What role do omega-3 fatty acids (fish oil) have in the treatment of dyslipidemia?
The omega-3 fatty acids eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) are typically found in oily fish, such as salmon, lake trout, tuna, and herring. In September 2004, the Food and Drug Administration announced the availability of a qualified health claim of reduced risk for coronary heart disease for conventional foods that contain EPA and DHA.1 The addition of 1800 mg/d of EPA to low-dose statin therapy was recently shown to significantly reduce the incidence of major coronary events compared with statin therapy alone in a large Japanese population. The Japan EPA Lipid Intervention Study (JELIS)2 enrolled more than 18,000 hypercholesterolemic patients (total cholesterol ³250 mg/dL) with or without a history of coronary artery disease (CAD). A subgroup analysis revealed that statin-treated secondary-prevention patients (ie, those with a history of CAD) gained the most benefit from EPA. Since mean low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) levels were reduced by the sam
