Fish oil beats statins for lowering mortality risk

April 13, 2005

Hi Gang, thought some of you might find this interesting...

The April 11 2005 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine published a

review of the effects of various lipid lowering regimens on overall

mortality and mortality from coronary heart disease. Researchers from

Basel Institute for Clinical Epidemiology and University Hospital in

Basel, Switzerland reviewed 97 clinical trials published between 1965

and 2003 that included 137,140 men and women being treated and 138,976

control subjects. The current analysis compared the association with

mortality risk of diet, lipid lowering drugs categorized as statins,

fibrates and resins, and the nutritional supplements omega-3 fatty

acids (commonly found in fish oils) and niacin.

While the fibrate class of drugs failed to influence overall mortality

and mildly elevated noncardiac mortality, and while diet, resins and

niacin appeared to provide insignificant benefits, statins and omega-3

fatty acids signifcantly lowered both overall and coronary heart

disease mortality risk during the trial periods. The risk of overall

mortality was reduced by 13 percent by statins and 23 percent by

omega-3 fatty acids compared to the risk experienced by those who did

not receive treatment. When the risk of mortality from heart disease

alone was analyzed, the use of statin drugs and omega-3 fatty acids

were found to lower the risk by 22 and 32 percent, respectively.

The superiority of omega-3 acids in lowering the risk of overall and

cardiac mortality cannot be explained by an ability to reduce

cholesterol, which averaged 2 percent in this meta-analysis compared

to an average reduction of 20 percent acheived via the use of statins.

The protection provided by omega-3 fatty acids against heart

arrhythmias, along with their antithrombotic and anti-inflammatory

properties may be responsible for the mortality risk reduction

suggested by this review.

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