When omega-3 fatty acids are isolated from fish oil, they are often in an ethyl ester form after the triglyceride backbone is removed.

“Most fish oil on the market is in ethyl ester form, which is cheaper to produce after purification. But it's not found in nature and is less bioavailable.”

“With ethyl esters, absorption is highly dependent on food. You need to take them with a fat-containing meal to absorb much at all. On an empty stomach, you may be absorbing very little.”

“And I think a lot of you know supplement companies will leave it in that purified form ethylester form that's not a naturally occurring form. So when we metabolize when we're taking an ethylester form um it it's very different in terms of like the enzymes that are cleaving things and how much we absorb. So we absorb far less of omega-3 in ethylsterform”

“Um, you know, the ethylester versus triglyceride. So, when omega-3 fatty acids are isolated from fish and they're purified, um they're oftent times run on a column to purify away things like PCBs and mercury. And so, um the the triglyceride backbone is removed and they're basically run through this alcohol column. And so, it has a you know, basically an an ethylster backbone to run it through the column to purify.”