Citation: Pasini, F.; Gómez-Caravaca, A.M.; Blasco, T.; Cveji´ c, J.; Caboni, M.F.; Verardo, V. Assessment of Lipid Quality in Commercial Omega-3 Supplements Sold in the French Market. Biomolecules 2022, 12, 1361. https://doi.org/10.3390/biom12101361 Academic Editors: Daniel Franco Ruiz and Mirian Pateiro Received: 5 August 2022 Accepted: 21 September 2022 Published: 23 September 2022 Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affil- iations. Copyright: © 2022 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/ 4.0/). biomolecules Article Assessment of Lipid Quality in Commercial Omega-3 Supplements Sold in the French Market Federica Pasini 1,2 , Ana Maria Gómez-Caravaca 3,4, *, Thierry Blasco 5 , Jelena Cveji´ c 6 , Maria Fiorenza Caboni 1,2 and Vito Verardo 4,7, * 1 Department of Agricultural and Food Sciences, University of Bologna, Piazza Goidanich 60, 47521 Cesena, Italy 2 Inter-Departmental Centre for Agri-Food Industrial Research (CIRI Agroalimentare), University of Bologna, Via Quinto Bucci 336, 47521 Cesena, Italy 3 Department of Analytical Chemistry, Faculty of Sciences, University of Granada, Avd. Fuentenueva s/n, 18071 Granada, Spain 4 Institute of Nutrition and Food Technology ‘José Mataix’, Biomedical Research Center, University of Granada, Avda del Conocimiento sn., 18100 Armilla, Spain 5 INSU-CNRS, Laboratoire d’Océanographie de Villefranche, Sorbonne Université, 06230 Villefranche-sur-Mer, France 6 Department of Pharmacy, Faculty of Medicine, University of Novi Sad, 21000 Novi Sad, Serbia 7 Department of Nutrition and Food Science, University of Granada, Campus of Cartuja, 18071 Granada, Spain * Correspondence: anagomez@ugr.es (A.M.G.-C.); vitoverardo@ugr.es (V.V.) Abstract: Supplementation of omega-3 fatty acids is considered a valuable strategy to supply the low intake of these fatty acids. Thus, the safety of the supplements is an important milestone. Because of that, we analyzed 20 unflavored supplements sold in the French market for fatty acid and triglyceride composition, for EPA and DHA, and for tocol content, as well as for oxidative status. This study found that only 2.5% of the supplements did not meet their label claims for omega-3 content. TAG analysis showed high variability among the triglyceride distribution, and the same trend was also noticed for the tocol content; in fact, a high variability of the distribution of the six tocols (four tocopherols and two tocotrienols) was found among the samples. Of the tested products, all of them complied with peroxide value, p-anisidine value, and Totox values established by the Global Organization for EPA and DHA Omega-3s (GOED) and were not oxidized. Keywords: polyunsaturated fatty acids; lipid oxidation; fish oil; microalgae oil; Schizochytrium; peroxide value; p-anisidine value; Totox 1. Introduction Omega-3 fatty acids are distributed in different foods and are responsible for several health benefits. Despite the fact that alpha-linolenic acid (ALA) is the omega-3 fatty acid universally available in animal and plant sources, EPA and DHA present in marine sources are more bioactive and they are responsible of the main health benefits [1,2]. A relation between the high intake of EPA and DHA and a low risk of developing cardiovascular diseases (CVD) was demonstrated; this is due to the ability of these fatty acids to modulate several risk factors associated to CVD such as blood pressure, platelet aggregation, blood lipids, and inflammation [3]. According to Giacobbe et al. [4], omega-3 fatty acids reduce the symptoms of depression and have anti-inflammatory activity thanks to the formation of derived metabolites promoting them for tailored therapy in psychiatric, neurodegenerative, and neurological conditions. Moreover, DHA is also involved in the brain development processes and is important in patients with Alzheimer’s disease [5]. Another study from Mozaffari and co-workers [6] demonstrated an inverse correlation between omega-3 fatty acids and Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis. Biomolecules 2022, 12, 1361. https://doi.org/10.3390/biom12101361 https://www.mdpi.com/journal/biomolecules