RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – If you take fish oil as a dietary supplement, know that it is also benefiting your health. A new study associates regular consumption of fish oil supplements with a lower risk of premature death and cardiovascular diseases such as heart attacks and strokes.
“As far as fish oil and cardiovascular diseases are concerned, the data in general have always been positive, although with some fluctuations between the different studies. The latest study has a database that suggests effectiveness,” says Alice Lichtenstein, of the Cardiovascular Nutrition Laboratory of the Tufts University, quoted by CNN.
The scientist was not involved in the study and emphasised that taking fish oil supplements was not a ‘miracle medicine’ and that the study was unable to determine which dosage is required to obtain a clinically significant effect.
This latest research, published on Wednesday in the BMJ medical journal, included nearly half a million people aged between 40 and 69 from a UK database. According to CNN, almost a third of the 427,678 men and women said they regularly took fish oil supplements at the start of the study.
Through hospital records and deaths, the researchers followed the participants over a nine-year period on average and found that fish oil supplements were associated with a 13 percent lower risk of death, a 16 percent lower risk of dying from cardiovascular disease and a seven percent lower risk of cardiovascular disease events such as strokes or heart attacks.