When I visited my 76-year-old mother the other day, she seemed worried and upset with me.
‘Why did you tell me to take fish oil supplements?’ she complained. ‘I’m going to have a stroke!’
Even though I told her she had nothing to worry about, she stood her ground and explained that she had read about it in the newspaper and heard it on Radio 4’s Today programme, so it must be true.
The research, which made headlines recently and worried my mother, and no doubt many others, was published in the journal BMJ Medicine.
It showed that regular consumption of fish oil supplements could be a risk factor for atrial fibrillation (AF or irregular heartbeat) and stroke.
Taking a fish oil supplement reduces the risk of developing diseases such as MS
No wonder my mother was worried.
But before you throw away your fish oil (aka omega-3) pills, like my mother was about to do after five years of taking them, let me tell you what I’ve decided after researching the study (and review many others). I will continue to take my daily supplement, especially since I hate eating fish! And I think you should continue too.
This is because the research was observational. In other words, no experiments were done: the researchers simply looked at what happened to groups of people in terms of their health outcomes, some who had taken fish oil and some who had not.
What observational studies tell us is whether there is an association between something (in this case, fish oil pills) and an outcome (the chances of developing AF or having a stroke).
But an association does not mean that caused the illness.
The journal BMJ Medicine published research showing that those who regularly consume fish oil supplements could be a risk factor for stroke.
For years, coffee was associated with poor health and cancer, when we now know that, generally speaking, in moderation, it is good for your health.
The problem had been that the numerous studies showing that coffee drinkers had higher rates of cancer were based on people who also smoked.
The best type of research is a randomized controlled trial, in which half of the participants receive fish oil and the other half a placebo (a fake tablet), and the results are analyzed by researchers who don’t know who is taking what.
Even these benchmark studies can have flaws.
I have spent much of my career analyzing these issues, even writing a textbook about it.
I won’t get too technical, but a problem, for example, is an error in the way a study was designed. For example, people receiving the supplements are healthier than the placebo group to begin with, so their better results are incorrectly attributed to the pills.
The Journal of the American Heart Association found that those who took supplements daily for five years reduced their risk of dying from cardiovascular disease by 7 percent.
The new research, carried out by scientists from the US, China, Denmark and the UK, was based on data from more than 400,000 patients from the UK Biobank; an ongoing study that began in 2006. Participants underwent blood tests and completed questionnaires and were then followed. for the next 30 years using your NHS records.
The results were, on the surface, surprising and, for someone like me, who takes a fish oil pill every day and recommends it to friends and family, somewhat alarming.
These showed that if you were healthy and took omega-3 pills, you were 13 percent more likely to develop AF compared to if you didn’t take the pills. The risk of having a stroke was 5 percent higher.
Most people who have AF do not know they have it. So perhaps those who took fish oils were more health conscious, so they had more frequent checkups, and therefore had a higher chance of having their AF detected.
But what about the increased risks of having a stroke?
While there was a small increase in strokes, closer examination showed that this difference could range from no difference to an 11 percent increase.
This, in layman’s terms, is such an unconvincing difference in the numbers that we cannot conclude that fish oils increase the chances of having a stroke.
There were other conflicting findings: Those who developed AF were 13 percent less likely to have a heart attack or stroke.
How could this be if fish oils were harmful? The only conclusion we can draw from this is that we cannot draw any conclusions from this study!
Therefore, we should look for better studies: randomized controlled studies.
For example, in 2019, the Journal of the American Heart Association published a review of 13 trials involving more than 125,000 patients. Taking fish oil supplements daily for five years was found to reduce the risk of dying from cardiovascular disease by 7 percent.
Meanwhile, there is also the suggestion that fish oils may help prevent depression.
The cause of depression is not really understood. However, we do know that inflammatory chemicals, such as cytokines, can cross the blood-brain barrier and interfere with chemical messengers in the brain (called neurotransmitters) and increase the risk of developing it. That is if you have an inflammatory condition.
This was something I experienced personally: I have ulcerative colitis, an inflammatory bowel disease, and when I took fish oil after my father died, which left me depressed, I really think the pills helped me.
Apparently, omega-3s can also help with brain health. In 2022, Cureus: Journal of Medical Science published a review of nine randomized controlled studies that concluded that “ingestion of omega-3 fatty acids increases learning, memory, cognitive well-being, and blood flow in the brain.”
The condition I fear most is dementia, which is another reason I take fish oil.
But the main reason is the potential impact on my life expectancy, primarily my healthy Life expectancy.
Fish oils appeared to mitigate the damaging impact of inflammation and cortisol increases caused by chronic everyday stresses, such as work deadlines, that are so common in all of our lives, according to a study published in the journal Molecular Psychiatry in 2021.
Another analysis that year, in the highly respected journal Nature Communications, found that people with the highest levels of omega-3s in their blood had all-cause mortality rates that were 17 percent lower than those with the lowest levels. low.
Where does this lead us? Based on my examination of the science behind the headlines, I will continue taking my daily fish oil tablet. And I would recommend my mom (and anyone else) do it too.
@drobgalloway
