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Fish oil may reduce sudden cardiac death risk

01/06/2011 02:14:00 admin

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Modified diet may help reduce risk of sudden cardiac death

A study in the March 2008 issue of American Journal of Cardiology suggests that a dietary omega-3 fatty acid supplement or eating oily fish may reduce risk of sudden cardiac death by decreasing the inducibility of ventricular tachycardia (VT).

R.G. Metcalf and colleagues from Royal Adelaide Hospital in Adelaide, Australia tested the antiarrhythmic effect of dietary fish oil on the inducibility of VT in patients who were at high risk of sudden cardiac death due to coronary artery disease. The patients were undergoing defibrillator implantation.

During the study, 12 patients took 3 grams of encapsulated fish oil per day for about six weeks, and then they, along with 15 controls, were subject to a repeated electrophysiologic study in which VT was induced.

Of patients in the fish oil group, 42 percent did not experience induced VT, 42 percent needed more aggressive stimulation to induce VT, 8 percent needed identical stimulation and 8 percent required less stimulation, compared to 7 percent, 36 percent, 36 percent and 21 percent among the controls respectively.

The researchers concluded the results suggest that dietary fish oil can have an anti-arrhythmic effect.

Observational studies have consistently showed eating fish was associated with lower incidence of fatal coronary heart disease. Two open-label trials also suggest eating fish or taking fish oil supplements may reduce risk of sudden cardiac death in patients who had had myocardial infarction, according to a report by IA Brouwer and colleagues of Wageningen University in The Netherlands, published in the July 2006 issue of Progress in Lipid Research.

Another study in the April 2010 issue of Journal of Applied Physiology suggests eating a high fat diet may increase risk of inducible cardiac arrhythmias.

Aubin MC and colleagues of Université de Montréal in Montreal, Quebec, Canada gave one group of female rats a high fat diet for 8 weeks and then induced ischemia and reperfusion injury.

The researchers found 89 percent of rats fed a high fat diet died 24 hours postinfarction associated with ventricular arrhythmia, compared to 20 percent for rats fed a non-high-fat diet.

Ventricular arrhythmia was also found more easily induced in noninfarcted rats fed a high fat diet.

Some cases of arrhythmias are inducible and may be affected by a person's lifestyle, including his diet.

David Liu and editing by Denise Reynolds

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