Posted by Larry Hoover on January 29, 2003, at 18:15:22
In reply to Re: Where can I see the EPA?noa, posted by Tepiaca on January 27, 2003, at 13:45:57
> thank you for your response .
> I got a question for you . How dou you know that 1 teaspoon has 800 mg per serving ??? where do you
> see that?? is that printed on the bottle???
> I want to know , how can I know how much EPA contains the fish oil that I buy , but how??The "standard" values most often published for fish oil are 18% EPA and 12% DHA. That would mean that for every 1000 miligrams (one gram), you'd be getting 180 mg EPA and 120 mg DHA. The standard size for fish oil caps is most often 1,000 mg, so these are the numbers you'll most often see.
A standard teaspoon contains 5 mL of water. The water concept is important here because water has a defined density of 1.0, so the weight of water in one teaspoon is five grams. Fats and oil have a lower density, so one teaspoon of fish oil, also having a volume of 5 mL, has a lower weight, just four grams. So....one teaspoon of fish oil gives the EPA and DHA of four fish oil caps. In other words, if the 18% and 12% concentrations hold true, you'd get 4 times 180 miligrams EPA = 720 mg, and 4 times 120 mg DHA = 480 mg.
I'll tell you that there is no doubt that different batches of fish oil have slightly different concentrations of the omega-3's, so it's just more convenient to say that one teaspoon of fish oil will provide 800 mg EPA and 500 mg DHA, in round numbers.
I hope that wasn't confusing.
Lar
poster:Larry Hoover
thread:137634
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20030125/msgs/138201.html