Fish Oil: Is It Really Good For You?

Previous studies have long boasted the benefits of fish oil. Yet new findings published in the Journal of Lipid Research bring their relevancy into question for health treatments. Are they really good for you?

While prior research on synthetic fish oils has shown their efficacy on cells outside the human body, researchers at the University of Pennsylvania were unable to find the presence of benefits of omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids in people who took supplements.

"In humans, we fail, in large part, either to detect SPMs in a manner that relates either to the dose of fish oil or to the resolution of inflammation," said Dr. Garret A. FitzGerald, of the department of Systems Pharmacology and Translational Therapeutics at the University of Pennsylvania, in a press release. "Studies with synthetic SPMs raise the possibility of their providing a structural basis for building drugs that limit inflammation. However, our results question the importance of this system in the body's own response to inflammation. In particular, we found no evidence supporting their role in mediating an anti-inflammatory action of fish oils, a putative health benefit of such supplements which itself remains to be established."

During the study, researchers gave synthetic supplements to healthy individuals and found that they couldn't detect omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids in the participants' blood or urine. Furthermore, they could not see any chemical evidence that they were present during the resolution of inflammation.

Researchers noted that this may be explained in the way that the body processes the oils. For instance, when we consume fish, the omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids in triglyceride form (the source of SPMs), which are bound to a glycerol backbone and how fatty acids are stored in nature as they oxidize rather quickly. However, this is not quite the case when fish oil supplements are made. Rather, when supplements are produced, the fatty acids are detached from the glycerol backbone that is consumed naturally as triglycerides attached to a glycerol backbone when people naturally consume fish. However, in fish supplements, the fatty acids are detached from the glycerol and concentrated as either ethyl-esters or triglycerides.

"We found that the clinical promise of these mediators is weak," said Dr. Carsten Skarke, McNeil Fellow in translational medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. "There are few reliable data based on such rigorous detection methods as mass spectrometry confirming that SPMs form in humans after taking fish oil pills."

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