Fish Oil?

Podcast: Download (Duration: 1:05 — 1.5MB)

Subscribe: RSS

Anchor lead: A new study seems to pan even purified fish oil in improving cardiovascular disease risk, Elizabeth Tracey reports

Does fish oil help people at high risk for cardiovascular events avoid them? The most recent study comparing a highly purified prescription fish oil against corn oil seems to conclude no. Garima Sharma, a cardiologist at Johns Hopkins with a special interest in this area, explains why this issue is important.

Sharma: From a clinical perspective, from a patient’s perspective, people who are at high risk of having heart disease, recurrent heart attacks, who are diabetic, who have a very high risk of cardiovascular events, continue to have those events even when they are on really good statin drugs. And that’s the context of why we’re even debating fish oil, because we know that maximally tolerated statins can get your LDL cholesterol down, but then there still continues to be a risk.  :29

Sharma says looking carefully at purified fish oil is also important because when people take the recommended amount they may develop gastrointestinal symptoms, so the risks and benefits must be weighed. At Johns Hopkins, I’m Elizabeth Tracey.