Fish Oil Good for Heart Patients

A new study by Japanese researchers has found that an ingredient of fish oil can provide extra protection against damage caused due to heart disease. The ingredient – a fatty acid called EPA – can be added to cholesterol-lowering medications to gain its benefits.

The research team led by Dr. Mitsuhiro Yokoyama, MD, of Kobe University in Kobe, Japan recruited more than 18,600 patients for their study. The average age of the patients was 61 years and all of them suffered from high levels of cholesterol in their blood.

The researchers split the subjects into two groups. While one group was administered cholesterol-lowering statin drugs, the other group of patients was given 1800 milligram EPA as a supplement to the statin drugs. EPA or eliosapentaenoic acid is a fatty acid found in fish oil. Both EPA and its cousin DHA – another fish oil fatty acid – have been shown to reduce risk of death due to heart disease in previous studies.

The researchers followed all subjects for a period of around five years. It was observed that 2.8% of the patients in the EPA group and 3.5% of the ones in the statin-only group suffered from a major coronary event. Relatively this was a 19% difference.

This led researchers to the finding that EPA did not just improve the health of the patients but they were also 19% less likely to suffer non-fatal heart attacks and other events like unstable angina. As compared to those taking only statins, patients receiving statins plus EPA were also less likely to require surgical procedures such as widening of the arteries and by-passes.

It was also found that the beneficial effects of EPA were not related to lowering of harmful LDL cholesterol levels since these levels decreased by 25% in both groups. There was also no significant impact of EPA treatment on heart attacks alone, either fatal or non-fatal.

On the whole, the researchers concluded that EPA is a promising treatment for the prevention of heart problems, especially in patients who have a known history of coronary artery disease. Findings of the study which was titled the Japan EPA Lipid Intervention Study (JELIS) are published online in The Lancet medical journal.

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