Fish Oil Benefits: Heart Issue Prevention Questioned In New Study - What You Should Know About Omega-3 Fatty Acid Supplements

Fish oil benefits, in relation to heart health, are the target of a new long-term study from Italy that found the supplement did not display a positive effect on the development of heart problems---a departure from results displayed in previous studies that suggested the supplement does have a positive effect in regard to the development of heart-related issues. 

Researchers found that fish oil supplements did not prevent heart problems in people who had not previously had a heart attack.

The study, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, investigated omega-3 fatty acids, found in fish like tuna and sardines, and their effect on cardiovascular issues.

Study participants had heart disease risk factors such as high cholesterol, a history of smoking, narrowed arties or high blood pressure. Patients who experienced a heart attack in the past were prohibited from signing up for the study.

Researchers found that after five years from the start of the study, 11.7 percent of the 6,244 participants who took a one-gram fish oil capsule daily had either died or received hospital treatment related to a heart issue, in comparison to the 11.9 percent out of the 6,269 participants who received one gram of olive daily as a placebo.

The new findings "provide no evidence of the usefulness of (omega)-3 fatty acids for preventing cardiovascular death or disease," said the researchers, led by Dr. Marla Carla Roncaglioni from the Mario Negri Institute for Pharmacological Research in Milan.

Some experts say the results from this new study fortify the idea that the sole use of supplements is not going to help in heart health.

"Just giving a supplement on top of a non-heart-healthy lifestyle doesn't seem to help," Alice Lichtenstein from Tufts University in Boston and spokeswoman for the American Heart Association told Reuters Health.

"We thought Vitamin E pills were going to be the answer and that turned out to be wrong. We though beta-carotene as an antioxidant was going to reduce cardiovascular disease...and that pill didn't work. It's the whole package, not just popping one pill."