Fish oil for reducing coronary events

The Facts:
* Evidence suggests that the consumption of fish oils reduces the risk of dying from coronary artery disease.
* Long-term treatment with fish oil (1800mg eicosapentaenoic acid [EPA] per day for 5 years) was studied in nearly 20,000 Japanese patients with high cholesterol levels who were also receiving a cholesterol-lowering drug (statin) and consuming a large amount of fish.
* Fish oil plus statin therapy reduced the risk of a major coronary event by 19% compared with the statin alone but the rates of sudden cardiac death and coronary death were unchanged.

Shaun’s comment: The amount of research into the health benefits of fish oils is staggering – I could easily fill each issue of this Review with fish oil studies! This is one of the most important studies: it looked at adding 1800 mg/day of EPA to the treatment of patients with high cholesterol who were taking a statin drug, the standard treatment for high cholesterol. The study found that the EPA gave an additional 19% benefit in terms of reducing major coronary events and this was in a population that tends to eat a lot of fish anyway.

Study reference:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(07)60527-3