{"id":581885,"date":"2026-04-03T01:44:21","date_gmt":"2026-04-03T01:44:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/581885\/"},"modified":"2026-04-03T01:44:21","modified_gmt":"2026-04-03T01:44:21","slug":"whats-in-your-fish-oil-pill","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/581885\/","title":{"rendered":"What’s in Your Fish Oil Pill?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n The Evidence on Fish Oil Supplements\n<\/p>\n

Years of nutrition research have demonstrated that diets that are high in omega-3 fatty acids seem to be better for people\u2019s cardiovascular health than diets with low levels of these substances, according to Donald Lloyd-Jones, MD, principal investigator for the Framingham Heart Study at Boston University School of Medicine and scientific lead for clinical research services for the American Heart Association. Other studies<\/a> have also found that people with higher levels of EPA and DHA in their blood tend to be at lower risk for heart attacks, coronary heart disease, and other problems.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It\u2019s no wonder, then, that people would take supplements with EPA and DHA in an effort to boost their heart health.\u00a0<\/p>\n

And omega-3s do a lot of crucial work in your body<\/a>. They help form the structure of cell membranes, for example, and the body also uses them to form molecules that have a wide range of functions in the body\u2019s cardiovascular system, immune system, and more. But though regular, nonfried fatty fish intake has been consistently associated with<\/a> a reduced risk of heart-related death, coronary heart disease, and stroke, the evidence is less clear on the benefits of getting omega-3s from supplements alone. The pills, research suggests, may not really help the general population, though some people with certain existing cardiovascular problems might get some benefit.\u00a0<\/p>\n

One independent analysis of 86 randomized controlled trials<\/a>, published in 2020, found that people who took a fish oil supplement did not have a lower risk of stroke or cardiovascular disease death compared with those who took a placebo pill or ate their usual diets. The researchers did find that people who took fish oil pills may be less likely to have a heart attack, but the difference was so slight that the researchers said it could not be conclusively attributed to the fish oil. The authors wrote that omega-3 supplements are \u201cprobably not useful for preventing or treating cardiovascular disease.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lloyd-Jones agrees. When it comes to the general population, he says, \u201cWe have not seen supplementation with omega-3 fatty acids reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Lloyd-Jones says that while earlier clinical trials of fish oil pills showed a more significant benefit for people with existing cardiovascular disease, more recent trials have not shown the same advantages. That could be in part because statins and other risk-reducing medications are now used routinely in patients with a past heart attack or other coronary heart events, he says. That would make any much smaller effects of the supplements difficult to detect.\u00a0<\/p>\n

And there is a potential downside: Some evidence suggests<\/a> that for otherwise healthy people, regular use of omega-3 supplements might actually raise the risk of certain cardiovascular problems, like atrial fibrillation and stroke.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Evidence on Fish Oil Supplements Years of nutrition research have demonstrated that diets that are high in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":581886,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[64,63,285060,285058,57227,137,532,285059,153812],"class_list":{"0":"post-581885","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nutrition","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-fish-oil-and-heavy-metals","11":"tag-fish-oil-pills","12":"tag-fish-oil-supplements","13":"tag-health","14":"tag-nutrition","15":"tag-rancid-fish-oil","16":"tag-supplement-safety"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/581885","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=581885"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/581885\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/581886"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=581885"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=581885"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=581885"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}