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FRIDAY, March 30 (HealthDay News) -- People taking cholesterol-lowering drugs called statins who also consume omega-3 fatty acids -- typically found in fish and fish oil -- have a better chance of avoiding heart problems than patients who take statins alone.
That's the conclusion of a new study by Japanese researchers that is published in the March 31 issue of The Lancet.
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"Our study shows that long-term use of EPA (an omega-3 fatty acid) at therapeutic doses is effective for prevention of major coronary events in hypercholesterolemia (high cholesterol) patients given statins in Japan who consume a large amount of fish," said lead researcher Dr. Mitsuhiro Yokoyama. He is a professor of medicine at the Kobe University Graduate School of Medicine.
In the study, called the Japan EPA Lipid Intervention Study, Yokoyama and his colleagues assigned 18,645 people to receive either 1,800 milligrams of one of the omega-3 fatty acids, eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA), every day plus a statin, or a statin alone.
During an average follow-up of 4.6 years, the researchers found a 19 percent reduction in major coronary events among patients taking EPA. Patients taking EPA also had 19 percent fewer non-fatal events -- including non-fatal heart attack, unstable angina, and coronary revascularization -- than people taking statins alone. However, the incidence of sudden cardiac death and death from heart disease did not differ between the groups.
The preventive effects of EPA are of both clinical interest and therapeutic importance, Yokoyama said. "EPA is thought to exert its plaque-stabilization effect via mechanisms that are independent of a reduction in cholesterol," he added.
Sickness and death from coronary artery disease is very low in Japan in comparison with the United States and northern Europe, Yokoyama said. "This difference might be explained partly due to differences in dietary habits, including fish consumption. We want to know whether our results can be generalized to other populations who consume a small intake of fish and have very high mortality from coronary artery disease," he said.
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