Cod Liver Oil: uses, dosing, side effects & brands
Cod Liver Oil is a medicine sold in the U.S. under one brand. Below: what the FDA label says, every product that contains it, what the pills look like, and its recall record.
Key facts
- Sold as
- Cod Liver Oil
- Generic available?
- Yes
Get treated for Cod Liver Oil conditions online
Licensed online providers — consult & get prescribed if eligible.
Advertising disclosure: We may earn a commission, at no extra cost to you. This never affects our ratings. Details
Every cod liver oil product we track (1)
Same active ingredient — different manufacturer, form, price and FDA recall record. That last one is what our independent score measures.
Only one: Cod Liver Oil.
What people report to the FDA about cod liver oil
The FDA Adverse Event Reporting System (FAERS) collects reports from patients and clinicians. It holds 4,412 reports naming cod liver oil, and the FDA flagged 70% of those reports as serious. The effects reported most often — leaving out reports about overdose, misuse or the condition being treated, which dominate the raw list for common medicines:
- fatigue466 reports
- diarrhoea371 reports
- arthralgia354 reports
- nausea328 reports
- headache307 reports
- insomnia277 reports
- dyspnoea273 reports
- dizziness271 reports
Read these as a signal, not a rate. A report does not mean cod liver oil caused the effect — anyone can file one, and many describe people taking several medicines for several conditions. Crucially there is no denominator: FAERS does not record how many people took the drug, so these counts cannot be turned into “X% of patients” — a bigger number often just means a more widely used or more talked-about drug. Duplicates exist, and publicity drives reporting. For what is actually established, read the FDA label section above.
Source: openFDA drug/event (FAERS), retrieved July 25, 2026.
Related calculators
Frequently asked questions
What is Cod Liver Oil?
Cod Liver Oil is a dietary supplement.
Can you take cod liver oil with other medicines?
It depends on the medicine. We check it against the FDA labels rather than guessing: our interaction checker searches each drug's own label for the other and quotes what it says, naming the section it came from. Run cod liver oil against whatever else you take — and remember that a label not naming a drug is not the same as that combination being safe.
Is there a generic cod liver oil?
Yes. Our catalog lists 1 generic cod liver oil product alongside the brand versions. A generic has the same active ingredient and must meet the FDA's bioequivalence standard; it usually costs less. Ask your pharmacist which one your plan covers.
Cite this page
- APA
- pharmaranks. (2026, July 24). Cod Liver Oil: uses, dosing, side effects & brands. https://pharmaranks.com/drugs/cod-liver-oil
- MLA
- “Cod Liver Oil: uses, dosing, side effects & brands.” pharmaranks, 24 July 2026, https://pharmaranks.com/drugs/cod-liver-oil.
We summarise public FDA and NIH sources — for a clinical claim, cite the primary source we link to as well.
Sources: FDA openFDA drug label, National Drug Code Directory, and Enforcement (recall) database. This page reproduces public FDA data and is not medical advice. Dosing is set by your prescriber.
Read the full FDA label for cod liver oil on DailyMed (NIH) ↗.