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Study challenges belief that omega 3 supplements reduce risk of heart disease

• vfc1 8y ago
  From the plain language key result summary available here: http://cochranelibrary-wiley.com/doi/10.1002/14651858.CD003177.pub3/full http://cochranelibrary-wiley.com/doi/10.1002/14651858.CD0031... Increasing EPA and DHA has little or no effect on all-cause deaths and cardiovascular events (high-quality evidence) and probably makes little or no difference to cardiovascular death, coronary deaths or events, stroke, or heart irregularities (moderate-quality evidence, coronary events are illnesses of the arteries which supply the heart). EPA and DHA slightly reduce serum triglycerides and raise HDL (high-quality evidence). Eating more ALA (for example, by increasing walnuts or enriched margarine) probably makes little or no difference to all-cause or cardiovascular deaths or coronary events but probably slightly reduce cardiovascular events, coronary mortality and heart irregularities (moderate/low-quality evidence). Effects of ALA on stroke are unclear as the evidence was of very low quality. There is evidence that taking omega-3 capsules does not reduce heart disease, stroke or death. There is little evidence of effects of eating fish. Although EPA and DHA reduce triglycerides, supplementary omega-3 fats are probably not useful for preventing or treating heart and circulatory diseases. However, increasing plant-based ALA may be slightly protective for some heart and circulatory diseases. What are your thoughts on this?