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Tests find many popular omega 3 supplements are rancid
- s0rce 3y agoOlive oil is also frequently rancid. I frequently find packaged nuts and trail mix routinely rancid.
- zactato 3y agoSesame oil is the worst. It has a shelf-life of a week or two.
- adasdasdas 3y agoWhat kind of sesame oil are you getting...
- CreepGin 3y agoI think unopened sesame oil can have years of shelf-life. I certainly never had a problem with the smell and we use sesame oil quite a bit in our household.
- etrautmann 3y agoSame for me - I’m quite sensitive to rancid oil and have never experienced an issue with any brand of sesame oil kept unrefrigerated for a long period of time.
- tomjakubowski 3y agoI've been using the same bottle of toasted sesame oil for at least two years now with no ill effects
- chriskanan 3y agoRefrigerate it and the shelf life after opening increases greatly.
- specialist 3y agoI now taste test most everything. One challenge is not knowing how something should taste. I once got harvest fresh olive oil (as a gift). Wow! Total game changer. ~TLDR~ FYI: The good stuff should make you cough a little bit after you swallow it.
- reciprocity 3y agoThree sentences with a "tl;dr" at the end?
- samtho 3y agoAttentions spans are getting very… wait what was I doing?
- amenhotep 3y agoAlso the tldr is new information not a summary of or even present in the ostensibly too long text!
- SkyPuncher 3y agoI don’t think that’s uncommon.
- mkoubaa 3y agoIf you're in the US, I recommend the terra delyssa brand for olive oil (many grocery stores carry it)
- colechristensen 3y agoI’d rather recommended only buying bottles of olive oil with printed harvest dates on the bottle within the last year. It’s absurd that stores are selling two year old oil. There’s a real problem with grocery stores having too many options for a single product and then most of the product on the shelves is unacceptably old. See also: coffee. We could have better food with fewer preservatives and less processing if the supply chain would pay attention to this problem.
- etrautmann 3y agoIt’s absurd that most coffee, even high end beans, is sold with only a use by date (often a year or more after roasting).
- plorkyeran 3y agoIf you buy directly from a roaster they'll always tell you the roasting date, but most supermarkets actively forbid them from putting that on the bags sold there.
- mgarfias 3y agoI solve for this by roasting my own
- bjoli 3y agoRapeseed oil is what I use. It can be kept in the fridge, and from what I manage to read online there are no real benefits of olive oil over it except maybe taste and vitamin e content, and people claiming otherwise seem to never really be able to back up their claims. It works just as well except when you want the taste of olive oil. I find it superior when I stir fry things since the smoke point is higher.
- tyleo 3y agoI hate that the actual paper is behind a huge ($100+) paywall and the article doesn’t call out any brands. I take an Omega 3 supplement and want to know if mine is rancid :p
- babyshake 3y agoSame here. Assuming this is the case for fish oil capsules, even though you don't really taste the supplement itself?
- tyleo 3y agoThe article specifically says < 15% rate of rancidity for pills which looks like it includes capsules since the only other category they call out is flavored supplements.
- thelastparadise 3y agoIt probably is.
- tyleo 3y agoI use unflavored pills. The article says those are rancid at a rate of < 15% so probably not.
- brutusborn 3y agoI don’t think they’d want to name and shame as that attracts litigation.
- EpiMath 3y ago$62 to access the paper
- DoreenMichele 3y agoThe researchers found a total of 45% of flavored and unflavored supplements tested positive for rancidity, with 32% of flavored supplements testing positive and 13% of unflavored pills. The above math looks wonky to me but fits with the TLDR at the end of the piece: Both Frame and Hands suggest exercising caution with flavored fish oil supplements at this point due to the uncertainty of how the flavoring may affect their freshness and, thus, any potential health benefits.
- tyleo 3y agoI feel like this is an example of reporting on a paper misunderstanding some of the details. Specifically that probabilities can’t simply be added together.
- justinclift 3y agoMay not have been a human writing it. :/
- xwdv 3y agoIt’s probably best to take your omega 3 in liquid form rather than capsules.
- riffic 3y agobest is from dietary sources.
- xwdv 3y agoYou have any idea how much salmon you’d have to eat? Supplements are more concentrated.
- riffic 3y agoeat your greens
- nomel 3y agoOne cup of Kale provides a 121 mg of omega-3 fatty acids. I would need 13 cups a day. The recommendation should be "eat your nuts and legumes", if you want to stay away from meat.
- xwdv 3y agoVegetables are an inefficient delivery mechanism for most nutrients, you have to eat huge quantities to meet quotas. I don’t see the point of them.
- DoreenMichele 3y agoThat's news to me. I previously heard flax seed and walnuts were the only good vegeterian sources of omega 3. A quick search agrees that greens, like spinach, broccoli and cabbage, do contain small quantities of omega 3. I'm having trouble getting a clear idea here of how helpful they are in comparison to the standard recommendation of fish oil. Anyone have any good sources of info on how to get enough omega three from vegetarian sources?
- ramesh31 3y agoSupplements are easily the biggest single scam against consumers in existence. Just walked out of a CVS where I saw a large bottle of Vitamin C pills for $42. That's easily a 10,000% markup or more on the raw ascorbic acid in those pills. Not to even mention the lack of health benefits.
- tyleo 3y agoI don’t know. I buy caffeine pills, whey powder, and a few other supplements. They are certainly marked up but simultaneously the nest efficient way to get caffeine, protein, etc per dollar.
- teaearlgraycold 3y agoGotta have my creatine
- fragmede 3y agoYou think that's bad, just wait till you hear about bottled water! Or maybe it's a convenience thing and that's worth something to some people.
- TylerE 3y agoDo people really not get that you’re paying for the shipping, not the water?
- ryanklee 3y agoDepends on the supplement.
- mmh0000 3y ago> "Just walked out of a CVS" Well, there's your problem. CVS and Walgreens are the two best places to go if you don't care about your money. Otherwise, at a grocer, Walmart, or Amazon, a bottle of a decent brand of VitC can be had for $7.5.
- Overtonwindow 3y ago
- kleton 3y agoAbstract doesn't mention anything about tocopherols (vitamin e) that is frequently added to these oils as an antioxidant. Would these be expected to be effective at scavenging oxygen from the capsules?
- terr-dav 3y ago> The researchers found a total of 45% of flavored and unflavored supplements tested positive for rancidity, with 32% of flavored supplements testing positive and 13% of unflavored pills. They added percentages of two separate groups to get the total rate of rancidity. Seems like the overall rate of rancidness is roughly 1/4, not 45%. Makes me think either 1) this was not written by a human or 2) the human who wrote this made a pretty egregious error. Overall takeaway is: don't buy flavored omega-3 supplements.
- dsugarman 3y agoFrom the actual paper, it looks like what they did was worse than just adding the two and the article is nonsensical >Overall, our results revealed that 68% (23/34) of flavored and 13% (5/38) unflavored consumer Ω3 supplements exceeded the TOTOX upper limit set by the Global Organization for EPA and DHA (GOED) voluntary monograph standard of ≤ 26, with 65% (22/34) flavored supplements and 32% (12/38) unflavored supplements failing the PV upper limit of ≤ 5 and 62% (21/34) flavored supplements exceeding the p-AV upper limit of ≤ 20.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- MaintenanceMode 3y agoThat’s so gross. Ick. Great finding. I’ve actually wondered about this in the past.
- caiomassan 3y agoon the peter attia podcast, rhonda patrick said omega 3 should be on the fridge. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zkp0DRUQ33g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zkp0DRUQ33g
- specialist 3y agoUpvoted. I've been doing this. Glad to be validated. (Also, Dr Patrick is the best.)
- somedude895 3y agoI keep them in the freezer and haven't had a fish oil burp since.
- mckirk 3y agoIf you are in the EU, I can wholeheartedly recommend omega3zone[1]. Their fish oil actually tastes pretty nice and absolutely not like fish, keeps in the fridge for quite a while and has insane concentrations of the 'good stuff' (EPA and DHA in triglyceride-form). It is admittedly expensive (though you can dose it way lower than they recommend, given how concentrated it is), but to me it's worth it. [1]: https://omega3zone.de/products/omega-3-fischol-500ml https://omega3zone.de/products/omega-3-fischol-500ml
- ClassyJacket 3y agoWorth it why? What does it do?
- elhudy 3y agoDoes anyone here have access to the list of rancid brands and can they post it?
- tourmalinetaco 3y agoIt’s majority flavored are rancid, so just go unflavored and you have an 87% chance of being fine.
- lacrimacida 3y agoJust curious. Are the rancid ones bad for ones health or ineffective in any way?
- Insanity 3y agoSeems like the claim is they are less effective but not actively harmful. But don’t have access to the full paper.
- water-data-dude 3y agoI’ve read in a few places that it’s bad for you, but I’ve not done a deep dive and formed an “I’m confident” level of knowledge. The wikipedia article suggests that it might be bad, but there’s not a lot of research on it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rancidification#Food_safety https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rancidification#Food_safety
- pengaru 3y agoJust eat canned sardines in water, drink the juice. It's an excellent source of omega-3s and protein.
- colordrops 3y agoSardines can have a lot of arsenic. Also, for those of us that are vegan, they are not an option.
- grooverider 3y agoNote, even the "good" brand can go rancid if you don't take care of your stash. I highly recommend cutting one open for a smell test if you're unsure. Also, if you're getting gross burps, your batch may be bad. I've used Aqua Omega (unaffiliated) with great success for years.
- Overtonwindow 3y agoDietary supplements in America are very loosely regulated. The law that governs this is the Dietary Health Supplements Act. Tl;dr DSHEA classified dietary supplements as a food or food product which the FDA classifies as "generally recognized as safe." (GRAS) It also said that so long as a manufacturer is using a vitamin, mineral, or dietary substance that was available before 1994 then are ok to manufacturer and it would be considered safe (GRAS.) There are additional requirements about manufacturing processes available before and after that date but that is the gist. The problem with this law is that supplements are not required to undergo any kind of testing or validation. If a dietary supplement causes a problem, the FDA does not really have the authority to order a recall. Instead it has to depend on the Federal Trade Commission, which can order a recall and levy sanctions due to mislabeling. Anyone can manufacture and sell a dietary supplements and sell them to anyone, there are no age restrictions. It's something that IMO needs greater oversight. DSHEA: https://ods.od.nih.gov/About/DSHEA_Wording.aspx https://ods.od.nih.gov/About/DSHEA_Wording.aspx General Recognized as Safe: https://ask.usda.gov/s/article/What-are-Generally-Recognized-As-Safe-Additives https://ask.usda.gov/s/article/What-are-Generally-Recognized... FTC and FDA: https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/speeches/ftc-dietary-supplements https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/speeches/ftc-dietary-su... Congressional Research Service, 2021: "Regulation of Dietary Supplements" https://sgp.fas.org/crs/misc/R43062.pdf https://sgp.fas.org/crs/misc/R43062.pdf
- curious_soul 3y agoSlightly off-topic, but does anyone here notice a positive difference from omega 3 supplementation?
- TjZkxkxeky 3y agoI haven't died of cardiovascular disease this week!
- mgarfias 3y agoSo I was prescribed vascepa to lower my triglycerides. They’re now low enough that I was taken off them. But I’ve also significantly cut down on the calories I’ve been eating.
- oarfish 3y agoAnother reason to avoid random supplements. Most people don't benefit from Omega supplementation. Add the risk of contamination and increased chance of afib ... the supplement industry really has successfully brainwashed the public into ingesting all kinds of substances without clinically validates effect.
- mgarfias 3y agoWhat is this risk of afib you talk about?