Three More Nails In The Omega-3 Supplement Coffin: Stop Taking Fish Oil Pills (The Complete Post)

This is the most extensive systematic assessment of effects of omega-3 fats on cardiovascular health to date. Moderate- and high-quality evidence suggests that increasing EPA and DHA has little or no effect on mortality or cardiovascular health (evidence mainly from supplement trials). Previous suggestions of benefits from EPA and DHA supplements appear to spring from trials with higher risk of bias. Low-quality evidence suggests ALA may slightly reduce CVD event risk, CHD mortality and arrhythmia.

Second Nail. Peruvian Anchoveta: Put Them On A Pizza Not in A Pill

Paul Greenberg’s recently published book, The Omega Principle, emphasizes the damage the fish oil supplement business is doing to the ocean environment,

During a recent interview on Fresh Air on NPR he summarized the concerns:

GREENBERG: So omega-3 supplements come from this critical layer of the ocean biosphere that are small – what are called pelagic fish. They’re the silvery, little fish like anchovies and herring and other fish called menhaden that most people haven’t heard of, but it’s actually the most caught fish in the lower 48 of the United States. These fish are really essential for ecosystem dynamics in the ocean.
So the way that oceans work is that all the energies coming from the sun – it goes – all that energy is processed by plankton, by phytoplankton. And it’s really these fish that are – these little fish that are used for omega-3 supplements that transfer the energy from plankton to larger fish. So in other words, you know, you have the solar energy going into the plankton. The little fish then eat the plankton. And then they are in turn eaten by larger fish. So if you harvest this middle layer – if you overharvest this middle layer of anchovies, of herring, of menhaden – if you take them out of the picture, there’s no way for the energy to be transferred from phytoplankton up to larger predators. So I guess that’s my main concern here.
So in particular, where are the omega-3 supplements coming from? Most of the omega-3 supplement oil is coming from a fish called a Peruvian anchoveta. And it is the most caught fish in the world. In some years, Peruvian anchoveta harvests have equaled as much as 10 million metric tons. Just to give you some perspective, that’s like one-eighth of all the fish caught in the world. And the crazy thing about it is that those fish are completely, totally edible. I’ve eaten them. They’re delicious. You can have them on a pizza. You could do anything with them. But 99 percent of those Peruvian anchoveta are ground up into animal feed, boiled down into oil and turned into supplements. So to me, to my mind, that is not necessarily the wisest use to be made of this really, really important source both for the ecology of the ocean but also for humans

Nail Three. Save the Krill!

The supplement industry is incredibly creative in their marketing. As the uselessness of fish oil supplementation has become clear, supplement manufacturers have begun touting krill oil as superior to fish oil.
Claims like the following are all over the internet:

Krill have an edge over your ordinary fish – when you take a krill oil supplement, you also get astaxanthin along with your DHA and EPA. It’s an antioxidant. In terms of antioxidant power of potency, it’s been found to be 500x to 6,000x stronger than regular vitamins like vitamin E and vitamin C.

This is just hogwash. There is no good clinical evidence to support any health claim for krill oil in general or astaxanthin in particular. Please read my post on the failure of anti-oxidant supplements and vitamins and recognize that claims of antioxidant power do not indicate any health benefit.
A technical paper from Greenpeace review the importance of krill to to the marine ecosystem in the Antarctic and this paper, entitled “License to Krill” details the problem.
Do you want to be responsible for starving penguins, whales and seals??!
Let me reiterate my original 2013 fish oil post pithy summary:
the bottom line on fish oil supplements is that  the most recent scientific evidence does not support any role for them  in preventing heart attack, stroke, or death. There are potential down sides to taking them, including contaminants and the impact on the marine ecosystem. I don’t take them and I advise my patients to avoid them (unless they have triglyceride levels over 500.)
Prokrilly Yours
-ACP