Chia seed oil

About Chia seed oil

Cold-pressed oil from chia seed, roughly 60% alpha-linolenic acid — the highest ALA fraction of any common seed oil. Like flax oil it contains no EPA or DHA.

Chia oil is flax oil with better marketing and less research. The fatty-acid profile is very similar and slightly richer in ALA, and the same conversion limits apply: raising blood ALA is straightforward, raising DHA is not. The small number of human trials involving chia have mostly used the whole or milled seed, where the soluble fibre that turns chia into gel is a plausible contributor to any effect on glucose or satiety — a contribution the pressed oil cannot make.

Sold as

Cold-pressed oil, Softgel

Standardised to

Typically 58–64% alpha-linolenic acid — a product without this marker may not resemble what was studied.

Also known as

Salvia hispanica oil, Chia oil

Regulation: Chia seed is an authorised novel food in the EU with specified conditions of use. The oil is sold as a food or dietary supplement with no pre-market efficacy review.

What the research used

The amounts, forms and durations published trials of Chia seed oil actually administered.

When it was taken

Each window says whether a trial compared it against an alternative, or whether it is convention and pharmacology. Most timing advice is the second kind.

In the food catalogue

The whole-food form, where one exists. The evidence for a concentrated extract rarely transfers to the food, or the other way round — these are cross-links, not equivalents.