Margarines With Omega-3 Provide No Heart Benefit

Patients with a history of heart troubles did not benefit from omega-3 margarine and standard medicine in a Dutch study.

Wageningen University’s Daan Kromhout led the study. Researchers followed more than 4,800 patients. Each subject was between 60 and 80 years old and had at least one heart attack about four years in the past.

In addition to their standard medications, four different margarines on bread were assigned to be eaten daily. The first margarine contained no extra omega-3 as a control. The second was impregnated with 400 milligrams of additional eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA). The third contained 2 grams of alpha-linolenic acid (ALA). The last margarine combined the DHA-EPA mixture with ALA. All of the margarine in the study was manufactured by the food and goods corporation Unilever.

Over 40 months, the study showed that all of the omega-3 margarine patients did not experience a significant drop in heart attacks or other cardiovascular events. Kromhout said the death rate from heart attacks was only half of what researchers had expected. However, researchers did find that some women benefited slightly from the ALA margarine. Patients with diabetes also showed a little improvement.

Kromhout suggested that with 85% of the patients on statins, the study may have been thrown off. Unilever published a press release saying the company believes that more omega-3 investigation is necessary. The National Institutes of Health, Netherlands Heart Foundation, and Unilever supported the results. It was published in the New England Journal of Medicine.