Comparative guide

Fish oil vs cod liver oil

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These get swapped in the same spoon. They are not the same product. Fish oil in the trials above is an EPA and DHA dose. Cod liver oil has been described as that kind of fat plus vitamins A and D, which is a different safety problem.

Fehér 2011 (PMID 21324803) is a Hungarian review. The English abstract argues that vitamin D deficiency is common, that high-dose vitamin D alone needs caution, and that cod liver oil is one way to take vitamin D together with vitamin A and omega-3 fats. It does not print a measured vitamin A amount per spoon. We are not inventing one.

That is the distinction. A fish-oil capsule labeled with EPA and DHA milligrams is the product in the krill and flax comparisons. Cod liver oil adds preformed vitamin A, and preformed vitamin A has its own toxicity page: vitamin A toxicity. The existing cod-liver essay is cod liver oil in one spoonful. This comparison does not copy numbers from that essay that were not re-read here.

If you want EPA and DHA, read those milligrams. If the bottle is cod liver oil, you are also taking vitamin A and vitamin D, and you should know what else in the day already contains them.

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