Fish oil and public policy

The research on supplements has been very disappointing so far. We know for instance, that eating foods rich in Vitamin C will prevent disease but taking Vitamin C supplements doesn't have the same effect. A recent study showed similar findings with both antioxidant supplements and Vitamin B.

One place we know that taking supplements helps is with Omega-3 fats in the form of fish oil. It's clear that eating fish high in these fats prevents sudden death but taking supplements may be almost as good. The interesting thing is how powerful this is when compared to state of the art technology.

Thomas Kottke and his colleagues compared taking Omega-3 supplements with two different types of defibrillators (Am J Prev Med 2006;31(4):316-323). One type of device is the kind that you see at airports and shopping malls and are made available so that bystanders can administer the type of shock to reset heart rhythm. These are called Automatic External Defibrillators (AED). They are used in cases where people collapse in public spaces. The other type (an ICD) is a similar device that delivers a shock to the heart but is implanted in people who meet criteria for being at high risk.

In a model community of 100,000 people the researchers found that by everyone taking fish oil supplements the risk of sudden death would be reduced by 6.4%. Providing appropriate numbers of AED and ICD only reduced the risk by 0.8% and 3.3% respectively.

At the same time there was an amazing difference in the estimate of the cost to the community of the three interventions, with the fish oil costing only 5.8 million dollars per year while each of the defibrillators would cost 21 million dollars per year. That's four times the cost to have the devices available at less than half of the lives saved. They scientists do mention that if the community simply ate fish two or more times per week there would be an insignificant increase in the amount of money needed to save lives.

What this means for you:

Eating fish is good for you and dramatically reduces your risk of sudden death and the need for a defibrillator. Cheap, tasty, saves lives? That's a good public policy.

First posted: November 17, 2006