Today’s Good Morning America asked the question are fish oil supplements safe?
According to the report, a law suit has been filed because PCBs were found in the samples tested.
“The reason for the lawsuit is that people are being exposed to PCBs through these products and they’re not being told,” said David Roe, attorney for the plaintiff. Click here to visit the plaintiff’s Web site, FishOilSafety.com.
Roe filed suit against eight fish oil producers and retailers, including CVS, GNC, Omega Protein and Rite Aid.
For me the concern is not that PCBs are present,but at what level? For example, when we eat fish, we know we’re getting some level of impurities. We are told after-all that wild caught fish are the best for us, yet wild caught implies a lack of control over the environment. So, it does not surprise me at all that a fish, be it fillet or softgel, would have contaminants. My concern is are these contaminants at unhealthy levels?
To that end we look to the WHO (World health Organization) and to some degree the state of California. Why California? Because they actually have tougher standards than the WHO.
In this case, two brands – Now Foods and Nature Made, have some ‘splainin’ to do. While all brands tested did possess some level of impurity, Now Foods topped the list with over 70x the level of PCBs in two of their products than other popular brands Solgar and Twinlab. [Note - this is one issue I had with the GMA story. Instead of stating that Solgar had the lowest levels tested, they simply stated that Solgar did not respond in time. To me, this painted Solgar in an unfair light when in fact, they probably just didn't get a response over in time!]
It is important to note that NONE of the samples tested were above WHO standards for daily consumption. Two brands – Now Foods and Nature Made - did not meet California standards, however.
I am interested to see where this suit goes. I visited the plaintiff’s website and found it a bit alarming. Statements like “Consumers have the right to know what is really in fish oil!” and “Click Here to Sign the FishOilSafety.com petition now!” makes me wonder if this isn’t a not-so-veiled attempt at bolstering support for increased government regulation as opposed to a lawsuit filed due to real injury.
After seeing this report, I contacted several of my favorite fish oil brands including New Chapter (makers of the product I take called WholeMega and Reliance Vitamin (makers of our Vital Choice Healthstore brand). Both companies were able to produce third-party verification that their products meet, or exceed, California and WHO purity standards. (To see these, please stop into to Vital Choice Healthstore).
I believe in using supplements to fill the gaps in my diet. Countless studies have shown the benefits of eating fatty fish like salmon on a regular basis and that’s why I will continue to take fish oil supplements on a regular basis. For more information on GMA’s story, listen-in on my TV Week in Review Podcast.
How about you? What’s your reaction to this story?
I thought I’d share an email I received from Brian Tanzer, M.S. with Reliance Private Label Supplements. Reliance was not named in the lawsuit, but wanted to send along some info.
Greetings:
Hope all of you are doing well. By now some, or perhaps all of you, are aware of the recent Prop-65-based lawsuit against several supplement companies whose fish oil products were tested and found to contain high levels of PCB’s. I’m writing to you just to keep you informed, and provide you with accurate information should this be brought to your attention by retailers, customers, etc.
* The most important thing to keep in mind here, and that will be reinforced in the video clip from ABC News and the responses from Council for Responsible Nutrition and GOED (Global Organization for EPA and DHA), are that this is based on a lawsuit and not a “public safety concern”.
* The products in question are derived from the larger fish (cod, salmon, shark) which, as you know, being higher up on the food chain tend to accumulate more of these toxins to begin with. The selection of these particular products by the attorneys does not come as a surprise, as over 90% of the fish oil used in the industry is sourced from sardines and anchovies (smaller species which tend to accumulate much less toxins).
* For the majority of the products tested, the actual levels of PCB’s did not exceed the daily limit set forth by Prop 65 (90 ng/day). In addition, the acceptable levels of PCB’s the FDA allows for the fish we eat (2.0 parts per million-ppm) far exceeds the amounts found in fish oil supplements.
* The bottom line is we can’t allow a lawsuit such as this to take away from the thousands of published scientific research papers that demonstrate the safety and significant health benefits associated with fish oil. Please view the very short ABC clip below as well as the brief responses from CRN and GOED. Once you had a chance to do so, you’ll come to the same conclusions that I have. Thank you.
Hi Mike:
I really liked your statements on this subject. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if this wasn’t some undercover attempt at the govt trying to take control or just another greedy attorney capitalizing on this situation. I think that the best fish oil out there is Neptune krill oil. They only harvest a fraction of what they are allowed and because it is from arctic waters and they are so small they have no contaminants at all, another plus is that the components are already broke down and 100% absorbed as opposed to other fish oils. Thanks for a great article and keeping on top of things. Blessings and keep up the good work.
Thanks Don! Krill is a really good source. The main reason I haven’t moved to krill yet is the cost, well sort-of. I’m still a huge fan of unprocessed wild Alaskan salmon oil because when you get an unadulterated (aka not purified) product, you get a very digestible oil complete with 15 different essential fatty acids and other benefits like the antioxidant astazanthin and D3, but at a cheaper price than krill. Again, I think both are great options but lean towards salmon due to a little cost savings.
But like I said, from what I’ve seen, you definitely can’t go wrong with krill!
My concern is MERCURY, one of the benefits of processing seems to be that they can remove all the mercury (my Nature’s Bounty brand from Rite-Aid says it has zero mercury). Brands that tout they are UN-purified must then contain amounts of MERCURY, is that right?
That’s a very real concern and a great point. This is the primary reason why I took a purified fish oil for years.
To answer your question, technically speaking, I suppose a non-purified product would have some level of mercury, but it could be in the ppb (parts per billion) range or lower, and thus considered absolutely safe for human consumption. By the way, this could also be true for purified products. Similar to trans-fat labeling where a product can report 0 trans fats if below a certain threshold, but still actually contain trans fats, purified fish oil is the same. A company is required to report the amounts of mercury at a given threshold. If the product is below the threshold, they could report 0 detectable mercury even if a more detailed test was able to detect. This is exactly what the prop 65 case in California was about. The other example I could give is organic. I would much rather eat organic food even though it will contain a certain amount of impurities.
However, the major issue for me is third-party verification that the fish oil is pure. In a perfect world, I would get a whole fish oil product, that is, one that is as close to eating the fish as possible without any impurities, or processing for that matter. To that end, I’ve requested and received third-party verification from New Chapter that the non-purified WholeMega product is pure. For me the issue is if the manufacturer knows what fish they’re catching and where, and they can document the purity via third-party, I feel a non-purified product is essentially more natural than purified. However, there are many companies that troll the Atlantic and simply catch a variety of fish. In this case, purification is absolutely necessary.
With all this said, I see your point and completely understand your concern. I think we may be splitting hairs as studies have demonstrated both eating fish and taking purified fish oil can be beneficial to health. Thanks much for taking the time to comment!