I’ve been reading conflicting things about omega-3’s. One camp says that 500 mg a day is enough. Another camp says that no effects will be seen unless 2 g a day. Can anyone shed some light on the subject? Offer a definite answer, perhaps?
UL is 5000mg a day for ALA, DHA & EPA combined. Consuming more then this will actually make some of the cardiovascular benefits reverse as well as causing blood thinning issues.
Ignoring ALA, as its not difficult to get enough of that, DHA & EPA the recommendation is 500mg a day. The couple of portions of fish a week is designed to hit that as you are getting 2500mg from a 4oz serving of salmon. Because of how quickly fatty acids are metabolized while twice a week is better then none a week the ideal is to get DHA & EPA every day, ideally by eating oily fish & shellfish but supplementation is also fine. While DHA is more valuable long term EPA does some cool things with your lipoproteins to reduce the rate of LDL small formation and protects LDL against oxidation, EPA has pretty clear benefits daily.
Benefits have been seen with nearly every level of supplementation. Not sure where you read <2000mg doesn’t do anything but the evidence doesn’t support that and basically any level of consumption is going to be a good thing as you wont be relying on synthesis from ALA.
If you don’t want to eat fish every day supplement on days you don’t.
Usually with supplements it doesn’t much matter but this is one you want to be really careful with source. Look for brands that have independent lab analysis (EPA & DHA can be all over the map) and only buy softgels (never liquid) as its not thermally stable at room temperature (you don’t want oxygen getting to it). There is some evidence krill oil is more bioavailable then fish oil but krill fishing is not sustainable so choice there :) There is also some evidence that you should take vitamin K with EPA & DHA to improve coagulation.
https://examine.com/supplements/fish-oil/
The American Heart Association recommends 1g of combined EPA/DHA. However there’s certainly benefits to going above that
723 references in this article by the way