20 years ago I told all of my patients without exception to take fish oil. It has the right kind of anti-inflammatory fats that are getting scarce in our food.
But there’s a problem with using fish oil as a source of anti-inflammatory oil today.
Fish oil is increasingly polluted.
Surf the web and you’ll find dozens of stories about unsafe levels of industrial compounds, PCBs, and mercury in these oils. That includes lawsuits, customer reports and damning studies.
A few years ago, I read a study from a group of scientists that tested about 300 streams across the U.S. In those streams, 100% of the fish had mercury contamination.1 More than two thirds had more mercury than the Environmental Protection Agency says is safe.
To get around this problem, I went looking for other sources of these healthy anti-inflammatory fats.
a, Geneva, Sans-Serif; font-size: 14px; color: #000000; margin-bottom: 1em;">I discovered one source in squid oil.
It’s my favorite because this anti-inflammatory oil comes from sources that have not been exposed to pollution in the first place. The squid come from only the deepest, cleanest waters.
That’s very important because pollution doesn’t mix evenly in water. It stays close to the surface where many of the fish used in fish oils swim.
But I discovered a source of squid oil from squid that live deep off the clear waters of Argentina. They swim up to 1,600 feet below the surface. That’s five football fields deep, well BELOW the mercury, PCBs and toxins. This keeps them clean.
Maybe the best thing about squid oil is it’s such a potent source of anti-inflammatory fats.
Its high concentration of these fats gives you even more benefit for heart health and brain function than any fish oil ever could.
So when you’re looking for a pure, clean source of healthy fat in an anti-inflammatory oil, here are the things you need to know.
1) Check for any reports of pollutants from the source of your
anti-inflammatory oil.
As a rule of thumb, the bigger the fish it comes from, the more mercury and other heavy metals will be in there. A large fish that’s lived longer has had more time to accumulate high levels. The EPA finally has a database that lists the fish and toxic levels vary depending on the state and their standards. Go to http://water.epa.gov to check the advisories in your state.
For example, I added fish oil to my anti-inflammatory oil, and it’s from one of the last clean sources on the planet. It’s a species of pollock from the frozen Bearing Sea that the American Heart Association and even the FDA list as safe.3
2) Look for purity. There’s a difference between “safe” amounts of toxic metals and “none.”
Some products may be safe, but are they pure? My anti-inflammatory oil passed every EPA test with flying colors. But on top of that, it’s so clean and pure that our Consumerlab.com report found no heavy metals at all.
Not only are there no traces of mercury or heavy metal, there are no chemicals and no solvents.
And it’s cold-filtration process of purifying the healthy fat is so efficient that it packs even more anti-inflammatory fat. There’s 115% of what the label says.
3) Ask if there’s a COA. A Certificate of Analysis is a certified copy of the results after an independent evaluator tests a supplement. All reputable companies will have a COA for their products – as I have – and they should be willing to prove their product is pure.
4) Don’t be afraid to ask questions. Rely on companies you trust. Many “big name” supplements are made from the same cheap, synthetic and possibly polluted ingredients in the “no-name” supplements.
Also, stay tuned because soon I’m going to tell you even more about another alternative anti-inflammatory oil that I use, krill oil, and how you can mix squid oil, fish oil and krill oil together for even greater effect.
Turns out, krill oil gives the healthy fats in squid oil VIP access to every cell… fast.
It’s complete healing on a scale you’ve never seen.
To Your Good Health,
Al Sears, MD
1. Gorman S. “Mercury Tainted Fish Found Widely in U.S. Streams.” Reuters. reuters.com. Retrieved Nov. 11, 2013.
2. “Fish 101.” American Heart Association. heart.org. Mar 20 2013. Retrieved Apr 10, 2014.
3. “Fresh and Frozen Seafood: Selecting and Serving it safely.” U.S. Food and Drug Administration, fda.gov. Updated October 31 2013.
