Omega-3
The test: OmegaQuant Omega-3 Index ($55)
How it works: Prick a finger and put one drop of blood on the test paper. Mail it off, and a lab will test your blood for omega-3 fatty acids, then e-mail you a report telling you whether your levels are in the “desirable,” “intermediate,” or “undesirable” range. (The company can’t process samples from New York due to state regulations.)
Accuracy: 95 percent.
Should you try it? No. You’re better off spending that $55 on a two-month supply of canned salmon, says Melina Jampolis, MD, immediate past president of the National Board of Physician Nutrition Specialists. As long as you eat two to three servings of seafood a week, your blood levels of omega-3 fats should be just fine. What’s more, while researchers have found that getting enough omega-3s—from supplements, fatty fish, and plant-based foods like walnuts and flaxseed—is important for heart health, joint health, and brain function, they do not yet agree on ideal blood levels or the ideal test, so the results of a test like this are difficult to interpret, says Dr. Jampolis: “The science is not there to take this test prime time yet.”
Her advice for most of us? Eat more fish, especially fatty fish like salmon, and less fried food. “If you do those two things, you’ll increase your omega-3s and decrease the fats that are unhealthy,” she says. “And if you don’t eat fish twice a week, take a fish oil supplement, 500 to 1,000 milligrams a day.”