I recently learned, in a brain health coach certification program, that EPA and DHA have quite different functions in the brain! Most fish oil supplements contain 2-3 times more EPA than DHA, which is not ideal if you have an over-active mind. EPA is great for stimulating an under-active brain, and can be very helpful for the types of ADD that respond well to stimulants. However, those of us with PTSD, bipolar disorder or otherwise over-stimulated brains need much more DHA, which is calming and can slow down the over-firing of neurons. This blend contains 960 mg DHA and 410 mg EPA, so it's more calming--better to take before bed, and better for folks who have racing minds, too many thoughts at once, and insomnia.

I get this regularly for my dad who is in his nineties and still lives alone in his own home. It definitely increases his mental acuity. His memory has improved significantly. He's more alert, cognitive, and back to his opinionated self with facts to back up his beliefs. The one time I incorrectly marked my calendar as to when to reorder his supply, and he went without for a week, the difference was startling. His thinking was foggy. He kept forgetting what he was talking about. Would also recommend this to anyone over forty. My husband and I also take this. I can definitely tell when he has stopped taking them for a while. Not as playful or alert; reverts to being a couch potato or goes into a Facebook daze. Since he hates fish, this is a good way for him to get the DHA. The strawberry taste completely masks any fishy odor.

I ordered and paid for a 180 count bottle of Nordic Naturals DHA. What I received was a 90 count bottle with a sticker pasted on that claims to be 180 count. I feel swindled and I'm owed 90 more soft gels. Also, the safety seal is broken. I uploaded an image, in case you don't know what I mean.

On the ingredients label, it states they added D-Alpha Tocopherol, which is the cheapest form of vitamin E. BUT they did not state the specific amount on the label!<br /><br />I've been doing the keto diet, which reduces your body fat rapidly. This leaves less room for fat soluble vitamins to be stored. Which causes those fat soluble vitamins to take shelter in many different places in your body.<br /><br />I went to the emergency room for stomach pains, they couldn't figure out what was wrong with me and had me drink lidocaine (liquid cocaine) to numb my stomach, and sent me home. The Utah ER just tries to treat you, not figure out how to diagnose you. They even gave me a pamphlet that said it might be h.pylori, instead of doing a simple test to determine if it was.<br /><br />I went out to figure out how to cure h.pylori, bought lots of stuff on amazon to kill it off. Then I went to my primary practitioner who told me h.pylori was rare. I made him test me for it and it was negative. He checked my blood for several common factors, including vitamin D. He sent me a letter stating my vitamin D was too high. Then the realization hit me. I had too many fat soluble vitamins in my system. Vitamin A toxicity had all my symptoms, including tiredness, bloody nose, body aches. I stopped taking the vitamin D and vitamin A, but I kept having toxicity problems. When I ate lettuce, I would have nose bleeds later that night. I had to get educated and get incredibly picky. I was already taking a vitamin A and vitamin E supplement, but I had stopped taking the vitamin E for the better part of a year. I read the label on the salad packs, which demonstrated that lettuce had a fair amount of both vitamin A and Vitamin K in them. Both of which are fat soluble vitamins.<br /><br />I figured out that the only way to get rid of fat soluble vitamins was for your body to dump it back into your intestines where fiber would absorb it. Otherwise, the body would recycle the fat soluble vitamins back into your system. Since I was eating no fiber on the keto diet, I had to find a "no added sugar" fiber supplement (sugar free Metamucil). Taking that every night or morning, well away from my fatty coffee, seemed to finally improve my condition. Prior, I went 3 months without any improvements, due to having no non-soluble fiber in my system for the excess A and E to be disposed of towards. My body was just recycling the vitamin A and E over and over again.<br /><br />I continued taking this Omega 3 supplement daily, with my fatty coffee (butter and coconut oil). One day I decided that I hadn't taken any vitamin E in about a year, so I took a specific vitamin E supplement that morning and got a nose bleed that night. I took it again the next day, and my bones started aching again. I took it a third time on the fifth day which caused further pains again, and I realized that I had too much vitamin E, but couldn't figure out why three doses would cause me sudden issues. I decided I better check my omega 3 fatty acid supplement, but instead of having vitamin A on its label, it had added vitamin E on its label?! Now... I had learned that often fish oil supplements have vitamin A unlisted to its label, but I had no idea that it would have added vitamin E in addition!<br /><br />Now... my problem with this product is that it does not state how much vitamin E was added in it. And its the law they have to state how much vitamin A is in it.<br /><br />I've seen some health and fitness personnel state that you should take as many as 7 grams of fish oil daily! Imagine if I had done that with this supplement and it causing a severe toxicity over several months/years! Some supplements such as Uridine and Sulbutiamine are known to be more beneficial with omega-3 DHA, which is the only reason why I was taking this omega-3 supplement. To avoid the overdosing of vitamin A, I had avoided regular fish oil supplements and wanted something more refined, which this product seemed to be (but later I realized it wasn't). I didn't realize this company added extra fat soluble vitamins without stating the exact amount on the label.<br /><br />I was trying to figure out where I was getting too many fat soluble vitamins from, and decided I better play it safe and stop taking everything that was questionable. I really didn't think this product would be a problem, but it turns out it was part of the cause. And for about 4 months I took it while trying to detoxify the excess fat soluble vitamins. Later I realized taking this omega 3 supplement was a mistake and stopped.<br /><br />To detoxify from the toxicity of vitamin A and E, I literally used Metamucil, but that wasn't enough. I also noticed that eating carbs and sugary foods caused the toxicity pains to go away temporarily, because carbs and sugar cause insulin spikes which cause the liver to create fat from the glucose and store the excess glucose as human body fat. This body fat creation from glucose relieved the pains from fat soluble vitamin toxicity temporarily by giving the excess fat soluble vitamins a place to hide. Now, don't get me wrong... I also took vitamin D, vitamin K2-M4, and calcium citrate to counter the ill effects of vitamin A and E toxicity. Where vitamin A toxicity starts to cause calcium loss from your bones, and I was having severe bone pains and passed a kidney stone as a demonstration of calcium loss. Although the kidney stone's calcium was yanked back into my body due to the vitamin D. I passed a weird hair like structure which took about a week to pass through my urethra. It was not pleasant cause it got stuck sideways towards the end. The stomach pains were gone by this point. But my forearms ached when I would try to lay down to sleep, and my back bones hurt to the point I couldn't sit for very long during the day. This may have started to progress to bone swelling, of which I have no idea. I believe that the excess A and E were hiding in my bone marrow at this point, which is a fatty substance. But the vitamin D seemed to dominate over and force the A and E back into hiding, and relieved the painful symptoms, and pulled the calcium into my body from the dietary tract, and the vitamin K2-M4 pushed the calcium back into the proper places for calcium to go, such as my bones. This is going to take a long time to slowly get rid of the aches and pains from vitamin A and E.<br /><br />Now, on the side note that the corporation replies to me stating they only added a relatively small amount... how am I supposed to supplement when it is not on the label the specific amount?! Also, I would rather take D-Gama Tocopherol or a balanced mix of the tocopherols, but when they purposely shove the lowest common grade tocopherol (Alpha) into a supplement, even if by soy, then it stops me from choosing which tocopherol I actually wanted in my diet!

These have been great so far! I've been taking them for about a week now and I can honestly say that they never give fish burps or any type of fishy smell or aftertaste. They are also a bit smaller than the fish oil pills I had been taking before. They are the perfect supplement to the prenatal vitamins I am taking which are the Garden of Life Vitamin Code RAW Prenatal vitamins. I've included a couple photos to give you an idea of the size of the pill. So far they are the smallest ones I'm taking. In both photos the Nordic Natural Prenatal DHA is the pill on the far right. The pill on the far left is the previous fish oil I was taking. Quite a difference in size!

Its expensive yes but Consumer Lab, the independent product testing agency for supplements has rated this the DHA and EPA as "Extremely high", 270 mg per medium/large softgel and the product is molecularly distilled. There are other DHA products that also rated very high but this is definitely up there as one of the best. From the list I checked there are a lot of fish oil products out there that cost a pretty penny and make fabulous claims but came up short in the independent tests. Do your research before you buy a supplement, it can save you from spending too much for a mediocre product. Other products that came up as showing extremely high levels of EPA and DHA were PregnancyPlus Omega-3 at 150mg, VitalOils1000 Ultra High Potency Omega-3 Fish Oil (250 mg EPA and 750 mg DHA per enteric coated softgel, 1 per day). The rating for DHA and EPA are rated as low, moderate, high, very high and extremely high. Some products failed the test all together and were not approved by the agency. Vitaoils is a tad less expensive than this DHA product but I think you will find all the products of a higher quality will be in a similar price range except Pregnancy Plus which is much cheaper.