* The health benefits of krill oil | Krill oil vs fish oil

Krill are shrimp-like crustaceans that account for the world's largest single-species animal biomass. A Canadian company, Neptune Technologies, has the patent for the extraction of oil from krill. Like fish oil, krill oil is a rich source of omega-3 unsaturated fatty acids, particularly docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) and eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA), but there is a major difference between fish oil and krill oil: in fish oil, DHA and EPA are present in triglycerides, whereas in krill oil they are present in phospholipids.

So what? Well, the fact is that phospholipids are what cell membranes are made of. This means that the super-beneficial omega-3 fatty acids in krill oil are more easily absorbed - VERY easily absorbed, in fact: some research has shown that krill oil supplements can have positive effects on the brain within TWO HOURS of being taken!

Krill oil has several health benefits. Ingesting EPA and DHA in phospholipids instead of triglycerides allows the body to absorb them more efficiently and easily. So supplementing your diet with krill oil results in the more efficient uptake of DHA and EPA.

Krill oil also reduces the risk of heart attacks: it keeps cholesterol at healthy levels, reduces bad cholesterol, and has anti-inflammatory properties that are very beneficial for your cardiovascular system.

Another benefit of krill oil is that it is extremely rich in antioxidants - chemicals that mop up free radicals. (Free radicals damage DNA and other biological molecules in cells. They cause ageing, cancer and other problems.) Specifically, the EPA part of the phospholipids in krill oil has an antioxidant known as astaxanthin attached to it. All in all, the antioxidant properties of krill oil are over 40 times as powerful as those of fish oil. Astaxanthin protects your skin against the harmful effects of UV rays, among other things.

A number of research studies have shown krill oil to have even greater beneficial effects than fish oil on depression and other mood and personality disorders. In some cases, in experiments comparing fish oil and krill oil, only krill oil had beneficial effects on brain function and depression. Scientists* think this might be due to one or both of the following factors:

(1) krill oil contains a greater proportion of EPA than fish oil, and EPA seems to be the crucial omega-3 fatty acid in brain health - more so than DHA;

(2) as mentioned above, in krill oil, DHA and EPA occur in phospholipids, not triglycerides, and this makes it much easier for the body to incorporate them into cell membranes.

Other studies have shown krill oil to have benefits on adult ADHD, pre-menstrual tension (PMS) and dysmenorrhea.

-------------------------
* Sampalis F., Bunea R., Pelland MF., Kowalski O., Duguet N., Dupuis S. Evaluation of the effects of Neptune Krill Oil on the management of premenstrual syndrome and dysmenorrhea. Altern. Med. Rev. 2003, 8:171-179.

1. Krill oil supplies omega-3-unsaturated fatty acids that are much more bioavailable than those in fish oil. This means that krill oil has much bigger benefits on depression, OCD and other brain disorders.

2. Krill oil contains the powerful antioxidant astaxanthin. Fish oil does not.

3. Fish oil easily goes rancid. Krill oil does not.

4. Krill oil contains proportionately more EPA (eicosapentaeneoic acid) than fish oil - this is why it has a stronger effect on depression and other mood disorders.

5. Krill oil is a little more expensive that fish oil, but unquestionably worth it.

So it's pretty simple: you should take krill oil because it will make you live longer and age more slowly. It also makes you smarter and improves your mood.

Astaxanthin is a carotenoid - it belongs to the same family as carotene, which is what makes carrots orange. Astaxanthin is also orange in color, and is what gives salmon its characteristic color. It also makes krill oil itself bright orange.

Astaxanthin is an amazing antioxidant - its antioxidant activity is much more powerful than that of vitamin E. Astaxanthin is extremely efficient at mopping up free radicals, which speed up ageing and make cancer more likely. Specifically, astaxanthin is a potent quencher of singlet oxygen.

Krill oil contains astaxanthin: this is partly why krill oil is so incredibly good for you. Taking krill oil supplements is an incredibly efficient way to ingest a lot of antioxidant.

The omega-3 unsaturated fatty acids in krill oil favor a phenomenon known as fuel partitioning.

This is a good one: reasearch has shown that omega-3 fatty acids stimulate the storage of glucose as glycogen in muscle, while simultaneously diverting fatty acids away from fat synthesis and into oxidative pathways.

In other words, omega-3 fatty acids stimulate the use of fatty acids as fuel instead of in fat deposition.

That's right - krill oil can help you burn fat!

EPA (eicosapentaenoic acid) is an omega-3 unsaturated fatty acid. Fish oil supplements contain EPA and DHA (docosahexaenoic acid) as triglycerides, whereas krill oil supplies them as phospholipids.

The beneficial effects of fish oil supplements and the even greater benefits afforded by krill oil are well known; indeed, research has shown that EPA is incredibly beneficial, especially with treatment-resistant depression. It is partly due to a higher EPA content that krill oil is even more beneficial than fish oil.

Interestingly, it was found that when taking EPA supplements, less is more: of three possible doses of ethyl-EPA -- 1g, 2g, and 4g -- the 1g dose proved the most effective in the treatment of depression.

It is not just in the treatment of depression that EPA has beneficial effects: taking pure EPA supplements also has benefits for concentration, ADD, ADHD (attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder), OCD (obsessive compulsive disorder), mood, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder (formerly known as manic depression) and, of course, cardiovascular health.

Recent research has also shown EPA supplements to have beneficial effects on anorexia nervosa, which is the psychiatric disorder with the highest risk of morbidity and mortality.

Krill oil contains more EPA (eicosapentaenoic acid) than regular fish oil, and a wealth of scientific research into the effects of EPA and krill oil on cognitive disorders has shown that it can help with the following disorders:

- major depression (major depressive disorder)

- obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD)

- bipolar disorder

- attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)

Scientists concluded that omega-3 supplements can play a major role in treating depression.

Taking krill oil supplements can have particularly beneficial effects on the health and well-being of women. In particular, krill oil can ameliorate the symptoms of premenstrual tension (PMS) and dysmenorrhoea.

PMS symptoms reach their peak during the luteal phase of the menstrual cycle and include significant affective lability, loss of interest in activities such as hobbies and friends, lack of energy, anxiety, irritability, insomnia, oversleeping, difficulty in concentrating, breast tenderness and a host of other unpleasant symptoms.

A krill oil study conducted by Sampalis et al. (2003) showed that Krill oil supplements have significant beneficial benefits on the emotional and cognitive difficulties associated with premenstrual syndrome, as well as breast tenderness and joint pain, and that it is more effective than fish oil in alleviating the symptoms.

Krill oil has an extraordinary oxygen radical absorbance capacity. This means that it massively slows down the aging of skin and the formation of wrinkles. A scientific study by Kim et al. (2006) showed that EPA - one of the omega-3-unsaturated fatty acids in krill oil - reduces the aging effect of UV rays and inhibits the reduction of collagen. UV rays damage skin and speed up the formation of wrinkles.

Krill are basically shrimps. They are at the bottom of the food chain in the ocean, and whales feed on massive quantities of krill. Penguins and seals also eat them. The krill species that is used in krill oil production is Euphausia superba. They are heavily fished in the Southern Ocean. They swim around in swarms that can be incredibly dense: up to 10,000 individuals per cubic meter. Krill feed on phytoplankton.

The major catch with regular fish oil is rancidity. Fish oil is highly susceptible to going rancid, and when it does, it is useless. Rancid fish oil is essentially oxidized and hydrolysed fish oil, and can cause considerable oxidative stress to your body.

The cool thing about krill oil is that it does not go rancid for a very long time. This is partly due to the antioxidant properties of astaxanthin, which is part of krill oil. Astaxanthin keeps krill oil from going rancid.

I have personally opened krill oil capsules from several different jars and the oil was always smooth and in great condition - never rancid.

I still keep my krill oil in the refrigerator, and so should you.

Krill oil health benefits | Krill oil vs fish oil

Another remarkable health benefit of krill oil is that it shows significant anti-inflammatory activity. In other words, krill oil helps to reduce chronic inflammation. Reducing or eliminating chronic inflammation is extremely important to your health, because it has been shown that chronic inflammation, apart from being a serious disease in its own right, increases the risk of developing heart disease. Hence krill oil helps to reduce or prevent arthritis, which is an inflammatory disease, and by extension, it also helps to reduce the risk of heart disease (of course, as described above, it also reduces the risk of heart disease by reducing the deposition of fat in the coronary arteries and generally keeping them clean and in good condition).

Precisely how krill oil reduces inflammation is not really understood. Scientists suspect that krill oil acts as an anti-inflammatory agent by inhibiting inflammatory mediators like thromboxane, prostacyclin and leukotrienes produced by cells in response to inflammation.

Be that as it may, the marked anti-inflammatory properties of krill oil are one more compelling reason to take krill oil supplements every day, especially if you are affected by inflammatory diseases such as arthritis.