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A Randomized Controlled Trial

Kenneth Radack, MD; Colleen Deck, PharmD; Gertrude Huster, MHS

Arch Intern Med. 1991;151(6):1173-1180.

Abstract
The potential antihypertensive effects after prolonged use of small doses of fish oils remain undefined. Therefore, we conducted a randomized, double-blind, controlled crossover study comparing low doses of n-3 fatty acid supplementation with n-6 fatty acids on blood pressure in 33 subjects with mild hypertension. After a 6-week stabilization period, subjects ingested either 2.04 g/d of n-3 fatty acids or safflower oil (4.8 g/d of linoleic acid) for 12 weeks, then crossed over to the alternative encapsulated oil for another 12 weeks, after a 4-week washout period. All antihypertensive drug therapy had been discontinued. For the combined data, there were significant reductions from pretreatment values for supine diastolic ( — 2.4 mm Hg) and sitting systolic (—4.1 mm Hg) blood pressure after fish oil; no significant changes occurred after safflower oil control. Compared with safflower oil, fish oil supplementation was associated with a statistically significant reduction in mean supine diastolic blood pressure of 3.7 mm Hg (95% confidence interval, —7.3 and 0.1). Sitting diastolic and mean arterial pressures showed a sequence effect; therefore,only the initial period was used in an analysis of their responses. There were significant decreases from pretreatment values for sitting diastolic ( — 4.4 mm Hg), mean arterial (—5.1 mm Hg), and systolic (—6.5 mm Hg) blood pressure after fish oil. The differences between groups after the 12-week period remained statistically significant for sitting diastolic and sitting mean arterial blood pressures. No adverse changes were noted in plasma levels of lipid-related measures.

(Arch Intern Med. 1991;151:1173-1180)

Author Affiliations
From the Departments of Internal Medicine (Dr Radack and Ms Huster) and Pharmacy (Dr Deck), University of Cincinnati (Ohio) College of Medicine.

Footnotes
Accepted for publication October 12, 1990.

Reprint requests to Division of General Internal Medicine, University of Cincinnati College of Medicine, 231 Bethesda Ave, ML 535, Cincinnati, OH 45267 (Dr Radack).

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