Is It Really Beneficial To Take Fish Oil And Vitamin D? New Scientific Evidence

Is it really beneficial to take fish oil and vitamin D? New scientific evidence

Recent major studies have been reluctant to attribute miraculous healing properties to fish oil and vitamin D supplements. More precisely, in the prescribed doses, these substances have not demonstrated tangible benefits.

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Recent major studies have been reluctant to attribute miraculous healing properties to fish oil and vitamin D supplements. More precisely, in the prescribed doses, these substances have not demonstrated tangible benefits.

"Those who market these supplements say they help from everything, but in these trials, vitamin D was unimportant," says Dr. James Stein, a cardiologist at the University of Wisconsin Madison who was not involved in the research. …

The new findings were presented at the American Heart Association conference in Chicago and published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

The active ingredients of fish oil are omega-3 fatty acids: eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA). The new research study tested omega-3 acids in various dietary supplements and looked at 26,000 participants who had no heart problems or cancer at the start of the study.

During the study, there were 145 heart attacks in the group receiving dietary supplements, and 200 heart attacks among those who did not receive omega-3 acids. Study author Dr. JoAnn Manson of Brigham and Women's Hospital considers this to be a significant benefit, but many experts disagree with it due to the study design.

"These findings are speculative and require confirmation in a separate study," says Dr. Steven Nissen of the Cleveland Clinic's.

Thus, the new data do not conflict with the old data from a smaller study, which argued that a commercial drug with 4 g of EPA and DHA can reduce the incidence of heart attacks, strokes, cardiovascular mortality and angina pectoris.

Manson's team also tested vitamin D. In the past, some studies have shown that deficiencies are more likely to develop cancer, but it is not known if dietary supplements may affect this risk.

Vitamin D did not affect the incidence of heart attack, stroke and cancer. However, after excluding the first two years from the calculations, in the group of people receiving the vitamin, there were fewer cases of cancer (112 versus 149).

“Cancer takes years to develop. It looks promising,”Manson says.

However, a number of experts disagree with her.

“Both studies are negative. First and foremost, they showed that fish oil and vitamin D did not reduce the incidence of cancer and heart disease,”said Dr. Lawrence Fine, head of clinical use and prevention at the US National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute.