Fish Oil Supplements: Quality Matters

Recently a reader chimed in with a concern and a question about the quality of Xtend Life’s fish oil supplements.  The information she had garnered suggested that the New Zealand hoki fish was a cold water fish and thus had much less of the beneficial DHA and that the oil must be derived from an organ of said fish.

As a person who researches stuff, I know there can be all kinds of conflicting information out there; it takes triple checking and confirming what is the actual truth of a thing, scientific info included.

Pronto, I wanted to determine if the information on the Xtend Life website offered details of the fish oil supplements in question.  They identify the fish and its properties and offer plenty of details about the quality of oil used and the high content of DHA, as well as the benefits of fish oil supplements.

But I still wanted to hear directly from the horses mouth so I emailed the company with a copy of the info and her question stated in the reader’s comment.

Following is the Xtend-Life reply, which went directly to the person who submitted their concern to the company as well:

First of all, I think the info you have read is a little misleading. All fish contain oil, they all contain omega 3s. It is not from oily fish only, such as sardines, etc. I think that is where the confusion lays here. All fish produce fish oil extract, no matter if they are an oily fish, a whitefish, or other.

Now, with regards to Hoki, the oil extract isn’t taken from the liver. You are quite right in that liver extractions are not helpful to health, and should be avoided, such as with cod liver oil.

The extract we take from Hoki fish is from the skeleton and flesh of the fish, no organs are involved at all. The Hoki fish actually has one of the highest amounts of natural DHA available in any fish source, and as well as this, is one of the least contaminated fish sources available. So this is actually a very positive source to use! I think the info you have as regards a low DHA value is either misleading or false info. The Hoki fish does have one of the highest natural DHA percentages available worldwide.

The Southern Ocean of NZ is actually one of the purest oceans left in the world, and this is where we get our fish source from.

Please let me know if you do need any further help or info.

Kind regards,

Joanna Machin MSc
Consultant Medical Nutritionist for Xtend-Life

What I rejoiced about mostly with this  reader was that she took the quality of fish oil supplements as a serious matter enough to inquire about. A very wise thing to do as a consumer for self and family health.