http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-04/uowo-onh040408.php
Omega-3's no help for Crohn's sufferers
An international study led by Dr. Brian Feagan of Robarts Research
Institute at The University of Western Ontario in London, Canada has
found that omega-3 fatty acids are ineffective for managing Crohn's
disease. The research is published in the April 9 Journal of the
American Medical Association.
"A significant amount of time and money is spent annually on
alternative therapies such as Omega-3 fatty acids, without strong
evidence that they are beneficial to patients with inflammatory bowel
disease," says gastroenterologist Dr. Feagan, who is Director of
Robarts Clinical Trials and lead author on the study. "I encourage
Crohn's patients to focus on prescription medications that we know are
effective for preventing relapse of disease, such as azathioprine,
methotrexate, and TNF blockers."
Found in fatty fish such as salmon, mackerel, herring and sardines,
omega-3 fatty acids have an anti-inflammatory effect and are therefore
used in the treatment of inflammatory disorders such as rheumatoid
arthritis and IgA nephropathy (a kidney disease).
The widespread belief among patients and health care providers that
omega-3 fatty acids are effective treatment for inflammatory bowel
disease may have stemmed from a relatively small Italian research
study, published in 1996 in the New England Journal of Medicine, which
found a benefit for preventing relapse of Crohn's disease.
"Small, single centre clinical trials often overestimate the true
effects of treatment" says Dr. Feagan. "That's why it is im****tant to
conduct large-scale, randomized, multi-centre studies in order to
confirm preliminary results."
Feagan's study includes two large-scale trials involving 738 Crohn's
patients (ten times the number of patients involved in the original
New England study) at clinical centres in Europe, Israel, Canada, and
the United States from January 2003 to February 2007. Both trials
demonstrated that the omega-3 fatty acid formulation offered no
benefit in preventing relapse in Crohn's disease. However, patients
who took the omega-3 fatty acid preparation did have significantly
lower concentrations of triglycerides, a high level of which is a risk
factor for heart disease.
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Luke
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