From the Guardian newspaper (July 25, 2018): Fool’s gold: what fish oil is doing to our health and the planet.
“The omega-3 industry [$30 billion estimated annual turnover] is in a twist. Again. Last week, an organization that compiles and evaluates medical research for the general public, released a meta-analysis – a study of studies – to determine whether or not omega-3 pills, one of the world’s most popular dietary supplements, reduced the risk of coronary heart disease. After comparing 79 trials involving 112,059 people, the researchers could find “little or no difference to the risk of cardiovascular events, coronary heart deaths, coronary heart disease events, stroke or heart irregularities”.
The study of studies was compiled and analyzed by Cochrane. From Wikipedia: “Cochrane is a non-profit, non-governmental organization formed to organize medical research findings so as to facilitate evidence-based choices about health interventions faced by health professionals, patients, and policymakers. Cochrane includes 53 review groups that are based at research institutions worldwide. Cochrane has approximately 30,000 volunteer experts from around the world. The group conducts systematic reviews of health-care interventions and diagnostic tests and publishes them in the Cochrane Library.”
So here we go again, voodoo science marketed by unscrupulous companies and touted as beneficial by so many health and recipe blogs!
