Omega-3 Does Not Prevent Atrial Fibrillation

Omega-3 Does Not Prevent Atrial Fibrillation.
Omega-3 fatty acid supplements don't dock back on recurrences of atrial fibrillation, a pattern of irregular heartbeat that can cause stroke, uncharted research suggests. "We now have definitive data that they don't work for most patients with AF atrial fibrillation ," said Dr Peter R Kowey, go first originator of a study appearing in the Dec 1, 2010 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association that is also scheduled to be presented Monday at the American Heart Association's annual convocation in Chicago. "Although we can't bounce the possibility of efficacy in sicker AF patients, it would be hard to believe that it would vocation in that population and not in healthier patients. So for practical purposes, yes, this is the end of the line in AF".

This study, the largest of its kind, looked at patients with AF who were otherwise healthy. "We cannot imagine there is any convincing basis of a role for omega-3 in the prevention of atrial fibrillation," added Dr Ranjit Suri, president of the Electrophysiology Service and Cardiac Arrhythmia Center at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City, who was not concerned with the trial. The study was funded by GlaxoSmithKline.

Omega-3 fatty acids, which are found in fatty fish such as salmon and albacore tuna, had showed some bid fair in preventing heart disease in earlier trials. Of the out-and-out 663 outpatient participants, 542 had paroxysmal atrial fibrillation, which appears speedily and resolves on its own, and 121 had persistent atrial fibrillation, which needs treatment.

Participants were randomized to experience either a placebo or 8 grams of omega-3 supplements daily for the first week, followed by 4 grams a heyday for the remaining 23 weeks of the trial. The doses used in the reading are available only by prescription and are "higher than doses previously published in studies," said Dr Robert Block, a cardiologist and underling professor of community and preventive medicine at the University of Rochester Medical Center.

At the end of six months, 46 percent of those in the placebo collect and 52 percent of those taking omega-3 supplements efficient recurrences. The numbers of paroxysmal AF patients in the placebo and therapy groups who had AF recurrences were about equal (48 percent and 52 percent, respectively), the investigators found.

In patients with unflagging AF, more patients in the omega-3 arm had recurrences than in the placebo heap (50 percent and 33 percent, respectively). But experts haven't ruled out a imaginable role for omega-3 in other types of patients, such as those with heart failure. "Our data do not speak to other cardiac indications," said Kowey, who is president of the Main Line Health Heart Center and a professor of prescription and clinical pharmacology at Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia.

So "There has been conflicting matter there as well and a unblemished need for definitive studies like ours in those indications. Omega-3 may be helpful in patients with serious triglycerides and bad overall cholesterol profiles or people prone to electric storms in the nitty-gritty who are at risk of sudden death". Block recommends that patients with cardiovascular disease eat two servings of sophisticated fish weekly, or three over-the-counter omega-3 capsules a day orviax. In those with no cardiovascular disease, "there is no useable definitive benefit," but they still might also want to eat fish regularly.