A Standard Supplement From One of the Greats

There’s pumps, and there’s Rich Piana pumps

The late great Rich Piana, a world-famous bodybuilder that most readers have heard of before, believed that only 5% of people had the talent and tenacity to push through life’s obstacles and become the best 5% of their competitive class – in whatever endeavors they may pursue.

When he founded his nutritional supplement company, 5% Nutrition, he knew the core mission of the company would be serving the needs of this elite 5%. Whether your goals in life are mental, physical, professional, or all of the above, 5% Nutrition almost certainly has a product that can help keep you in peak condition as you pursue them.

5% Nutrition Core Fish Oil: With Natural Lemon Flavor

Over the years, 5% Nutrition has launched a lot of awesome product lines, but we’re as excited as ever about their Core series. The idea behind Core is to give consumers high quality, exceptionally pure formulations of single-ingredient nutritional supplements.

Rich Piana’s Legacy, 5% Nutrition, cranks out their own take on an industry standard.

This gives casual supplement consumers the opportunity to hone in on the one supplement that can help solve their specific problem. For advanced supplementers, it gives us a great opportunity to mix and match proven ingredients, forming our own stacks based on the extensive knowledge and experience we’ve racked up over years of supplementation.

Core Fish Oil is a sensible entry for this product line: the essential omega-3 fatty acids found in fish oil have a ton of evidentiary backing, and can impact many dimensions of human health. But Rich’s namesake did what Rich would have done as well – made it taste better! Because these come in natural lemon flavor.

Let’s get into the science behind fish oil and the essential omega-3s, but first, let’s check the PricePlow news and deals:

The case for omega-3 (ω−3) fatty acid supplementation

Any objective analysis of the typical ancestral environments of Homo sapiens sapiens reveals an important common denominator: no matter where human beings were eating, growing and evolving before the advent of agriculture, we were eating way more omega-3 fatty acids than the typical modern person today.^[1-5]

More specifically, our ratio of omega-3 to omega-6 fatty acid intake was much higher, because we were not only eating more omega-3s, but also less omega-6s.

Although our cultures and metabolic environments have changed drastically in many places, the genetics underlying human metabolism have changed much more slowly. We are still calibrated for an omega-3 to omega-6 ratio much closer to the ancestral one.

Even the officially recommended omega-3 intake target is too low

The unfortunate upshot of this is that most of us are functionally deficient in omega-3 fatty acids. Data collected for the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES), the Center for Disease Control’s continuous analysis of American eating patterns, has found that an incredible 90% of Americans do not get enough omega-3 fatty acids on a daily basis.^[6]

Most of us don’t consume nearly enough omega 3-rich foods (like fish). Primer helps you get your daily dose of this very important fat.

It’s no secret at this point that modern, post-industrial diets are woefully lacking in many key vitamins and minerals, setting most of us up to eventually develop horrible metabolic disease. But even so, we rarely see that much of the population being deficient in any given nutrient.

The importance of the omega-3 to omega-6 intake ratio

The other problem is that, although public health organizations approach the omega-3 question by recommending somewhere between 250 milligrams and 500 milligrams per day,^[7,8] the relative intake of omega-3 is arguably what’s important.

Although an absolute requirement for essential omega-3 fatty acids may exist, we need to consume a certain ratio of omega-3 to omega-6 polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) for optimal health.

Peer-reviewed evidence on this subject indicates that during our ancestral past, this ratio was about 1 to 1. That is, for every gram of omega-3 PUFA we consumed, we got roughly one gram of omega-6 PUFA. to balance it out.^[1-4]

These days, the average American’s omega-3 to omega-6 ratio is about 15 to 1.^[5,9] Clearly, we’ve moved very far in the wrong direction.

Most of our additional omega-6 consumption comes from linoleic acid,^[9] which is arguably one of the most damaging things a human being can eat, and is abundant in soybean oil.^[9] Anyone who reads food ingredient labels on a regular basis can tell you that soybean oil is ubiquitous in the modern American food supply.

Soybean oil belongs to a category of ultra-processed food oils called vegetable oils or seed oils. Unfortunately, America’s use of these oils has increased exponentially during the past 100 years,^[9] a meteoric rise that has coincided with an explosion of cardiometabolic disease.

Rich truly was the king of consistency. This man was all day, every day, until his last day.

High intake ratios of omega-6 to omega-3 are statistically associated with mental illness,^[10-25] atherosclerosis and other cardiovascular pathologies,^[1,26] insulin resistance,^[27-30] diabetes,^[31-33] and obesity.^[34,35]The enormous mountain of evidence on this subject points us to a clear conclusion: low omega-3 intake, combined with high omega-6 intake, is profoundly destructive of human health and flourishing. And most unfortunately, that’s exactly what post-industrial diets all over the world have become.^[1,36-38]

What to do about it

Obviously, there are two different approaches to modifying this all-important ratio: you can consume more omega-3 fatty acids, which is why we’re here talking about Core Fish Oil. But you can also try to minimize your consumption of omega-6 fatty acids.

Eating less omega-6 is probably a good idea for the vast majority of readers, but the reality is that even if you manage to reduce your omega-6 intake by a lot, your omega-3 to omega-6 intake ratio will probably still not approach 1:1.

One reason for this is that the highly unsaturated seed oils that account for most of our omega-6 intake didn’t displace much omega-3 PUFA from our diets – they mostly replaced fats like lard, tallow, and butter, which are naturally low in omega-3 PUFAs.

So even if you return to tradition and use the cooking fats your great-grandmother did, you probably aren’t going to be boosting the other side of the equation – your omega-3 intake – by very much at all.

That’s where supplements like CORE Fish Oil come in.

The argument for fish oil instead of fish

The health and fitness industry is coming around to the importance of whole food diets, and actually, we at PricePlow harp on eating whole foods all the time too.

So it may come as somewhat of a surprise to hear that in this case, the refined product – a fish oil supplement – is arguably a better choice, nutritionally speaking, than the whole food.

The title of one study asks Is Fish Oil Healthier Than Fish?^[39] And this turns out to be something of a rhetorical question, because the answer seems to be yes.

In the modern world, fresh fish is usually contaminated

Although modern civilization is great in many ways, its comforts and conveniences come at a cost. The chemical byproducts of industrial manufacturing are generally harmful to biological life, and have been steadily accumulating in the global environment for centuries now.

As a result, large fish like tuna or swordfish have high, and increasing, concentrations of toxic chemicals like methylmercury and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs).^[39,40]

This problem has gotten severe enough that the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has recommended for a couple of decades now that pregnant and breastfeeding women restrict their consumption of seafood to between 8 and 12 ounces per week.^[41]

The process of bioaccumulation – each red dot represents an equal amount of contaminant.^[42]

Furthermore, these women are advised to carefully select low-mercury options. The next obvious question is: what kinds of seafood are low in mercury?

Basically, the larger and longer-lived the aquatic animal, the more polluted it’s likely to be. This is due to an ecological phenomenon called bioaccumulation,^[42,43] in which animals high up on the food chain accumulate the toxins contained by their prey.So you can help minimize some of the contamination issues by shopping for smaller and shorter-lived species of fish, but that’s not necessarily clear or convenient for everybody.Plus, although this can minimize the contamination, it can’t eliminate it. Eat the perfect seafood diet and you’re still being exposed to some methylmercury, PCBs, and other toxins.One study on this subject states in its title that “fish consumption is an indicator of exposure to non-dioxin like polychlorinated biphenyls in cumulative risk assessments based on a probabilistic and sensitive approach.”^[40]

Fish oil supplements are purified by filtration

Here’s where fish oil really shines. Fortunately for us, the supplement industry has generally striven to maximize fish oil purity. Any reputable supplement brand makes it standard practice to filter their fish oil through activated charcoal filters that are sensitive enough to remove toxins like mercury and PCBs.

Don’t take our word for it – according to a major article by Consumer Reports, none of the many fish oil supplements they tested were discovered to contain any detectable mercury. Some had PCBs, but the concentration was well below established safety standards.^[44]

Your choice as a consumer

So, you have two options:

The 5% Nutrition Core Line is out, and they’re not all just single-ingredient formulas! Check out these simple yet unique spins on classic supplements.

1. The first option is that you learn about different fish species, comparison shop for low-mercury filets from trustworthy suppliers, and then track your seafood consumption each week to ensure that you remain within the FDA’s recommended intake limits.
2. The second option is that you outsource the hassle to the technological sophistication and exacting purity standards of a trusted fish oil manufacturer.

Although option #1 is doable, we think it’s way easier, and more realistic for most people, to go with option #2.

That’s the real value proposition of supplements like CORE Fish Oil.

The good stuff: how omega-3 supplementation can benefit your health

Now let’s review some of the benefits that are associated with the use of fish oil supplements:

• Cardiovascular

  There are at least dozens, probably hundreds, of peer-reviewed studies indicating that taking fish oil supplements can significantly improve a person’s blood triglyceride levels, which is a huge boon for health since elevated triglycerides are a known risk factor for serious cardiovascular disease (CVD). Several large meta-analyses have examined this body of literature and validated the idea that fish oil can lower triglycerides in some people.^[45-49]

  

  A meta analysis shows that high-DHA fish oil also reliably increases HDL cholesterol.^[50] Combined with its support in reducing triglyceride, this is evidence that it can promote better metabolic health.

  Fish oil can also raise your blood levels of high-density lipoprotein (HDL), the good kind of cholesterol that can actually decrease your risk of CVD. We found two comprehensive meta-analyses that showed fish oil supplementation can raise HDL levels, even if only slightly.^[47,49]Fish oil supplements also seem to reduce blood pressure.^[51]

• Metabolic

  We want to highlight these two facts because the triglyceride-to-HDL ratio is an important indicator of metabolic health – better even than LDL cholesterol levels.^[52-56] We want it to be as low as possible, so that fish oil can attack this problem from both angles is great.

  Specifically, this ratio seems to reflect a person’s insulin sensitivity,^[52,56] which is crucial for long-term metabolic health.

• Brain

  Fish oil supplements also seem to benefit the brain and the mind.

  The essential omega-3 fatty acids have gained a lot of credibility in recent years as a potential adjunct therapy for psychiatric disorders. Again, dozens of studies from prestigious journals show that EPA and DHA can help improve symptoms of mental illnesses like major depressive disorder (MDD) and bipolar disorder.^[57-61]

  A big part of this is fish oil’s apparent anxiolytic (anti-anxiety) effect.^[62-66]

  Fish oil can even improve focus in inattentive children, which has prompted much speculation that essential omega-3 fatty acid deficiency might play a role in the onset of attention deficit disorder (ADD) and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).^[67] Of course, adults also suffer from ADD and ADHD, but research on whether omega-3 can improve symptoms in this population is currently lacking.

  A meta-analysis found that fish oil supplements can even help forestall age-related cognitive decline.^[68]

• Athletes – Performance, Recovery, Joints

  The essential omega-3 fatty acids have also been shown to improve joint health. They can improve the symptoms of rheumatoid arthritis, and possibly even help prevent it from developing in the first place.^[69,70]

  

  Staying healthy is key for whatever you do

  This is great for athletes and weightlifters because, after all, these pursuits do put a lot of strain on your joints.

  One meta-analysis of omega-3 supplementation in athletes found that omega-3 fatty acids can improve several dimensions of performance and recovery, partly by influencing the way that muscles respond to the training stimulus.^[70]

  Benefits observed by this meta-analysis included increased muscle gains,^[70] which will no doubt delight most of our readers.

  The omega-3 fatty acids can also stimulate mitochondrial biogenesis by upregulating peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor-gamma coactivator (PGC-1a), resulting in greater endurance through improved oxygen uptake.^[70]

  Omega-3s also seem to reduce the risk of injury and illness in athletes.^[70]

• Anti-inflammatory effects

  Fish oil is also great at reducing chronic systemic inflammation, which is probably one of the mechanisms underlying all the other effects we’ve discussed.^[71-76]

How to store fish oil supplements

As much as we love fish oil, it has a specific pitfall that must be accounted for whenever you store it for future use.

Fish oil consists of highly unsaturated fat, meaning that it’s prone to oxidation, even at room temperature. If this process goes on for just a few weeks, it can spoil the fish oil, making it rancid.

This can seriously degrade the nutritional quality of your fish oil, and perhaps even make it harmful to your health.

Fortunately, there’s an easy fix: put it in your refrigerator as soon as you get it, and keep it there until you’ve used it all.

Conclusion

This is a simple formula – one ingredient – but as you can see, there’s a lot to say about fish oil. What we’ve written here is, in fact, by no means an exhaustive discussion of what makes fish oil great, and why most consumers should consider taking it as part of a long-term health and wellness strategy.