Research
Micronutrients & recovery
Omega-3 PUFA supplementation reduces coronary heart disease (CHD) death and possibly sudden cardiac death (SCD) in patients with prior clinical CHD, but does not reduce nonfatal myocardial infarction.
If you have existing heart disease, taking fish oil supplements may help lower your risk of dying from heart causes, possibly by preventing sudden cardiac death. However, it will not stop you from having a heart attack. It is a reasonable addition to your care, but not a cure-all.
GoodQualifiesHIGH confidence
Taken together, the cumulative findings from RCTs suggest that omega-3 PUFA supplements may reduce CHD death, possibly through a reduction in ischemia-induced SCD, among patients with prior CHD, but the treatment does not reduce the incidence of recurrent nonfatal MI.
Why this rating
Based on multiple large RCTs (GISSI-Prevenzione, DART, OMEGA, etc.) and meta-analyses.
Source
Omega-3 Polyunsaturated Fatty Acid (Fish Oil) Supplementation and the Prevention of Clinical Cardiovascular Disease
David S. Siscovick et al. · Circulation · 2017
DOI 10.1161/cir.0000000000000482
clinical_guidelineCited 621×
Read the paper DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10
More from this paper
- Omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acid (EPA+DHA) supplementation does not reduce the risk of cardiovascular events or mortality in patients with diabetes mellitus or prediabetes.Good
- Omega-3 PUFA supplementation does not reduce the risk of stroke (ischemic or hemorrhagic) in primary or secondary prevention settings.Good
- Omega-3 PUFA supplementation reduces total mortality and cardiovascular-related hospitalizations in patients with chronic heart failure with reduced ejection fraction.Moderate
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