Fish oils, coronary heart disease, and the environment

Clinical trials continue to produce conflicting results on the effectiveness of fish oils for the primary and secondary prevention of coronary heart disease. Despite many large, well-performed studies, questions still remain, made even more complex by the addition of early revascularization and statins in our coronary heart disease armamentarium. This is complicated by the reality that fish oil production has a measureable impact on reducing fish populations, which in turn has a negative impact on creating a sustainable product. We review the current data for fish oil usage in the primary and secondary prevention of coronary heart disease with an eye toward future studies, and the effects fish oil production has on the environment and efforts that are currently under way to mitigate these effects.