FISH OIL: Friend or Foe?
FISH OIL: Friend or Foe?
By Liz Moon, Nurse Practitioner
Patients often ask whether they should take a fish oil supplement for health-related purposes. Recently, an ancillary study to the VITAL trial was conducted exploring this question. The VITAL trial that concluded a few years ago studied whether supplementation with vitamin D or omega-3 fatty acids would lower the incidence of cardiovascular events or invasive cancer – unfortunately no significant benefit was shown.
https://www.acc.org/latest-in-cardiology/clinical-trials/2018/11/08/22/42/vital
An ancillary study to VITAL found that “daily supplementation with marine omega-3 fatty acids was not associated with a reduced risk of colorectal cancer (CRC) precursors in people of average risk.” However, there were certain individuals where IT WAS found to be BENEFICIAL. Individuals with low plasma omega-3 at baseline and the African American population experienced a benefit in reducing risk of CRC.
https://www.medpagetoday.com/gastroenterology/coloncancer/83501
Dr. Brandon Smaglo, of the Dan L. Duncan Comprehensive Cancer Center at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, was not involved with the study but “stressed that one individual’s colon cancer is not like another’s, and the cause is similarly not the same in everyone. So, it is not surprising that an intervention such as this is not universally helpful because the cancer cause is not likely universally applicable,” he continued. “Studies like these may help us ultimately understand what the risks are for individual cancers or cancers within subpopulations.”
If you would like to better understand your colorectal cancer risk, please contact our office. We CAN CHECK OMEGA-3 LEVELS and help you tackle other measures that have been shown to reduce colon cancer risk. Visit our website at www.compgihealth.com or call our office at 224.407.4400 to make an appointment today!