If you've been reading about the benefits of Omega 3 supplements then you've probably read that most of them use "concentrated fish oil". But what is concentrated fish oil?

If you were to catch a fish and squeeze it really hard you'd get oil out of it. That oil contains important Omega 3 fatty acids like DHa and EPA, the 2 most important of the health giving Omega 3 polyunsaturated fats. This is called standard food grade fish oil.

But you wouldn't get stacks of those good fats. Enough to be useful if you ate the fish, but not a lot for a simple 1000 mg capsule.

So what manufacturers do to overcome this is to use a fish oil concentrate. Sometimes it's called super concentrated fish oil, sometimes highly concentrated fish oil, but it's pretty much the same thing.

By putting the oil through a concentration process it is ensuring that there are much higher levels of DHA and EPA in the oil. This is good because it means that you can get a significant amount of good fats from taking a few Omega 3 capsules. Otherwise you'd probably need to take handfuls.

When an Omega 3 source is concentrated the process used to do this turns the natural triglyceride form of the oil into an ethyl ester form. This is ok, the ethyl ester form of the fat is perfectly good, and can be absorbed into the body when eaten. This is known as "bioavailability".

Some manufacturers turn the ethyl ester form back into a triglyceride form believing that if the oil is in the same form as it came out of the fish then it must be more "natural". But the result is that the triglyceride form resulting has a different molecular makeup and isn't nearly as "bioavailable" as the ethyl ester form. But it's still good for you.

One manufacturer has now released a different formulation that includes both concentrated Omega 3 oil in it's ethyl ester form and unconcentrated oil in it's natural, not reconverted, triglyceride form.

The results have been impressive with studies showing effectiveness of 2 1/2 times more than "traditional" Omega 3 supplements.

So it's fair to say that most Omega 3 capsules have fish oil concentrate in them. One has both the concentrated form combined with the unconcentrated form to result in a potent mix of Omega 3 polyunsaturated fatty acids.

If you'd like to find out more about which Omega 3 supplements combine the 2 different forms of fish oil visit my website where I discuss this in more detail.