Molecularly Distilled Fish Oil

By Author: Muddassir Malik
Total Articles: 42
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There are literally hundreds of fish oils available to take; some of them claim to be higher quality than others. Generally these oils claim to be pharmaceutical grade, or molecularly distilled. Are they really worth the money?

Fish oil, obviously, comes from fish, and the one of the main reasons that people take fish oil as opposed to eating the fish directly is because of the contaminants contained in fish. Due to our own pollution in the oceans, there are many species of fish containing high levels of mercury or PCBs. We want to avoid these pollutants, hence the oil, and we also want to make sure that these pollutants are not present in the oil.

This is where molecular distillation comes in, this is a real process which converts the oil into an ethyl ester. This is done in a vacuum chamber at a high temperature, but below the oil's boiling point. The oils components are separated by weight, and the unwanted components of the oil are reduced as much as possible. 100% purification is not possible, but levels of .0005 ppm (parts per million) are possible. Using distillation, one can also increase the presence of ...
... EPA and DHA in the oil. One disadvantage is that the natural triglyceride form of the oil is changed.

In terms of solvents for the distillation process, some companies may use hexane while others will use ethanol.

There are other ways to purify fish oil, for example some companies use CO2 distillation. This process is used to concentrate Omega-3 fatty acids at 95 °F to 120 °F - much lower than that of molecular distillation.

There are high quality fish oils that are not molecularly distilled, for example Vital Choice Salmon Oil being one of them, the reason this works is that Alaskan Salmon is extremely pure and does not face contamination problems as do other sources of fish.

In summary, you do want to make sure your fish oil has a very low level of contaminants. Molecular distillation is one such way to reduce contaminants, and CO2 distillation is another method. If you do choose an unrefined fish oil, go with one where the fish is low in the food chain and from a pristine environment.
To learn more about High Quality Fish Oil and especially especially about Fish Oil for Kids, please visit Pharmaceutical Grade Fish Oil.