The efficacy of fish oil in preventing coronary heart disease: A systematic review and meta-analysis

BACKGROUND: Coronary heart disease (CHD) is one of the most common causes of death and disease burden in the world. Current fish oil aiming to prevent and treat CHD have shown a large variety of effects with low levels of evidence. OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the efficacy of fish oil for protection against CHD, we conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials (RCTs) evaluating the use of fish oil for protection against CHD. METHODS: We retrieved relevant articles published from January 1966 to January 2020 by searching the PubMed, EMBASE, Cochrane CENTRAL, and Web of Science databases. RCTs of fish oil in preventing CHD were selected. The study quality was evaluated using the Cochrane Risk of Bias tool with RevMan 5.3 software. The first selection involved 360 citations. After screening and evaluation of suitability, 19 RCTs adjusted for clustering were included in the meta-analysis. All selected manuscripts considered that fish oil was effective in preventing CHD, secondary outcome measures included angina, sepsis and death. RESULTS: Compared with the control group, fish oil may confer significant protection against CHD (odds ratio = 0.84; 95% confidence interval: 0.72–0.98). There was no significant difference in the incidence of secondary outcomes between the observation group and the control group (P > .05). CONCLUSION: The above results show that fish oil plays an important role in reducing CHD and cardiovascular events. However, because of the suboptimal quality of the studies included into the meta-analysis, these results do not justify adding fish oils systematically to the heavy pharmaceutical assortment already recommended in CHD patients. REGISTRATION DETAILS: CRD42020183719.