Do you Need Prescription Fish Oil Pills? Part 2

Prescription fish oil pills: should you toss your health food store pills?

In part 1 of this blog, we looked at the history of Lovaza, the first prescription fish oil pill.

But why do you need a prescription from your doctor to get it?  Can’t you get the same fish oil benefits from supplements?

Lovaza’s website suggests that supplements are contaminated with toxins. And cholesterol. And that you need 14 regular fish oil pills to equal the benefits of 4 Lovaza pills. (Psst. You only need about 3 OmegaVia pills to equal the Omega-3 in 4 Lovaza pills. But never mind that.)

Omega-3 Per Pill in Lovaza Prescription Fish Oil vs Fish Supplements

Larger View of Chart

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Everything you Need to Know About Prescription Fish Oil

Part 1: Do you Need Prescription Fish Oil Pills? Part 2: Prescription Fish Oil Pills (this article) Part 3: A Side-by-Side Comparison of Prescription Fish Oil (Lovaza) versus Pharmaceutical Grade Fish Oil Supplements Part 4: Prescription Fish Oil vs. Supplements: An Expert Dietitian’s Opinion

Is Lovaza really that different or better than regular fish oil pills?  Or even pharmaceutical grade fish oil pills?

To compare Lovaza with supplements, we need to separate retail drug-store grade supplements (call it Walmart-grade, if you wish) from pharmaceutical grade supplements.

Let’s start a three-way comparison checklist.

Comparing Raw Materials:

Let’s start at the ocean.   The purest fish oils are from small, algae-eating fish like anchovy, sardine and mackerel.  These fish are harvested for Pronova (Lovaza’s patent holder) off the coast of Peru and Chile, in the Pacific Ocean.

Sure, there are fish caught elsewhere, but Peru and Chile have the most advanced and regulated fishery for these pollutant-free fish.

These small fish are pollutant-free because they eat mostly tiny algae and are short-lived enough that they don’t get a chance to accumulate environmental toxins.

Lovaza vs. Pharmaceutical grade fish oil: both use the same raw material.  No difference.

Lovaza vs. retail-grade fish oil: not always the same.  Some retail stores carry high quality oils from oil processors like Ocean Nutrition, EPAX and Croda.  Unfortunately, most retail-grade fish oils are from China.  (Bet you didn’t know that!)

Cheaper products always outsell the high-quality oils.  After six months of selling poorly, retailers will discontinue high-quality-but-slow-selling products.  I’ve seen this happen over and over.  Ultimately, cheap, Chinese fish oils rule the day.

Comparing Manufacturing Quality:

With drugs, there are rules.  You break ‘em, you go to jail.

With drugs, the FDA has done the homework and thinking for you. With supplements, that burden is shared with you the consumer.

Since Lovaza is a drug, each pill is made to exacting standards so it’s like every other pill.  There is a mind-boggling level of scrutiny and attention to detail paid during the manufacturing process.

Lovaza vs. Pharmaceutical grade fish oil: the technology used to make pharmaceutical grade fish oil is not different from that used to make Lovaza.  But the makers of Lovaza have two purification patents: US patents 5,502,077 and 5,656,667.

EPAX and the other manufacturers have patents for purification too.

FDA watches over drug manufacturing like a hawk. Cutting corners is not advised.  I once worked for a billion-dollar drug company.  Someone in the Quality Control department tried to cut corners.  A disgruntled employee squealed.  FDA raided the facility with armed federal marshals.

The company lost its reputation.  Sales plummeted.  They went bankrupt in less than a year.   2000 people lost their jobs.  Including yours truly.

Never cut corners.  Ever.

If you wish to make a drug, you obey the law.

Having said that, the new cGMP regulations that went into effect in 2008 require drug-like quality control and accountability from supplement makers. EPAX’s manufacturing is as impressive as any drug company I’ve seen.

Lovaza vs. retail-grade fish oil: well, here, it’s ‘anything goes’.  The manufacturing quality ranges from eat-off-the-floor, pharmaceutical-drug-like to, well, Kentucky-moonshine-like. I’ve seen both. Most American and Canadian manufacturing facilities are the former. It’s China that worries me.

The FDA recently opened a small office in China after the Chinese melamine milk scare.

It was a political move to appear in-charge.  The FDA needs thousands of foot soldiers in China.  That will happen only after a few more scares and people panic.  But not yet.

There are some retail-grade fish oil brands that use high purity fish oils and manufacture it in the same facilities as Lovaza.  But on the store shelves, there is no way to tell them apart from products of unknown quality made in China.  The labels will all say ‘Made in USA’.  But that’s another blog for another time.

Bottomline:

Stick with Lovaza or pharmaceutical grade fish oils. There is virtually no difference in quality between Lovaza and fish oil brands like Nordic Naturals, Omax3 or OmegaVia.

In part 3 of this series, we’ll compare the research and regulatory differences of Lovaza and supplements and get opinions from a few experts.

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About the Author: Vin Kutty is OmegaVia’s Scientific Advisor and Chief Blogger. He is a nutritionist, author and Omega-3 expert with over 20 years of experience. He blogs here, there and occasionally, everywhere. When inspired, he shares his professorial wisdom on Facebook and Twitter. Email him.

Filed under: Lovaza by Omegavia
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