My wife seems to be going through a thing - her peanut butter has Omega-3, her new eggs have Omega-3, and more.
What is it? What are the purported health benefits? Am I correct in thinking that this may be a little… scammy? Not “scammy” as in completely without benefit, but “scammy” in that the supposed benefits of Omega-3 are being overly touted by exuberant marketing people (think “oat bran”)?
Put in IMHO because the 2nd half of this is likely more opinion than fact.
I assume that you already perused the wikipedia article about them, so have some of the basic information down. If not it is a pretty good summary.
The short version is that we evolved eating a lot more omega 3’s (an essential fatty acid, meaning that we cannot make it ourselves) than we eat now, and that a wide variety of clinical studies are extremely suggestive that those amounts are associated with a wide variety of improved outcomes relative to the amounts in a typical Western diet. A gram or so of omega 3’s a week (the amount that the AHA’s basic recommendation for everyone amounts to) is a reasonable baseline:
But yeah, there is some hype going on. That omega 3 high peanut butter? A mere 32 mg of omega 3’s per 2 tablespoon serving. OTOH the omega 3 eggs have something like 115 mg of omega 3’s per egg, which is a more significant amount.
IMHO many of the products are hype but the benefits are highly likely very real. I take a fish oil supplement, eat some fish, and some seeds that are high in omega 3 (and other healthy fatty acids) are part of my morning yogurt mix.
What really matters, is the ratio between Omega-3 and Omega-6 as they use the same pathways.
You generally want to consume similar amounts of each,
Y’know I have heard that (well the importance of the ratio, although mostly stating something like 4:1, not “similar”) said a lot, but can’t find any real evidence that it is true, really quite the opposite. There is this for example:
I must admit that the bit in the latter cite that advises decreased linoleic acid (while increasing alpha-linolenic acid) does confuse me some, and does contradict the current AHA position. Still the bottom line is the same - the ratio bit seems to be not true:
(Bolding mine.)
There’s fair to mediocre evidence that omega-3 fish oil is helpful in reducing the risk of cardiac events in folks who already have coronary artery disease or extreme high risk conditions for coronary artery disease such as diabetes.
There’s fair to mediocre evidence that omega-3 fish oil is helpful in preventing pancreatitis when given to patients whose very high levels of triglycerides (generally over 500) puts them at risk for pancreatitis.
There’s not real great clinical evidence that it’s at all helpful for other folks. It may lower cholesterol and triglycerides for normal-risk folks, but it doesn’t seem to lower the risk of first heart attach in normal-risk folks. Nor is there great evidence that it is helpful for joint aches/pains/arthritis.
That’s not to say that such evidence may not be forthcoming in the future, but it’s really not here now.
As such, I prescribe/recommend fish oil only for secondary prevention of known coronary artery disease or its equivalents, and for significant hypertriglyceridemia that doesn’t respond to statin drugs.
My doctor recommended it because it’s supposedly good for mental disorders. Have you heard any data on that?
Yeah, and none of it is real convincing. But you can read what the Mayo Clinic website says to patients about it here. Probably won’t hurt, might help.
But I’ll defer to board-certified psychiatric physicians about it, overall.
Though recent articles do show a lot of psychiatrists are really flying by the seats of their pants with their use of psychiatric drugs, using them for conditions for which there’s not even mediocre evidence that it works for, while there’s lots of evidence that it can be harmful. In view of that, fish oil is pretty benign.
Appreciate all the responses. Well, almost all of them. 
Sounds like “Omega-3” is a branding variant of “good cholesterol” (or something along those lines). It ain’t gonna kill you, might help you, but is definitely something that’s been latched onto by the Great American Hype Machine.
That’s been my take on it, along with most other supplements (CoQ10 comes to mind.) Yes, we may need more of some particular vitamin or mineral (or other dietary supplement) but a multivitamin with a good diet should take care of it for most people.
By the way, if you ever wind up with a drink with Omega-3s or CoQ10 or the like in it, I am in some small way responsible and you are free to throw things at me.
Well actually, the multivitamin is much more likely worthless, and only if your “good diet” includes some fatty fish.
Most vitamin supplements have been shown to NOT provide any benefit and, in some cases, actually to be associated with some harm. Diets with foods naturally high in those vitamins OTOH are associated with a wide variety of good outcomes.
Likewise diets high in omega three fatty acids are associated with good outcomes, but unlike the multivitamin case, there is some decent evidence of benefits gained by fish oil supplements as well. Conclusive it aint, but honestly I think Q the M is a bit severe in his assessment. It is good enough to get his Mayo Clinic source to state:
The NIH mouthpiece grades fish oil as
The NIH fact sheet states
I’d say “good but not conclusive” more than “fair to mediocre”, but we all draw our own lines.