Omega-3 fatty acids from fish oil don't help prevent atrial fibrillation either when given perioperatively or chronically in high-risk individuals, two separate trials showed.
A loading dose and daily fish oil capsules for the first 10 days after cardiac surgery had no impact on development of postop afib, with an odds ratio of 0.96 compared with placebo (P=0.74), Roberto Marchioli, MD, of the Consorzio Mario Negri Sud in Santa Maria Imbaro, Italy, and colleagues found in the OPERA trial.
In the FORWARD trial, a year of daily supplementation didn't prolong time to recurrence or improve other outcomes for patients with prior paroxysmal afib or recent cardioversion for persistent afib.
Both sets of negative data were reported here at the American Heart Association meeting, with simultaneous publication for the OPERA trial online in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
"In this setting, omega-3 fatty acids may simply not be powerful enough to be effective in preventing arrhythmias," Marchioli told reporters regarding his trial. "The same could be true in other settings where arrhythmias are already established, for instance in preventing recurrence."
He suggested that the results were fairly definitive for the setting tested."There were no major limitations in our trial. We found out that it is not useful in preventing atrial fibrillation."And that's been the case often before, commented Peter Wilson, MD, a cardiologist at Emory University in Atlanta, who commented on the results at a press conference.
"The prescribing indications for using omega-3 in the U.S. are generally limited to treatment of hypertriglyceridemia," he noted. "Every time we've had a major trial using omega-3s that was conducted as a primary purpose of the trial, we've come up short. It's very discouraging for the omega-3 story."
06/11/2012 : By Crystal Phend / MedPage Today.
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