Both krill oil and fish oil are good sources of omega-3s, which are essential for good health. Researchers say that most people in the northern hemisphere are deeply deficient in omega-3 fatty acids. This can mean serious health problems, so it is important that one ingests enough omega-3s in one’s diet.
However, the best source of omega-3s comes from cold-water fish. Unfortunately, even if you ate enough of these to get your quota of omega-3s, you also run the risk of ingesting too many heavy metals such as mercury. Heavy metals are found in all the world’s oceans, mostly due to the coal that we burn for energy.
So it makes sense to take an omega-3 supplement, as the refinement process for krill oil and fish oil remove all but the slightest, insignificant traces of heavy metals.
But which source do you choose, krill oil or fish oil? Let’s make a simple comparison between the two. Fish oil contains triglycerides – fatty acids that must be broken down by your liver into components before being taken up into the blood stream. Krill oil is made up of phospholipids, to which the omega-3s are bonded. The body instantly recognizes the phospholipids in the form that they are in, and thus takes up the contents immediately. The best krill oil has 40 percent or more phospholipids. Be warned that there are counterfeit krill oils on the market that contain no phospholipids at all.
Well, you say, if you compare the labels of krill oil with fish oil, fish oil contains more DHA and EPA than krill oil. That is true, however, remember that it is not how much of something is contained in a dietary supplement that counts. It is how much can the body absorb, and how effective are the absorbed nutrients. For example, the difference between bad (LDL) and good (HDL) cholesterol is the quantity of omega-3 phospholipids in the cholesterol fat ball. This explains why fish-oil supplementation has a limited impact on cholesterol, and why krill oil significantly increases HDL, and reduces the bad LDL cholesterol. In short: both krill and fish contain omega-3 but the molecular phospholipid form of krill oil is far more beneficial than the triglyceride fish-oil form.
Some clinical studies were completed recently demonstrating that the levels of omega-3s found in people who were taking nearly 40 percent more of them in large fish-oil doses had no more omega-3s in them than the people taking krill oil.1
Also, krill oil contains astaxanthin, a powerful anti-oxidant that fights free radicals in your body, and has been demonstrated to be a powerful agent to fight age-related macular degeneration, a major cause of blindness. Anti-oxidants are necessary to take because of the environmental pollution, radiation, herbicides and pesticides in our foods, and smoking.
Krill oil also contains choline, which is so essential to health and development that Food and Drug Administration demands that it be included in infant formula.
So here is a simple chart that illustrates the differences between krill oil, fish oil.
