Purified, Prescription-Strength Fish Oil Can Prevent Over 70,000 Adverse Cardiovascular Events

New research pointed out that fish oil could prevent over 70,000 strokes, heart attacks and other adverse cardiovascular events in the U.S. every year.

The researchers at the UCI School of Medicine analyzed data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey and a multinational clinical trial led by the researchers at Harvard University. Their findings demonstrated that patients with known cardiovascular conditions who had elevated triglyceride levels alongside an increased risk for ischemic events substantially benefitted from icosapent ethyl, which is a highly purified fish oil therapy.

“Our analysis extends the findings of the REDUCE-IT trial by estimating its potential impact on the U.S. population. By using inclusion criteria and cardiovascular disease event rates from the REDUCE-IT trial and applying it to data on US adults from NHANES, we were able to estimate the beneficial impact icosapent ethyl could have on preventing initial and total cardiovascular events in eligible U.S. adults with cardiovascular disease or diabetes and multiple risk factors," MedicalXpress quoted Nathan D. Wong, Ph.D., professor, and director of the Heart Disease Prevention Program in the Division of Cardiology at the UCI School of Medicine.

“When you consider that for every 21 patients treated with icosapent ethyl you can spare a cardiovascular event, you begin to see the implications of our results,” Wong added.

What is Icosapent ethyl?

It is a stable eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA), which was recently approved by the FDA in conjugation with maximally tolerated statin therapy to reduce the risk of cardiovascular events in people diagnosed with high triglyceride levels. EPA therapy has also been accepted by several major societies including the American Heart Association, American Diabetes Association, National Lipid Association and the European Society of Cardiology, which have already been incorporating it in their guidelines, advisories and scientific statements, Science Daily mentioned.

Currently, icosapent ethyl is only available in the form of a prescription drug known as Vascepa in the U.S. and is approved for use alongside statins.

Omega-3 fatty acids are abundantly present in fish oil and are increasingly been used in the management of cardiovascular diseases. Previous researches have also demonstrated that fish oil in clinically used doses reduces elevated triglyceride levels.