http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2012/11/05/fish-oil-benefits.aspx
Why Animal-Based Omega-3s are Essential
Dietary fish and marine
oil supplements such as krill oil are a direct source of EPA and DHA. Plants,
on the other hand, contain the parent omega-3, alpha-linolenic acid (ALA),
which can be converted into EPA and DHA. However, this conversion is
ineffective in general, and appears to get progressively more ineffective with
age.
The conversion of ALA to EPA
and DHA is typically severely impaired by inhibition of delta 6 desaturase, an
enzyme necessary for the conversion. Elevated insulin levels impair this
enzyme, and over 80 percent of the U.S. population has elevated insulin levels,
so chances are high that you'll be part of this significant majority... Therefore,
you want to make sure you get the bulk of your omega-3 from animal
sources, not plant sources, to make sure you won't develop a deficiency.
In fact, omega-3
deficiency is likely the sixth biggest killer of Americans, and may be a
significant underlying factor in up to 96,000 premature deaths each year.
I prefer krill oil compared
to all other animal-based omega-3's because while the metabolic effects of
krill oil and fish oil are "essentially similar," krill oil is as
effective as fish oil despite the fact that it contains less EPA and
DHA.8
This is because krill oil is absorbed up to 10-15 times as well as fish oil due
to its molecular composition (Its EPA and DHA fatty acid chains are
phospholipid bound), and is less prone to oxidation (rancidity) because it is
naturally complexed with the potent fat-soluble antioxidant astaxanthin.
Fish oil is in a triglyceride
molecule that has to be broken down in your gut to its base fatty acids of DHA
and EPA. About 80-85 percent is never absorbed and is eliminated in your
intestine (this is why fish oil can cause you to experience burp back and why
about half of all people cannot tolerate fish oil). Then once the fatty acids
are absorbed into your bloodstream, your liver has to attach it to
phoshphatidyl choline for it to be used by your body.
The beauty of krill is that
all of it is in the correct form in the original pill, so your body
uses virtually 100 percent of it. As a result, most people only need two
to three 500-mg capsules of krill oil per day (each capsule typically
contains about 50 mg of DHA and 90 mg of EPA) to support optimal brain, and
overall, health.
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