How to Best Absorb Omega-3: What Affects How Much You Actually Get

Omega-3 fatty acids are fats your body needs for healthy cells. The two most studied, EPA and DHA, come mainly from fatty fish and fish oil supplements. Your body can make only small amounts of them from other fats (Office of Dietary Supplements, n.d.).

Omega-3 absorption, or how much of these fats your body actually takes in, depends on several factors. These include what you eat with your supplement, the chemical form of the oil, and how the oil is delivered. 

Omega-3 supplements are available as capsules, soft gels, and liquids. Some liquids are made as emulsions or micelles, which break the oil into tiny droplets before you take it. This may help your body absorb more of each serving.

Key Takeaways

• Omega-3s are fats, so your body has to break the oil into tiny droplets before it can absorb them. Bile and dietary fat drive that step.

• Chemical form and physical delivery are two separate factors. Both can change how much EPA and DHA you take up.

• Take omega-3s with a meal that has some fat, take them every day, and check the EPA and DHA on the label.

How Does the Body Absorb Omega-3?

EPA and DHA are fats, so your body absorbs them the same way it absorbs the fat in food. That process happens in two main steps in the small intestine.

Why Oil Has to Be Broken Down First

Oil and water do not mix. When fish oil reaches your small intestine, it forms large droplets. Digestive enzymes called lipases can only work on the outer surface of each droplet, so large droplets are slow to break down.

Bile solves this problem. Bile is a fluid made by your liver and stored in your gallbladder. It works like dish soap on a greasy pan, splitting large droplets into many tiny ones. This is called emulsification.

Think of a sugar cube compared with loose sugar stirred into tea. The amount is the same, but loose sugar dissolves faster because more of it touches the liquid. Small oil droplets work the same way, giving enzymes more surface to work on.

Once enzymes split the fat into smaller pieces, bile salts gather those pieces into tiny carriers called micelles. Micelles move the fats to the gut wall, where they are absorbed. According to the National Institutes of Health (NIH), this process absorbs about 95% of omega-3 fats, a rate similar to other dietary fats (Office of Dietary Supplements, n.d.).

The Role of Dietary Fat

Fat in a meal signals your body to release bile. A meal with little fat triggers less bile, leaving more oil in large droplets.

Research suggests this makes a measurable difference. In a small study of men, EPA absorption from fish oil rose from 69% to 90% when the oil was eaten with a high-fat meal (44 grams of fat) instead of a low-fat meal (8 grams of fat) (Lawson & Hughes, 1988).

What Changes How Much Omega-3 You Absorb?

Four factors shape how much EPA and DHA you get from a supplement: the chemical form of the oil, how the oil is physically delivered, whether it is a liquid or a capsule, and what you take it with.

Chemical Form of the Oil

Chemical form describes how the omega-3 molecules are built. In fish, omega-3s come as triglycerides, which are three fatty acids attached to a backbone called glycerol. Supplement makers often process fish oil to concentrate it, and that can change its form (Office of Dietary Supplements, n.d.).

• Triglyceride: the natural form found in fish.

• Ethyl ester: a processed form where the glycerol backbone is replaced with ethanol.

• Re-esterified triglyceride: ethyl esters converted back into the triglyceride form.

Form appears to matter. In a two-week trial of 72 adults, EPA and DHA from re-esterified triglycerides were 124% as bioavailable as natural fish oil, while ethyl esters were 73% (Dyerberg et al., 2010). Ethyl esters also lean more heavily on a fatty meal. In the meal study above, ethyl ester absorption roughly tripled, to about 60%, when taken with more fat (Lawson & Hughes, 1988).

How the Oil Is Physically Delivered

Physical delivery describes the size of the oil droplets you swallow. This is a separate question from chemical form. The same triglyceride oil can come as one large dose inside a soft gel or as tiny droplets spread through a liquid. A review of omega-3 bioavailability treats chemical form, food intake, and delivery format as separate factors that each affect uptake (Schuchardt & Hahn, 2013).

Emulsions and micelle-based systems break the oil into tiny droplets before you swallow it. Part of bile's job is already done, so enzymes can reach more of the oil sooner.

In a crossover trial of 24 adults, an emulsified oil blend containing fish oil raised blood levels of EPA and DHA more than the same blend without emulsification, with both taken with a fat-free meal (Garaiova et al., 2007). In a smaller trial of 10 adults, emulsified fish oil led to greater uptake of total omega-3s and EPA over 48 hours than the same fish oil in capsules (Raatz et al., 2009).

Liquid or Capsule

A capsule holds the oil in one pocket that still needs bile to break it up. A liquid can be made as an emulsion that arrives already broken into small droplets, but plain liquid fish oil is still bulk oil. How the liquid is made is what separates one liquid omega-3 from another.

What You Take It With

A meal with some fat gives your body the bile it needs to break down omega-3 oil. Eggs, avocado, nuts, olive oil, and fatty fish all count. The best time to take omega-3s depends less on the hour and more on pairing your dose with food.

How Can You Get More From the Omega-3 You Take?

A few habits help your body take up more of each serving.

• Take it with a meal that contains fat. Fat triggers the bile your body needs to break down the oil.

• Take it every day. Omega-3 levels in your cells build up gradually.

• Check EPA and DHA, not total fish oil. A typical 1,000 mg fish oil supplement provides about 180 mg EPA and 120 mg DHA (Office of Dietary Supplements, n.d.).

• Look at form and delivery, not just milligrams. The same EPA and DHA can deliver different amounts to your body.

Micellar omega-3 takes delivery one step further. Micelles are the same type of tiny carrier your body builds with bile during digestion. In a micellar formula, the oil is already packed into these small structures before you take it, so less digestive work is needed before absorption.

Some micellar formulas also include MCTs, or medium-chain triglycerides. MCTs are a type of fat that the body breaks down quickly. They give the omega-3 a fat source to travel with, which may support absorption when a meal is light.

How Can You Tell If Your Body Is Absorbing Omega-3s?

You cannot feel omega-3 absorption. The most useful measure is a blood test that checks the EPA and DHA in your red blood cells, sometimes called the omega-3 index. It reflects your intake over roughly the past 120 days (Office of Dietary Supplements, n.d.).

Plan on weeks to months, not days. In a dose-response trial, adults took 0 to 1,800 mg of EPA and DHA daily for about five months, the approximate time it takes for cell membranes to settle at a new level. Levels rose in the supplemented groups, and the amount taken, starting level, and body weight all affected how much (Flock et al., 2013).

Rho's Liquid Omega-3: Designed for Absorption

High Absorption Omega-3 is a liquid omega-3 that uses micellar delivery. The fish oil is broken into tiny micelles before it is bottled, so it reaches your gut in a form closer to the one your body builds during digestion. Each serving provides 268 mg EPA and 202 mg DHA. See the label for serving information.

The micellar format also means no fishy taste and no fish burps. The formula includes tocopherols, a form of vitamin E that helps protect the fish oil from oxidation and keep it fresh.*

*These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does omega-3 absorb better with food?

Yes. Fat in a meal triggers bile, which breaks fish oil into smaller droplets. In one study, EPA absorption from fish oil rose from 69% to 90% with a high-fat meal (Lawson & Hughes, 1988).

Does the form of omega-3 affect absorption?

Yes. Triglyceride and re-esterified triglyceride forms tend to be absorbed better than ethyl esters (Dyerberg et al., 2010). Physical delivery, such as micelles, is a second factor.

Is liquid omega-3 absorbed better than capsules?

It depends on how the liquid is made. An emulsified or micellar liquid arrives as small droplets, which research suggests may support absorption. Plain liquid fish oil behaves much like the oil in a capsule.

How long does it take to raise omega-3 levels?

Research suggests red blood cell omega-3 levels take about five months of daily intake to settle at a new point (Flock et al., 2013).

Can you absorb too much omega-3?

The FDA and the European Food Safety Authority have concluded that up to 5 grams a day of combined EPA and DHA from supplements appears safe. Side effects are usually mild (Office of Dietary Supplements, n.d.). If you take a blood-thinning medication, talk with your healthcare provider before starting an omega-3 supplement.

References

Office of Dietary Supplements. (n.d.). Omega-3 fatty acids: Fact sheet for health professionals. National Institutes of Health. https://ods.od.nih.gov/factsheets/Omega3FattyAcids-HealthProfessional/

Lawson, L. D., & Hughes, B. G. (1988). Absorption of eicosapentaenoic acid and docosahexaenoic acid from fish oil triacylglycerols or fish oil ethyl esters co-ingested with a high-fat meal. Biochemical and Biophysical Research Communications, 156(2), 960–963. https://doi.org/10.1016/s0006-291x(88)80937-9

Dyerberg, J., Madsen, P., Møller, J. M., Aardestrup, I., & Schmidt, E. B. (2010). Bioavailability of marine n-3 fatty acid formulations. Prostaglandins, Leukotrienes and Essential Fatty Acids, 83(3), 137–141. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.plefa.2010.06.007

Schuchardt, J. P., & Hahn, A. (2013). Bioavailability of long-chain omega-3 fatty acids. Prostaglandins, Leukotrienes and Essential Fatty Acids, 89(1), 1–8. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.plefa.2013.03.010

Garaiova, I., Guschina, I. A., Plummer, S. F., Tang, J., Wang, D., & Plummer, N. T. (2007). A randomised cross-over trial in healthy adults indicating improved absorption of omega-3 fatty acids by pre-emulsification. Nutrition Journal, 6, 4. https://doi.org/10.1186/1475-2891-6-4

Raatz, S. K., Redmon, J. B., Wimmergren, N., Donadio, J. V., & Bibus, D. M. (2009). Enhanced absorption of n-3 fatty acids from emulsified compared with encapsulated fish oil. Journal of the American Dietetic Association, 109(6), 1076–1081. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jada.2009.03.006

Flock, M. R., Skulas-Ray, A. C., Harris, W. S., Etherton, T. D., Fleming, J. A., & Kris-Etherton, P. M. (2013). Determinants of erythrocyte omega-3 fatty acid content in response to fish oil supplementation: A dose-response randomized controlled trial. Journal of the American Heart Association, 2(6), e000513. https://doi.org/10.1161/JAHA.113.000513