Fish Oil Supplements May Help Prevent Heart Failure
A new study shows that fish oil supplements may help more then the usually prescribed cholesterol-reducing drugs that help patients with chronic heart failure. Chronic heart failure is a condition that happens when a person’s heart is enlarged and cannot effectively pump blood around the body.
With few effective options for heart failure patients, the findings could give patients a potential new treatment and could change the dietary recommendations for them, said Dr. Jose Gonzalez Juanatey, a spokesman for the European Society of Cardiology, who was not connected to the research. “This reinforces the idea that treating patients with heart failure takes more than just drugs,” Juanatey said.
“With a lot of these patients, you have no other choice,” said Dr. Helmut Gohlke, a cardiologist at the Heart Centre in Bad Krozingen, Germany. “They’ve tried other treatments and are at the end of the road.” Italian researchers gave nearly 3,500 patients a daily omega-3 pill, a prescription-formulation pill derived from fish oils, produced by Norway’s Pronova BioPharma.
But doctors said people should get the same benefits from taking cheaper options like fish oil supplements — or just eating more oily fish like salmon. Roughly the same number of patients were given placebo pills. Patients were followed for an average of four years.
In the group of patients taking the fish oil pills, 1,981 died of heart failure or were admitted to the hospital with the problem. In the patients on placebo pills, 2,053 died or were admitted to the hospital for heart failure. Researchers concluded that fish oil is slightly more effective than the drug because the oil performed better against a placebo than did Crestor.
“It’s a small benefit, but we should always be emphasizing to patients what they can do in terms of diet that might help,” said Dr. Richard Bonow. Omega-3 fatty acids from fish such as salmon and tuna have long been proven to offer health benefits like protecting the heart and brain, though scientists aren’t exactly sure how.
Bonow said that since cell membranes are made of fatty acids, fish oils may help to replace and strengthen those membranes with omega-3.