Did you ever wonder if the krill oil dietary supplement you are taking is really krill oil? Then, are you familiar with the composition of krill oil. Many marketers are trying to convince you that krill oil contains EPA and DHA mainly esterified to phospholipids. Well, many of the refereed scientific published articles do not agree with the marketers. Also, many patents on krill oil and several GRAS (generally recognized as safe) applications don't agree. I have analyzed more than 350 different brands of krill oil dietary supplements and you will be surprised to find that some are not really krill oil. Many foods we eat are fortified with DHA and EPA. This means that your blood will contain low concentrations of EPA and DHA without supplementation. Then, if you look at several references that have measured the concentrations of DHA and EPA in the blood of Americans who do not eat fish or take omega-3 dietary supplements, you will discover that taking one krill oil dietary supplement does not change the concentration of EPA and DHA in your blood. This means that your background concentration EPA and DHA is more than the amount you will be adding from the krill oil dietary supplement. Simple calculations based on your body weight from which you can determine your blood volume and then your plasma volume. Take this number (in mL) and divide into the mass (mg) of EPA or DHA in one krill oil capsule and you will find that this number is much less than the background concentration of EPA and DHA naturally in your blood plasma from fortified foods. Misleading marketing information is that the phospholipids from krill can be directly used by the cells is misleading. Your body produces (pancreas) about 2-7 grams per day of phosphatidylcholine (PtdCho) and a typical 300-mg krill oil containing capsule will contain about 114 mg. This small amount of PtdCho is hardly enough to matter as compared to the 2,000 - 7,000 mg from endogenous sources and about 1,000 mg from your normal diet. Then, since DHA and EPA are predominately located on sn-2 of PtdCho, they are removed during the digestive stage and used in the synthesis of triacyl-sn-glycerols (TAG) and phospholipids and not necessarily re-esterfied back onto the original PtdCho from which it came. Many products are adulterated according the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act of 1994 (DSHEA) because they did not file the 75-day pre-market New Dietary Ingredient Notification (NDIN). The only companies that filed and there was no objection to their NDI are Aker BioMarine (Superba brand), Neptune Technologies (NKO brand) and Olympic Seafood (Rimfrost Sublime). If your krill oil does not have any of these three as the source, your product maybe adulterated. You should always consult your health care provider before taking any dietary supplements.
Information presented here is for educational purposes and is not intended to treat or diagnose medical or health related issues or conditions. 2022 January