Krill Oil vs. Fish Oil

http://www.krill-oil-benefits.com/krill-oil.php

Alex,
I thought this was very interesting and I wanted your opinion. What do you think about cutting out fish oil totally and going with just krill? It looks like a far superior source of Omega 3's without all of the Omega 6's. The only downside that I see is the price.

Dave

Oh yea, no doubt that Krill Oil is great stuff. As of right now you only have ONE COMPANY IN THE WORLD, making the stuff, and that is Neptune and the brand name NKO. But as of this Summer a new company is coming out with their own version of krill oil. Thus I am going to attempt to do two things.

1) make a liquid capsule using krill oil or
2) just get the gels.

Granted this all depends on price because if they charge me an arm and a leg than whats the point. Its coming from European company and the dollar is low right now so I dont see it costing more than NKO and once they come online this creates competition so of course NKO will lower their price, they have no choice.

What do you think of this?

http://www.omega-research.com/resear...st.php?keyword

Having read the full of this, it seems pretty valid; High DHA fish oil seems like a better, and more economical alternative to krill oil. Thoughts?

Take a look at the bottom of that page. See who it is "sponsored by" Nordic Naturals. They are a big time FISH oil manufacturer. So what do they do. They buy a website URL. In this case its called "omega-research" .com. Then they SEO the shit out of the website so it ranks high up in the google search engine so people can find it.

They then make it an "information" looking website, and sprinkle in negative things about krill oil.

Bottom line, its a huge fish oil company thats hiding behind a curtain.

Thus I dismiss everything on this website.

Haven't we all? The OP linked directly to a company site. Has he been had, too? Have you actually seen personal benefit from krill oil vs a good fish oil? Good fish oil meaning one with around a 2DHA:1EPA ratio. It's like that's the only way to tell these days. So many people cite "studies" that may or may not be valid.

I've taken both fish and krill and the results were "who the hell knows". I mix up my supplements. Im using Krill right now.

Originally Posted by AlexRogers

I've taken both fish and krill and the results were "who the hell knows". I mix up my supplements. Im using Krill right now.

Hah. That sounds about right. I tend to be suspicious of supplements proportionally to the amount of hype that surrounds them. Even if there are testimonials, I always look for a cheaper alternative. You know how that started? One time I bought "100 dollars worth" of Biotest products. In other words, I bought some creatine, 2 pounds of a whey/casien blend, a freeze dried fruit supp, and some ZMA. Hahahahahahaha. Come a long way eh?

Anyway, I went over to the company link the OP provided, and I think the truth is somewhere in the middle. I don't think either is "better", just different. Fish oil is a much more economical source of omega 3s. Even if that blurb about absorption rate of krill being a little under double isn't TOTAL BULLSHIT, fish oil is generally about half the price of krill for much larger doses. So, about 3 times cheaper minimum, even when comparing to your krill (which is the cheapest I've come across).

On the other hand, it does appear that there are some valid claims about astaxanthin and phospholipids. Thing is, krill oil isn't a very cheap source of those, either. I'm not like, forbidden to link to other stores to give examples, am I? Some sites nuke my posts for that.

http://www.iherb.com/Jarrow-Formulas...sules/280?at=1

http://www.iherb.com/Nutrex-BioAstin...Caps/5929?at=0

From what I'm reading on the product testimonials and everything else taken into account, those should give all the extra benefits of krill oil.

And this should be alot better for men than most high epa fish oil (cause it's high DHA):
http://www.iherb.com/Max-DHA-Liquid-...6-oz/4255?at=0
That's the best value till it goes off sale.
http://www.iherb.com/Now-Foods-DHA-5...els/10713?at=0
That's the best value afterwards. I think it might not be as good a product, though, unless you only want EPA and DHA. The other one has "DPA", which is unexplored territory, but all signs point to it being beneficial like DHA (the important one), since it's about as long a chain as DHA.

Here comes the math, since I was curious how accurate my statement was.

Krill is about 22 cents per 500mg pill. In that pill there's .75 mg astaxanthin, 120mg of omega 3s (more epa than dha), and 163mg of Phosphatidylcholine, or PC.

I looked for an even cheaper source of phospholipids than what I had posted earlier and I found it. It's not as high in "phosphatidyl serine", but krill doesn't have that anyway.
http://www.iherb.com/Phosphatidyl-Ch...Gels/8518?at=0
Less than 10 cents per serving, 400mg of the primary phospholipid in krill per serving, or about 2 times more per cap than krill.

http://www.iherb.com/Nutrex-BioAstin...Caps/5929?at=0
closer to 20 cents per serving, but for about 4.5 times the amount in krill per serving. So krill has 5 cents worth of asta and some 5 cents worth of phospa per pill so far.

The fish oil I'm using is the jarrow max DHA listed above. It's about 22 cents for a serving that is close to 20 times the amount of omega 3s in a capsule of krill oil (2375 mg vs 120 mg) . That would mean that the omega 3s in krill oil are 1.1 cents worth. If they actually do absorb twice as well as fish oil's, which could easily be horseshit, but might not be, then that brings the worth of them up from 1.1 cents per pill to about 2.2 cents per pill.

So you add together the costs of what you can get from other supplements to pretty much equal krill (unless there's some super secret x factor! Which is not likely.), and you can get it, with the omega 3s in a better ratio of dha to epa, even, for anywhere from 11.1 cents to 12.2 cents, depending on if krill's omega 3s actually ARE absorbed twice as well as stated in advertising, or if that claim is TOTAL BULLSHIT.

As for the ratio of omega 3s to omega 6s in krill vs. fish, that can be true for products that aren't super refined/concentrated ( the jarrow isn't... that's kinda why I like it), but unless you are a whale, krill is not a significant source of omega 3s. I'd rather supplement with fish oil, and then eat flax to make up the 'filler' omega 3s.

Thanks for all of your work Shazam ... I am a cheap bastard who wants to live as healthily as possible but not go broke when doing it.

I too use iHerb ... there 18% off when you buy < $480 in product is awesome.

Have you looked at Carlson's fish oil in any of your researching? It is what I currently use, but will switch up if I can find something better / more cost-efficient.

Originally Posted by job561

Thanks for all of your work Shazam ... I am a cheap bastard who wants to live as healthily as possible but not go broke when doing it.

I too use iHerb ... there 18% off when you buy < $480 in product is awesome.

Have you looked at Carlson's fish oil in any of your researching? It is what I currently use, but will switch up if I can find something better / more cost-efficient.

Heeeeeeeyyyy, we've got something in common! I had no idea about that 480 bucks in products deal, I just knew about the 5 percent off 60 and the great free shipping. That is interesting. Anyway, the main reason I shop there is the shipping, the 5 percent discount, and the PRICE MATCH POLICY. Dear god, you will save so much money doing that.

Here's the deal, Luckyvitamin has cheaper prices for most of the products you can get at Iherb, typically by about 1-3 dollars per identical product, but some are more expensive there and some are closer to 10 dollars cheaper there. Now I don't buy my supps at luckyvitamin, I just split my Iherb purchases into two; one cart that I plan on using the price match policy with, and the other cart which has products cheaper at iherb (it's not a very big one). Although, with that 18 percent off, you might be getting it plain cheaper at Iherb... I dunno, I'll have to look into that. It's not too convenient for me to buy giant piles of supplements right now, but it's worth a look.

Anyway, about your carlson fish oil. It didn't really catch my eye in my research. I use the Jarrow max DHA listed above because I like its ratio of DHA (around 2) to EPA (1) and the extra DPA it's got in it. It's also on sale at Iherb for cheap. Really cheap. I haven't really, REALLY looked into jarrow's manufacturing process, but I trust that brand. It seems to me that in terms of cost/benefit, since it's on sale right now, that the max DHA liquid is the best out there for the time being. I may still buy it when it's off sale, but the best value when it goes off will be Now's dha 500. Anyway, I'll attach a little explanation on the price match thing, and my current supp regimen. Why not, eh?

If you want to know more about why I picked that ratio, check this out, it's a review on a very similar product by biotest. http://bodybuilding.ultimatefatburner.com/Flameout.html

I may not like Biotest's prices, but I do like their research ;P

Edit: I don't think Iherb does that 18 percent off 450 deal anymore. Did you have to ask about it? I asked customer service and they said it wasn't true, is that old?