Krill oil - The next best thing? Probably not...
I've been hearing about Krill oil for some time now in my practice, and have recently had a surge in the number of people who have begun taking it. Interestingly, I hear about it from patients but rarely see it come up in the literature, or from the professional product companies we regularly order from. While I'm always skeptical of wild claims, I've been most concerned with the steep cost of Krill oil in comparison to the "tried and true" fish oil.For example, a bottle of Jamieson Omega Red Krill Oil is $29.99 for a bottle of 60 capsules. Each capsule provides 53 mg of EPA and 29 mg of DHA. The recommended dose is 1-2 caps per day, which would provide 82-164 mg of combined EPA and DHA per day. That's quite a bit less than the 1000-1500 mg of combined EPA and DHA recommended for many conditions.In comparison, many of the standard fish oil products available provide 400-750 mg of EPA+DHA per dose. One that I regularly recommend is Ascenta's Nutra Sea 2x capsules (approx $27.99) which provide 1250 mg of EPA+DHA per 2 caps. In order to achieve a similar therapeutic dose of Krill oil you'd have to take approximately 15 capsules! You'd go through a bottle in just 4 days!The makers of Krill oil products often claim increased absorption due to the phospholipid and antioxidant content. I've searched PubMed and have yet to find a large-scale well designed study that supports this. In fact, in all of PubMed (a large database of published research) there are only 26 human citations for krill oil. That's not a lot in comparison to the 13062 hits for fish oil. This recently published study actually found that krill oil was the LEAST absorbed when compared to various types of fish oil.While I'm open to the idea that krill oil may prove to be superior, the lack of evidence just doesn't justify the cost. There are also concerns regarding the sustainability of krill fisheries, and until it's proven safe, effective and sustainable I won't be recommending it.