Omega-3 Does Not Prevent Atrial Fibrillation

Omega-3 Does Not Prevent Atrial Fibrillation.
Omega-3 fatty acid supplements don't adulterate back on recurrences of atrial fibrillation, a kidney of aberrant heartbeat that can cause stroke, callow research suggests. "We now have definitive data that they don't livelihood for most patients with AF atrial fibrillation ," said Dr Peter R Kowey, command designer 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 get-together in Chicago. "Although we can't count out the admissibility of efficacy in sicker AF patients, it would be devoted to believe that it would work in that population and not in healthier patients best pro med. So for personal 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 asseverate there is any convincing evince of a role for omega-3 in the prevention of atrial fibrillation," added Dr Ranjit Suri, big cheese of the Electrophysiology Service and Cardiac Arrhythmia Center at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City, who was not labyrinthine with the trial. The survey was funded by GlaxoSmithKline.

Omega-3 fatty acids, which are found in fatty fish such as salmon and albacore tuna, had showed some engage in preventing feeling bug in earlier trials. Of the total 663 outpatient participants, 542 had paroxysmal atrial fibrillation, which appears all at once and resolves on its own, and 121 had indefatigable atrial fibrillation, which needs treatment.

Participants were randomized to be given either a placebo or 8 grams of omega-3 supplements routine for the first week, followed by 4 grams a hour for the remaining 23 weeks of the trial. The doses in use in the study are available only by prescription and are "higher than doses hitherto published in studies," said Dr Robert Block, a cardiologist and aide-de-camp professor of community and preventive medicament at the University of Rochester Medical Center.

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

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

So "There has been conflicting figures there as well and a wholly need for definitive studies in the manner of ours in those indications. Omega-3 may be helpful in patients with far up triglycerides and bad overall cholesterol profiles or people procumbent to electric storms in the heart who are at risk of sudden death". Block recommends that patients with cardiovascular plague eat two servings of suave fish weekly, or three over-the-counter omega-3 capsules a day reviews. In those with no cardiovascular disease, "there is no sound unambiguous benefit," but they still might also want to eat fish regularly.