Another common tale? Too much fish oil thins your blood. Here, our vice president of scientific affairs and in-house nutritionist Ashley Jordan Ferira, Ph.D., RDN, helps separate fact from fiction. But according to Ferira, at normal intake levels (like from a fish oil supplement) and even very high levels none of us are consuming, this is nothing more than an old wives’ tale: “The fact is, a quick look at the body of epidemiologic and clinical trial research2 over the past 30 years demonstrates, from multiple systematic reviews and meta-analyses, that there is, in fact, no increased risk for bleeding when people consume a total daily amount of EPA + DHA as low as 500 milligrams and as high as 10 grams (10,000 milligrams!),” she says regarding omega-3 supplements. Ferira goes on to say, “Even if you wanted to be incredibly conservative and apply a random safety factor of 2 and make that daily max 5 grams (5,000 milligrams) of EPA plus DHA, those are not omega-3 levels that supplements provide. Period.” You see, this link between fish oil and blood thinning began decades ago, due to the fact that omega-3s interact with platelets3—which are cell fragments in the blood that play an integral role in clotting.* Over the years, this role with platelets has been blown way out of proportion: “In this case, a textbook physiological mechanism, that omega-3s can impact platelets, has been used to broadly fearmonger against completely safe doses of omega-3s found in supplements,” says Ferira. While it is technically possible to get too much of a good thing (even water!), there shouldn’t be too much of a concern with fish oil supplements, especially at clinically efficacious doses. “It’s time somebody debunked this myth that is genuinely scaring people away from using a truly helpful tool (i.e., fish oil supplementation) for whole-body health,”* Ferira adds.
