Wednesday, September 12, 2012

Fish Oil: Media Takes the Bait Again

Bonnie and Steve: If you have not already, you will see it all over the headlines today. "Fish Oil is Worthless." "Fish Oil Doesn't Prevent Heart Attacks." This is based upon a meta-analysis published today in Journal of the American Medical Association that found no benefit to fish oil supplements in preventing cardiac-related events. 

This sounds eerily similar to media coverage in June when a New England Journal of Medicine meta-analysis came up with the same conclusion. What about the media outrage in April that resulted from an Archives of Internal Medicine meta-analysis that also came to the same conclusion? 

See a pattern here?

Does the fact that three prestigious journals, using the same methodology, all coming up with the same conclusion, finally convince you that fish oil is worthless for heart health? Uh...let's see...uh...no, we are far from convinced. In fact, as the years go by, we are more convinced than ever that fish oil is worth every penny of preventive investment.

Because our comments on the JAMA meta-analysis are virtually identical to our comments from the last two meta-analyses, we provide the following links for your perusal.

Comments on NEJM study from June 2012

Comments from AIM study from April 2012 

Comments on Why Meta-Analysis Don't Work



No comments: