I want to share the highlights of an article/interview from Heartwire  (click the link for the full article) that covers the results of a recent clinical data review published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology on the benefits of Omega-3 fatty acids.  After you read this article you will definitely want to add an Omega-3 supplement to your diet.  It was originally published on August 3, 2009 and was written by Lisa Nainggolan.

New Orleans, LA - A new review concludes that there is extensive evidence from three decades of research that fish oils, or more specifically the omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) contained in them, are beneficial for everyone [1].

This includes healthy people as well as those with heart disease—including post-MI patients and those with heart failure (HF), atherosclerosis, or atrial fibrillation—say Dr Carl J Lavie (Ochsner Medical Center, New Orleans, LA) and colleagues in their paper published online August 3, 2009 in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.

“We reviewed everything that was published on omega-3 that was clinically important, and the major finding is that there are a tremendous amount of data to support the benefits of omega-3, not just as a nutritional supplement—people have known that for years—but evidence that it prevents and treats many aspects of cardiovascular disease,” Lavie told heartwire.

Omega-3 PUFA, says Lavie, “is a therapy that clinicians should be considering prescribing to their patients. Not just as something healthy but as something that may actually prevent the next event. In HF, it may prevent death or hospitalization and the same thing post-MI.” He and his colleagues reiterate the advice of the AHA: that those with known CHD or HF eat four or five oily-fish meals per week or take the equivalent in omega-3 supplements; healthy people should consume around two fatty-fish meals per week or the same in supplements.

In their review, Lavie and colleagues explain that most of the data on omega-3 have been obtained in trials using docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) and eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA), the long-chain fatty acids in this family. The most compelling evidence for cardiovascular benefits comes from four controlled trials of almost 40 000 participants randomized to receive EPA with or without DHA in studies of primary prevention, after MI, and most recently with HF, they note.

Lavie elaborated to heartwire: “The benefit is different in different studies but can be as much as 30%.” The effects are seen on total mortality, sudden death, CHD mortality, and cardiovascular mortality.

Recently, the potential benefits of omega-3 PUFAs “have been extended to the prevention and treatment of HF,” say Lavie et al. Although the reduction in events was “only 8% to 9% in the recent GISSI-HF trial, which is not huge,” Lavie admits, “when you think of HF, it’s a very serious disorder, and in GISSI-HF, those patients were treated vigorously for their HF, so they were on good therapy, and adding just one [omega-3 PUFA] pill a day reduced deaths by between 8% and 9%, which is a pretty nice additional benefit.”

But he and his colleagues say further studies are needed to determine the optimal dosing of omega-3 PUFA for different stages of HF and to investigate the underlying mechanisms for the benefits. However, in the meantime, omega-3 PUFA supplements “should join the short list of evidence-based life-prolonging therapies for HF.”

And they note that more studies are needed to determine the optimal mix of DHA relative to EPA in various populations.

Finally, they state that this review does not focus on the plant-based precursor of EPA, alpha-linolenic acid (ALA), which is found in abundance in flaxseed and to a lesser extent in other plants. But they observe “the overall evidence is much weaker for ALA than for EPA and DHA.”

Mirroring recommendations from the AHA, European Society of Cardiology, and WHO, Lavie and colleagues recommend that healthy people consume at least 500 mg per day of EPA/DHA—equal to around two fatty-fish meals per week—and that those with known CHD or HF get 800 to 1000 mg per day EPA/DHA.

Asked by heartwire whether people should try to consume more fish or alternatively take supplements, Lavie says: “If somebody really were eating salmon and tuna and mackerel and sardines, and they were doing that several times a week, then they wouldn’t need to be taking a supplement. But in the US, at least, very few people are going to eat the therapeutic doses of fatty fish.”

Other good reasons to take supplements include the fact that they have usually had impurities, such as mercury, removed, he notes.

If people are trying to improve their consumption of oily fish, they could take supplements only on the days they were not eating such fish or every other day to try to get up to the recommended amount of omega-3 PUFAs, Lavie says.

But he warns that regimens that are too complex might result in underconsumption: “I would tend to think that most people are getting very little omega-3 PUFAs in the diet. There’s no harm in taking extra—the only negative of extra is the calories. I don’t think anyone thinks now that fish oil is doing any harm.”

1. Lavie CJ, Milani RV, Mehra MR, et al. Omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids and cardiovascular disease. J Am Coll Cardiol 2009; 54: 585-594. Available at: http://content.onlinejacc.org.