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22.07.2023

Fish oil supplements protect against coronary heart disease

Diabetics and pre-diabetics reduce their risk of ischemic heart disease when they take fish oil supplements. Chinese epidemiologists discovered this when they analyzed British data.

Study
In coronary or ischemic heart disease, important blood vessels that supply the heart with oxygen and nutrients become clogged. A chronically elevated glucose level in your blood, as occurs in diabetics and prediabetics, doubles the risk of coronary heart disease by a factor of 2. [Lancet. 2010 Jun 26; 375(9733): 2215-22.]

Researchers at Zhejiang University School of Medicine wondered whether fish oil supplementation protects diabetics and prediabetics against coronary heart disease. To answer this question, they analyzed data from 47,663 prediabetics and 22,146 diabetics who had been followed for 11 years in the UK Biobank project. Of the prediabetic and diabetic study participants, 4304 and 3294 study participants developed coronary artery disease, respectively.

The study participants had answered questions about their supplement use - and therefore also about their use of fish oil capsules.

Results
When the Chinese had brushed off the effect of as many lifestyle factors as possible, they found that taking fish oil supplements reduced the risk of coronary heart disease in prediabetics by 9 percent. In diabetics this was 9 percent.

Click on the table below for a larger version.

The protective effect of supplementation was greater in men, over-65s and ex-smokers.

The researchers had access to the blood values of the study participants. For example, they were able to find out that fish oil supplementation protected prediabetes by lowering the concentration of the inflammatory factor CRP.

In diabetics, fish oil protected by lowering the 'very very veryy very bad cholesterol' VLDL.

Conclusion
The connections the Chinese found were not very strong. This was partly because they could not see exactly how much fish fatty acids the study participants consumed, they write.

Source:
Nutrients 2023;15,3176.

More:
Fish oil for heart failure 03.04.2017
Fish oil from algae protects cardiovascular system too 18.02.2017
Fish only offers protection against heart attacks if you eat walnuts too 03.02.2017

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