Should you take fish oil supplements? The news can sometimes be confusing: fish oils are great for you, but fish itself can be contaminated. What gives? - News and notes: latest research, interviews, product reviews, tips, & trends - Brief Article

Natural Health, August, 2002

THE OMEGA-3 FATTY ACIDS IN FISH oil supplements prevent heart disease, improve the prenatal health of babies, and reduce postpartum depression, proclaim several recent reports. In light of these findings, some experts recommend taking these supplements daily. Yet this pro-fish-oil stance seems to contradict some anti-fish messages: The EPA warns against eating certain types of fish that contain high levels of mercury and dioxins more than once a month, and it says that women who ate pregnant should avoid these fish completely. Mercury is linked to neurological damage in children and heart problems in adults, and dioxins are known to cause cancer. So should you worry that the same pollutants are in fish oil supplements?

No, say experts. That's because most fish oil supplements come from small fish called menhaden, which don't accumulate dangerous levels of mercury of dioxins, explains Anthony Bimbo, a Kilmamock, Va.-based independent seafood industry technical consultant. Supplements ate also made from other fish, which could contain contaminants (the FDA doesn't check capsules and only infrequently monitors raw fish oil), but a multistep refining process removes most impurities, including heavy metals like mercury.

But if you're pregnant, you should avoid cod liver oil supplements, says Joyce Nettleton, Sc.D., R.D., a nutrition consultant in Aurora, Colo. Cod liver oil has high levels of vitamin A, and pregnant women who take more than 5,000 IU of vitamin A a day risk having babies with birth defects.

Standard fish oil supplement doses ate 800 to 1,000 mg daily; ask your doctor for the right dosage for you.