Torwen:
And welcome back to the Ideal Nutrition Podcast. My name is Torwen Eerkens, and I’m here with my co-host, Aidan Muir. On today’s episode, we are going to do a bit of a dive into omega-3s. We are going through eight things we think are worth knowing. So, as a little bit of background, omega-3s are a type of fatty acid that are deemed essential. So, they have to be obtained through the diet.
Aidan:
I like the idea of us doing eight things worth knowing. It means we’re not doing a comprehensive episode covering absolutely everything. But if you’re interested in omega-3s and not an absolute expert, you’ll learn some things worth knowing.
The first thing I’m going to start off with is that there are different types of omega-3. We have ALA, which is found in plants. We also have EPA and DHA, which are found in marine sources. Most of the health benefits are far more associated with EPA and DHA.
Even between those two, there are some differences, which we won’t go too deep into just yet. Your body converts ALA to EPA and DHA, but it does so relatively poorly. It is under about a ten percent conversion. That’s often why fish and algae sources are often considered to be quote unquote better.
Torwen:
Number two then, plant versus animal-based options. What foods is omega-3 actually found in? Animal-based, we’ve got things like fatty fish, salmon, mackerel, sardines and herring. They are your gold standard. We’ve also got things like oysters and mussels. Liver and organ meats can have small amounts as well.
Plant-based options then, we’re looking more at things like flaxseed and flaxseed oil as the gold standard. Also walnuts, chia seeds, hemp seeds and canola oil.
Aidan:
Adding context to some of those, I got up a chart. It’s hard to visually do this, but 100g of salmon has around 2g of omega-3 on average. If you’re thinking about how this converts to supplementation sources, there is a complicated thing there. When I say 2g of omega-3, if you were thinking 2g of fish oil, it comes out higher than that.
One gram of standard fish oil might have 400, 500 or maybe 600mg of EPA and DHA. Whereas the rest might be marine triglycerides. So 2g of omega-3 is higher than 2g of fish oil, right? But then similarly for those plant-based sources, if you’re talking flaxseeds and stuff like that. A lot of those plant-based sources have about 1-2g per 100g as well. But obviously we have that conversion stuff.
Then the last one for plant versus animal-based ones is algae. Algae is one of the initial sources of omega-3 in the food chain. Fish accumulate omega-3 by eating algae or through the food chain. Smaller fish get eaten by bigger fish. Somewhere through there, that algae has contained EPA and DHA, which is what we’re looking for. So, the bioavailability of omega-3 in algae is similar to fish.
Torwen:
And that’s a big deal because it means you can go directly to the source. Especially if you’re a vegan, that means you can bypass any fish-based supplements or foods. You can have something that is directly EPA and DHA in the form of a supplement.
Aidan:
Something that’s become more well-known recently is the omega-3 index. This has been around for quite some time. And I do think it’s gaining more and more popularity now. You can test your own omega-3 status by using an omega-3 index testing kit. It’s often categorising stuff into low, medium and great status. Low status is where less than four percent of the fatty acids in your blood is omega-3. Medium is four to eight, and then great is greater than eight percent.
I do have mild caution around some of those ranges. It does make it seem like the higher you go, the better. I’m sure there would be a line somewhere. The majority of people will come out low on this testing as well. There’s a lot of data on elite athletes showing this. If you just test an elite sporting team, most of them come out low. So it’s worth knowing. If you were interested in this, you can purchase it online. In Australia, we’ve got i-screen and Pillar Performance, among other places as well.
Torwen:
And just having a bit of context, the reason we look specifically at the red blood cells is because it reflects dietary intake. It reflects intake roughly over the past three to four months. This is similar to how we would look at your average blood glucose. We would test HbA1c. It gives a pretty meaningful average picture of your omega-3 status. It is not just a specific number in the blood or something like that.
Cool. The fourth one then is its evidence for reducing triglycerides. Omega-3s have over time been proven to be quite beneficial for heart health. Increases in circulating EPA and DHA are associated with reducing triglyceride levels. They are also associated with reducing the risk of cardiovascular events.
A little caveat is that it does appear to be dose-dependent to some extent. A study looked at omega-3 supplementation specifically in those with moderate hypertriglyceridaemia. Well, that’s a mouthful. It found that those on 3.4g of combined EPA and DHA had significantly lower levels of triglycerides. Whereas a smaller dose of 0.85g didn’t actually make a statistically significant difference.
Aidan:
And that’s super high. If you go back to what I said about how much EPA and DHA combined is in fish, that’s a lot. I’m not going to do the maths, but it’s 10 fish oil capsules or something like that. That’s quite high.
Another very compelling study I’ve seen in this space was a big review. They basically got people who’d already had some form of cardiovascular event. They were on statins, so they previously would have had high LDL cholesterol. But statins don’t reduce triglycerides noticeably. So they gave them high-dose omega-3. It’s kind of the most niche scenario. This is setting things up the best for omega-3 to help.
And they used 4g of EPA, which is incredibly high. I assume in the majority of countries it would be prescription only as well. It’s hard to access. But they did use that, and there was a pretty significant drop-off in secondary events. That means people having another cardiovascular event. I know that gets quite niche. But it is interesting to think there are some pretty clear applications for how this can be used too.
Torwen:
Number five, then, is the evidence on inflammation and joint pain. In this sense, it makes sense that omega-3s should help reduce this. This is because of their role in reducing inflammation. There’s a pretty solid 2025 meta-analysis that looked at 41 randomised controlled trials. It covered 3,800 participants across a range of conditions.
Omega-3 fatty acids showed a pretty moderate but statistically significant reduction in pain intensity. This was at both one month and two months. It was for people with things like rheumatoid arthritis, migraines and mixed chronic pain. But not so much for osteoarthritis. Again, the dose here was typically around 1-3g per day.
Aidan:
Omega-3 is linked with better mental health, as well as improved cognitive function. It’s still just one factor in these things, but it is a nice bonus. I’m always cautious when it comes to anything mental health related. I don’t want to ever be like, omega-3 helps heaps. It’s just one piece of the puzzle, and there are many, many pieces. But omega-3 is linked with better mental health as well.
Torwen:
In terms of supplements, we’ve kind of already gone through a few of these things. But fish oil, looking for EPA and DHA of around 500-1000mg combined makes sense. Or 1-3g of fish oil makes sense. Algae oil, like we’ve mentioned, is the same. Just make sure there’s a decent combination of EPA and DHA in there.
Aidan:
Being specific on supplements, I often recommend triple-strength fish oil. It just makes it easier to get to that target. A lot of people aren’t super keen on having heaps and heaps of capsules. Many triple-strength options get there through two ways. One is they reduce the marine triglyceride and increase the EPA and DHA. The other thing they often do is increase the size of the capsule. It might be 1.5 times the size to get it in.
We will talk about oxidation as well. I do believe this has gotten a lot better over the last decade. But some independent testing reports 10-30% of omega-3 supplements in stores are already oxidised by the time they’re purchased. In the show notes, I have included a study that looked a little bit worse from memory. It was 11-67%. But that study was from about 10 years ago. I actually do believe it’s gotten a lot better. If you watched the news over that time frame, you would have seen this come up. So, big improvement.
The obvious question, and I actually just don’t want to name brands, right? The obvious question is: how do you reduce this risk? There are a few things I reckon you can do. The first one is buying from reputable brands. Specifically, not the cheapest. Looking deep into this, I have seen a lot of people say to look for ones that promote this score.
I think it’s TOTOX or something like that. I can’t remember the exact name of it. I looked at a lot of omega-3 brands. A lot of reputable brands don’t even list that. But there are many that are third-party tested and stuff like that. So I would do that.
The reason why I say reputable brands is if a reputable company is putting a lot of effort into this. They know they’re one negative review away from a lot of trouble. That’s my own two cents. You can take that or leave that. That’s only one variable, right?
The second thing is ideally don’t go past the expiry dates. This is a pretty simple one. But ideally, don’t keep them for too long. You could also make another argument for buying smaller containers rather than buying in bulk. You can also make another argument for being consistent with taking them as well. That way, you actually use up the big tubs in time.
I’m very consistent with the majority of things I do in life. But I remember when I was younger, I previously bought in bulk. Then I was inconsistent with fish oil. Then I learned about this oxidation thing. I was like, that kind of sucks now, doesn’t it?
Torwen:
Rancid fish oil is not something that you want to be taking.
Aidan:
No, exactly right. You won’t even know because it’s in the capsule, right? Storing them in cool environments obviously makes sense as well. Another interesting one, and I haven’t looked too deep into products that contain this. But products that also contain vitamin E tend to last longer as well. There are a few more things on the list. But I would definitely start with those things because that helps the most.
Torwen:
Number eight then, is how to get enough through food as a baseline. Ideally, if you can eat fish, aiming for two to three serves of fatty fish per week helps. That normally can cover that baseline omega-3 intake. Again, going back to plant-based diets, you can get omega-3 through food sources that we mentioned before. But it’s not in that version, or that EPA and DHA that we would like. Your body struggles to convert that. So it makes sense to supplement in that case.
Aidan:
Absolutely. And then that two to three fatty fish per week kind of thing. It’s also why I gave the context before about 100g of salmon. That will have around 2g of omega-3 in it. Not fish oil, sorry, omega-3. Just say somebody had 150g or 200g, you can see it gets quite high. You do that two to three times per week. It’s very similar to supplementing as well.
Other thoughts. I don’t know if I have heaps here. This is the last thing I’ve got. I just think it’s worth addressing omega-3 if you haven’t already. It can be an easy win in so many cases. You could do it either through food or supplementation. I go back to that elite sporting thing. And clearly, you can be an incredible athlete with not a great omega-3 status. But we also have all this evidence that it’ll just help a little bit. So it’s one of the easiest wins out there.
Using the elite sporting team example, even at that level, you did that across an entire team. You get everyone to have good omega-3 status. That’s just a small improvement for everybody across the team. Using that example, I think the majority of people would benefit from this as well.
Torwen:
My only other thought was that we know fatty fish can be quite expensive. This is why supplementation is a good option if that’s something you would like to consider. So we’ll wrap it up there then.
Aidan:
Yeah, absolutely. Well, this has been episode 259 of the Ideal Nutrition Podcast. As always, if you haven’t already, please leave a rating and review. That would be massively appreciated.