Can Omega-3 Fish Oils Help With Weight Loss and Reduce Belly Fat?

Fish oils containing omega-3 fatty acids are one of the most popular and widely available health supplements. Omega-3 fish oils help with weight loss and reduce belly fat because they have beneficial effects on appetite and metabolism.

Fish oils containing omega-3 fatty acids are one of the most popular and widely available health supplements. But you may not know what they’re good for and how they work. This article discusses how to use omega-3 fish oils for weight loss, their role in reducing belly fat, and more.

Fatty acids are of two main types — saturated and unsaturated. All fatty acids are usually made of long chains of hydrogen and carbon atoms. Fatty acids are called saturated when hydrogen atoms occupy all the vacant spots next to the carbon atoms in a given molecule. Conversely, unsaturated fatty acids may contain some double bonds in place of hydrogen atoms.

Omega-3s are one of the most common types of polyunsaturated fatty acids. The “3” in omega-3 simply indicates which carbon atom has a double bond instead of a hydrogen atom. 

Omega-3 fatty acids play important roles in your body’s normal structure and function. They also exhibit anti-inflammatory properties and can suppress the symptoms of prolonged inflammatory diseases like arthritis.

Omega-3s can protect against health conditions like cancer, diabetes, and fatal heart disease. They’re also useful for combating psychological conditions such as bipolar disorder, depression, and schizophrenia.

The two main types of omega-3 fatty acids include:

Essential fatty acids:

Your body is capable of producing all the fatty acids it needs except linoleic acid (an omega-6 fatty acid) and alpha-linolenic acid (ALA, an omega-3 fatty acid). You can get these two fatty acids only from the food you eat or supplements you take (e.g., fish oil). Hence, they are called essential fatty acids. 

These fatty acids are very important for the normal growth and repair of your body as well as for producing other fatty acids. 

Long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids

Your body can convert the essential fatty acid ALA into two different omega-3 fatty acids — docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) and eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA). This conversion process is carried out by enzymes, which exist in limited amounts within your body and have to participate in many processes.

That’s why there may not be a sufficient number of enzymes available to assist ALA with the conversion. According to research, only 2% to 10% of the ALA you consume gets converted into DHA and EPA. Therefore, most health care professionals recommend taking around 200 to 300 mg of DHA and EPA per day.

These fatty acids are important for normal brain and eye function and for preventing diseases like depression and inflammation. 

You can get DHA and EPA by eating fatty fish or through fish oil supplements.

It may seem counterintuitive to consume high-calorie fats/oils for weight loss, but omega-3s have many potential beneficial effects on appetite and metabolism. These include:

1. Reduced hunger

Fish oil may be useful for decreasing appetite among people on a weight loss diet. 

In a study of healthy people on a weight loss diet, those who consumed more than 1.3 grams of fish oil per day felt full for up to 2 hours after eating food compared with the people who consumed less than 0.3 grams of fish oil per day.

But these effects are not standardized and may vary based on your diet and health status. Omega-3 fish oils increased the levels of a fullness hormone in  obese people but decreased the levels of this hormone in nonobese people.

Additional research is needed to clarify these findings.

2. Improved metabolism

Your metabolism or metabolic rate basically indicates the number of calories that you burn each day. This means that the higher your metabolic rate, the more calories you burn and the more weight you lose. 

In two studies of older women and healthy adults who took 3 grams of fish oil every day for 12 weeks, the metabolic rates increased by 14% and 5.3%, respectively.

These studies also documented the increase in muscle mass in their participants. Because muscle burns more calories than fat, this finding might explain the increase in metabolic rates among these people.

3. Enhanced effects of exercise

Fish oil may be able to increase the amounts of calories and fat you burn during exercise. This is because ingesting fish oil may help your body switch from using carbs to fats as a source of fuel during exercise.

In a study of women who took 3 grams of fish oil daily for 12 weeks, these women burned 10% more calories, and their metabolic rates increased by 14%. The rate of fat burning increased by 19% during rest and 27% during exercise.

Thus, taking fish oil in combination with exercise might be more effective for fat loss compared with exercise alone.

4. Increased fat loss

Even if you don’t lose weight with fish oil, you may still lose body fat. This might be because if you’re also building muscle (e.g., through exercise) even as you’re losing fat, you may not notice any changes in weight due to the increase in muscle mass.  

In a study of 44 people who took 4 grams of fish oil per day, the fish oil group failed to lose weight. But they lost 1.1 pounds (0.5 kilograms) more fat and built 1.1 pounds (0.5 kilograms) more muscle than those who didn’t take fish oil.

According to a review of 21 studies, fish oil is quite effective in reducing waist circumference and the waist-to-hip ratio.

According to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), taking up to 3 grams of omega-3 fish oil supplements per day is considered safe. Meanwhile, the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), which is the European equivalent of the FDA, allows you to take up to 5 grams of fish oil supplements daily.

But omega-3s can have some negative effects. For instance, they have blood-thinning effects and should be avoided in people with bleeding disorders or who are taking blood thinners.

Fish oil supplements like cod liver oil, which contain high amounts of vitamin A, should be avoided by young children and pregnant women as they can be toxic in large doses.

While taking supplements, be vigilant about fake brands or low-quality ingredients that may cause harmful effects. The ideal fish oil supplement should contain at least 50% of DHA and EPA (e.g., 500 milligrams of DHA and EPA per gram of fish oil).

Adding fish oil to your regular diet can not only help you fulfill your nutritional requirements but also achieve your long-term weight or fat loss goals.