen to grab onto. EPA and DHA, the two long chain omega-3s in fish oil, have five and six double bonds respectively, and every one of those double bonds is a weak point where oxygen can break in and start a chain reaction.

That reaction, once it starts, feeds itself, because one damaged fat molecule creates a free radical that damages the next one, which is why a bottle that sat on a warm shipping container for six weeks can be substantially degraded even though the capsule looks identical to a fresh one.

As it stands today, it's very difficult to find a high quality fish oil that has a COA with a respectable totox rating, which is a measurement that we use to see how fresh it is.

A COA is a certificate of analysis, which is a third party lab report on that specific batch. Totox stands for total oxidation, and it combines two separate numbers: peroxide value, which catches the early stage damage, and anisidine value, which catches the later stage breakdown products. The industry ceiling most reputable bodies use is 26, and plenty of shelf products test well above it because nobody is checking.

And because of that, I've had a hard time finding a supplier that can actually give me a fish oil that I'm willing to stand behind and put my logo on.

Some of the brands that you might want to look at, I've done Thorne, I know recently they underwent an acquisition that may potentially affect the quality of their products, so bear that in mind.

The other one that I would look to would be something like Pure Encapsulations, also another really great brand, but fish oil is spectacular to help manage your cholesterol, your brain function, performance, digestion, the list goes on, and the thing that's important to know is if you don't have fish as a regular part of your diet, you absolutely need to be doing the Omega 3s because your body has no way of getting it elsewhere. On the digestion point specifically, I cannot point you to a study that demonstrates it, so treat that as what I have seen rather than what the literature has established, and the same goes for the claim that the body has no other route to omega-3s, since the research hasn't cleanly answered how much conversion you get from plant sources.

Where the data is strong is the liver and the brain. In the PORTRAIT study, omega-3-acid ethyl ester lowered triglycerides and moved liver fat markers over 24 weeks in patients with fatty liver and high triglycerides, which is a direct measurement rather than a general claim about heart health (Sumida et al., 2024).

Evidence on the brain covers more ground. A systematic review in Cureus found consistent associations between omega-3 intake and cognitive function, mood regulation, and neural membrane integrity, which makes sense structurally because DHA makes up a large share of the fat in your brain cell membranes (Dighriri et al., 2022).

That structural role is the part people miss. Your brain builds its neurons out of EPA and DHA rather than burning them for energy, and the fluidity of every neuron membrane depends on having enough of the right fat available.

Given all that, the practical steps are simple. Open a capsule and smell it, and if it smells like fish it is oxidized, because fresh fish oil smells like almost nothing.

References:

Sumida Y, Toyoda H, Yasuda S et al.. Comparison of Efficacy between Pemafibrate and Omega-3-Acid Ethyl Ester in the Liver: the PORTRAIT Study. J Atheroscler Thromb. 2024. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38777770/

Dighriri IM, Alsubaie AM, Hakami FM et al.. Effects of Omega-3 Polyunsaturated Fatty Acids on Brain Functions: A Systematic Review. Cureus. 2022. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36381743/

Conti F, McCue JJ, DiTuro P et al.. Mitigating Traumatic Brain Injury: A Narrative Review of Supplementation and Dietary Protocols. Nutrients. 2024. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/39125311/