Daily omega-3 fatty acids may help human organs stay young
53 comments
·February 9, 2025nodata
sebmellen
Fascinating.
> It is unclear how omega-3 fatty acids increase the AF risk. Omega-3 fatty acids stabilize the cardiac membrane and protect against arrhythmias, including ventricular arrhythmias, through both direct electrophysiologic actions and positive effects on biological processes involved in atrial remodeling. However, omega-3 fatty acids have direct effects on the activity of cardiac calcium, sodium, and potassium ionic currents, which can alter the duration of the ventricular action potential. Therefore, omega-3 fatty acids may promote re-entrant arrhythmias, despite being anti-arrhythmic in therapeutic conditions. Several previous studies have evaluated the electrical characteristics of the ventricular wall; few studies have evaluated how omega-3 fatty acids influence the atria.
jadbox
EILI5? How compelling is this study against Omega3?
stephen_g
It sounds to me like that short quote is saying (paraphrasing here) that 'studies seems to show omega-3 is beneficial, but theoretically apart from the beneficial mechanisms there could be a harmful mechanism so we're not sure why we don't see that happening'
Jaepa
There's been a fair bit of research people who have diets rich in Omega 3, have better cardiovascular health.
There is no real reliable study's that show consistent benefits from Omega 3 supplements however.
null
ra
For the most complete analysis of the evidence for Omega 3 (and other miconutrients) the very best resource I've found is Dr Rhonda Patrick: https://www.foundmyfitness.com/topics/omega-3
helph67
This may explain why people who use the Mediterranean diet tend to live long, healthy lives.
gloflo
Or it might be pension fraud https://theconversation.com/the-data-on-extreme-human-ageing...
DennisP
A book I read a couple years ago (I think Peter Attia's) said one of the clearest nutritional studies just sent a weekly bottle of olive oil to half the participants, who had better health results than the control group. They didn't track exactly what people ate, but figured they probably used recipes with olive oil and ended up closer to a Mediterranean diet.
Of course that doesn't necessarily mean it translates to extreme longevity.
3abiton
I've been following nutrition "science" for the past 10 years, and to say it's cluster fudge is an understatement.
jmulho
I recommend checking out Gill Carvalho (https://www.youtube.com/@NutritionMadeSimple). He helped me realize that nutrition science isn’t a controversial as it would seem from reading the popular press or the occasional study showing that bacon and Oreo cookies are good for your heart. It took five or ten videos to get a feel for how real scientists interpret new information. He explains the relative power of different types of scientific evidence, etc. Good stuff. He covers the Omega-3 AFib connection. If I remember correctly, Omegas-3s improve several cardiovascular risk factors, but also increase the risk of AFib. So, depending on your current situation, you may want to increase or decrease your intake. Deficiency is definitely bad, but you can also overdo it. I decided that sardines a few times a week is probably safer for me than the fish oil capsules I was taking daily.
nabaraz
There are different variations of Omega 3 fatty acids. For instance, Avocados is rich in Omega 3 ALA which is considered not as effective as EPA and DHA.
Fish is the only source of EPA and DHA.
throwitawayfam
> Fish is the only source of EPA and DHA.
Algae oil [0] which is plant based is also a source of EPA and DHA.
pstuart
Technically, it is the source of those nutrients.
nicoburns
Yeah, that's also where the fish get it from!
QuantumGood
If you respond better to EPA (many do), you need fish (ideally Krill) oil.
dgemm
EPA and DHA actually originate in algae and seaweed which is where the fish get it from, so those are good sources too.
westurner
From "An Omega-3 that’s poison for cancer tumors" (2021) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27499427 :
> Fish don't synthesize Omega PUFAs, they eat algae which synthesize fat-soluble DHA and EPA.
> From "Warning: Combination of Omega-3s in Popular Supplements May Blunt Heart Benefits" (2018) https://scitechdaily.com/warning-combination-of-omega-3s-in-... :
>> Now, new research from the Intermountain Healthcare Heart Institute in Salt Lake City finds that higher EPA blood levels alone lowered the risk of major cardiac events and death in patients, while DHA blunted the cardiovascular benefits of EPA. Higher DHA levels at any level of EPA, worsened health outcomes.
>> [...] Based on these and other findings, we can still tell our patients to eat Omega-3 rich foods, but we should not be recommending them in pill form as supplements or even as combined (EPA + DHA) prescription products,” he said. “Our data adds further strength to the findings of the recent REDUCE-IT (2018) study that EPA-only prescription products reduce heart disease events.”
mbil
And algal oil supplements
butterlettuce
I'm only going to bring up the life expectancy part, but latino people also live longer despite their cuisine not being the healthiest. I'm not saying that all latinos eat a terrible diet, but the cuisine we all know and love is high-carb and high in saturated fats compared to the olive oils, fishies, and veggies we see in the mediterranean diet.
Metabolic diseases are a different story. But I guess love and family cancel that out.
adolfojp
Life expectancy in Latin America ranges from 65 in Bolivia to 80 in Chile and the cuisines, genetics, cultures, and socioeconomic circumstances vary greatly from region to region so it's not very useful to generalize latino people into one cohesive group with regards to diet and life expectancy.
constantlm
How do they separate the impact of the 3x per week exercise?
tyronehed
The yellow kind of Omega-3 comes from salmon, and it has a side effects of making a stink and also concentrating mercury.
Instead, you should get your omega-3 from krill oil, which is low on the food chain does not concentrate Mercury is all around better
trehalose
Mercury is generally concentrated in the meat, not the fat. (It has an affinity for the thiol groups on certain amino acids in protein.) There's certainly other fat-soluble pollutants like PCBs to worry about, but I'd never heard of any fish oil products having significant mercury contamination. I'd love to see the info you've been looking at?
exhilaration
Just eat the right kind of salmon: "All species of Alaska wild salmon have very low levels of mercury."
From: https://health.alaska.gov/dph/Epi/eph/Pages/fish/default.asp...
safeimp
Good advice. Additionally, I’d recommend that with any supplement you evaluate the source you’re buying from. I typically use Nootropics Depot (avoiding linking so this doesn’t look like a full blown add - check my history though, not a shill) and they use 3rd party lab testing to back up claims.
xlbuttplug2
+1. ND and Thorne I trust blindly.
graypegg
Overlooked one major benefit of salmon though: it tastes great and I would rather eat salmon than krill oil caps ;)
To be fair, there’s low heavy metal contamination salmon on the market; a few sibling comments mentioned wild Alaskan salmon, but I also think farmed salmon tends to be lower in Hg content that the “average” wild salmon.
xlbuttplug2
Any decent brand is using molecularly distilled fish oil.
nicce
For Nordic people, Norwegian salmon is likely the worst possible source. Too many bad things going on with that farming.
codr7
I met plenty of Norwegians while living there who refused to eat local Salmon, they have a pretty good idea where it comes from.
alsoforgotmypwd
Yup. It's gross. Ever see the documentary about fish lice and food pellets?
codr7
Emptying the oceans of krill isn't a very good idea either unfortunately, and that's pretty much what we're doing.
BenjiWiebe
Some skimming of Wikipedia suggests that our total annual krill harvest is about 1/950th of the amount that predators eat of the main krill species per year.
Also usually the smaller the animal / the farther down the food chain, the faster they reproduce. And some more reading of Wikipedia suggests that krill can reproduce very quickly.
snvzz
Sardine. Most underrated fish ever.
Almost as good as salmon re: Omega-3, but low mercury content.
nu2ycombinator
Yep, I haven't aged a day for last 10 years. :)
aucisson_masque
You aren't taking enough of it. I've gone back 2 years.
dp-hackernews
Opposing claims?
"Vitamin D3 and omega-3 fatty acids not helpful in reducing risk of frailty" https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-09-vitamin-d3-omega-fatt...
eightysixfour
I'm starting to wonder if Vitamin D and Omega 3s are indicators, not drivers. D is an indicator that you spend time outdoors, in the sun, and that is healthy for your body. Similarly, Omega 3 is indicative of other lifestyle choices, not causal for better health.
Enginerrrd
Or even that being healthier and less frail means you're more likely to go out and enjoy being outdoors.
As I age, I increasingly see the effect that healthy people with great genetics also have all the indicators of being healthy. I think this effect is conflated to an extent even for things like exercise: for people that feel good and strong, exercise feels great. For people that aren't, they go downhill faster anyway.
I have terrible genetics for cardiovascular disease. I've spent my life as an athlete, eating healthy, training, etc. But now in my 30's, I can feel the slow down a lot despite being more disciplined in my training and diet than ever and yet I know people my age that haven't trained in years that can just go for a run and absolutely smoke me.
I'm sure at some point my genetics is going to force me to slow down a bit on the training despite my best efforts and then I'll just end up as someone contributing to the statistics that those who exercise more are healthier.
I know that exercise has benefits nevertheless, but I also think we very often just make the mistake of concluding "healthier people are healthier".
Life is not really fair.
kanbankaren
> I'm starting to wonder if Vitamin D and Omega 3s are indicators, not drivers.
That is not true. AFAIK there have been several studies using supplements of Vitamin D3 & Omega-3 that showed that it improved biomarkers of various diseases.
blah2244
Yep, here’s one about symptoms chronic kidney disease that showed significant results: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/39246955/
Similar significant results for symptoms of cystic fibrosis: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32275788/
blased
> I'm starting to wonder if Vitamin D and Omega 3s are indicators, not drivers
most cells have vitamin D receptors, so I would think it is actually a driver
jakeinspace
Those are different claims. I don't exactly know what frailty means technically, but this was a 5 year study on the elderly. Preserving organ health with a lifetime of omega 3 consumption is totally different.
lmpdev
As with almost everything in medicine, you can find papers both for and against
It doesn’t mean that either paper’s claims or results are automatically invalid
Research is hard
But: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10175873/