I was at the pharmacy shopping for my fish oil yesterday when I noticed that several well-known brands of fish oil now has the word “molecularly distilled” printed on the bottle. I am still popping fish oil, all because I am still breastfeeding Baby and I want her to get the DHA, Omega 3 and what not nutrients from the fish oil, through my breast milk. Anyway, back to the molecularly distilled fish oil. I didn’t know what molecularly distilled (MD) meant but I knew it must be something good, an added advantage over non-MD fish oil. So I got a bottle of the molecularly distilled fish oil, which is slightly more costly than non-MD fish oil.

Today out of curiousity I googled what molecularly distilled fish oil is. Here are some excerpts that I have extracted from http://www.nutritional-supplements-health-guide.com/molecularly-distilled-fish-oil.html:

First, let me remind you why it is important to choose your omega3 supplement well. With fish oils, there is slight danger because some fish sources may contain toxic chemicals such as mercury and PBAs due to environmental contamination. Toxins such as mercury in fish oil will undoubtedly bring danger to your health.

However, this should not stop you from taking fish oil supplements. The health benefits of fish oil are just too important to forego. To ensure safety and effectiveness, you should choose high purity, molecularly distilled fish oil.

What is molecular distillation anyway? Molecular distillation is a purification method which is conducted in vacuum. It is actually an industrial standard procedure which is best for the purification of vitamins. Molecular distillation is the only process that can effectively remove metals, PCBs and other harmful toxins to a level that is perfectly safe for human consumption.

Molecular distillation is a very expensive purification method. The equipment you need and the conditions required are expensive and difficult. Not all fish oil supplement manufacturers have the resources to produce molecularly distilled fish oil.

In fact, other companies simply produce fish oil only by one straight, filtration process. After this lenient filtration, the fish oils are then encapsulated and bottled. A simple filtration process obviously will not take away much of the toxins. Hopefully, these companies’ fish sources do not have as much contaminants. But we can only hope. The question is: are you going to risk your health with these cheap fish oil supplements?

On the other hand, note also that molecular distillation as a purification process uses a solvent for distillation. This is also an important factor to consider. Some companies use hexane as solvent because it is cheap. Sadly, hexane can retain residual components so it may not be very efficient in removing harmful substances which may have been ingested by the fish.

Better fish oil supplement manufacturers use ethanol (food grade) which does not leave residual component. With ethanol, you get the purest fish oil possible at the end of this highly tedious process.