Omega-3 fatty acids are called essential fatty acids because your body cannot manufacture them from other nutrients; you must obtain them from your diet.

The key health benefits:

• Omega-3 fatty acids can help keep your heart and blood vessels healthy. In doing so, they can reverse and prevent high blood pressure, as well as reduce your risk of suffering a stroke.
• Omega-3 fatty acids can decrease pain and inflammation throughout your body.
• Omega-3 fatty acids may help prevent breast and colon cancer.
• Omega-3 fatty acids can help reverse and prevent depression and other mental/emotional health challenges.

There are 3 types of omega 3 fatty acids:

• ALA (alpha linolenic acid) - Found in hemp seeds, flax seeds, walnuts, dark green leafy vegetables.
• EPA (eicosapentaenoic acid) - Found in cold water fish salmon, cod, mackeral and tuna
• DHA (docosahexaenoic acid) - Found in cold water fish salmon, cod, mackeral and tuna

ALA

Your body can convert ALA to EPA and DHA but, the way it does this is inadequate. Only consuming plant sources of essential fatty acids (i.e. ALA) means that the conversion process to the longer chain fats, DHA and EPA, will not be efficient therefore possibly requiring an additional source of omega 3 to maintain optimum intakes.

EPA

EPA omega-3 is another important essential fatty acid, although not nearly as important is DHA.

Although found in trace amounts in the brain, EPA does help improve brain function and health by maintaining a healthy blood flow and influencing hormones and the immune system. They are also important for infants, as they help in the development of the cardiac and circulatory system

DHA

DHA omega-3 is the most complex and beneficial fatty acid as far as the human body is concerned. It is essential for the growth and functional development of infants. Babies constantly collect DHA omega-3 in their brain for the first years of their life.

It's also required for maintenance of normal brain function in adults and is needed in high concentrations for providing optimal mental performance (cognitive and neurological function, learning ability, memory, focus, etc.).

Your body uses more DHA than EPA and can easily convert DHA into EPA when needed.

Conclusion

As DHA is the most important type of Omega 3, the best type of Omega 3 product should be higher in DHA than EPA.

We have sourced the finest Omega 3 products from around the world, for children and adults. All the omega 3 products we sell are batch tested to ensure purity and freshness. Purity is assessed by measuring the levels of heavy metals, PCB's and dioxins in the fish oil. The Xtend-life fish oil has extremely high anti-inflammatory properties as well as being one of the purist fish oils ever tested.