Clinical Omega-3 Benefits in Coronary Heart Disease:

In the 1970’s researchers noted that Eskimo populations consumed extremely high levels of fat from fish and blubber, but this contradicted hypotheses of coronary heart disease at the time because the indigenous populations had no signs of cardiovascular disease. High levels of EPA/DHA are thought to be the protective complement. Recently, DART and GISSIP clinical studies of fish oil supplementation revealed 15-45% reduction in mortality in ‘at risk’ patients for coronary heart disease. Reductions in sudden death were particularly significant.

One small fish oil supplementation study in Norway did not show significant improvements, probably because of habitual incorporation of cold water fish as a regular part of the diet. The latter result can be explained by assuming that omega-3 status was optimum to begin with, suggesting that with full EPA/DHA essentiality in the background this meant coronary heart diseases in Norway were likely due to additional factors such as obesity or genetic factors that played dominant roles in participating subjects. However, most of the risks of coronary heart disease globally are associated with diet.  A high incidence of diet induced coronary heart disease occurs in many countries, including India.