If you live through a heart attack, your heart is still under threat – losing its function and falling prey to destructive inflammation. But there’s a way to improve your odds of survival.
A study at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston shows that taking 4 grams of fish oil high in omega-3 fats after suffering a heart attack boosts your chances of saving your heart muscle and reducing inflammation.
The researchers also found that people taking omega-3 fats had less fibrosis in their hearts. Fibrosis is the accumulation of scar tissue that forms when heart muscle not injured in the heart attack has to increase its workload to make up for muscle tissue that stops pumping blood.
The study indicated that people who boosted their blood levels of omega-3 fats the most enjoyed the greatest cardio improvements.
“Giving a high dose of omega-3 fatty acids soon after a heart attack appears to improve cardiac structure and heart functioning above and beyond the standard of care,” says researcher Raymond W. Kwong, director of cardiac magnetic resonance imaging at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. “Because this is a unique group of patients with remarkably high adherence to [guideline-directed] treatments for acute myocardial infarction already, we feel fairly confident that the benefits from this therapy are additive. The implications of this study could be fairly large.”
Other research has already shown that taking supplements of omega-3 fatty acids can shrink the risk of having irregular heartbeats and dying of a heart attack.
“Omega-3 fatty acids may have anti-inflammatory effects and also promote better cardiac healing,” Kwong says. “This is important because other anti-inflammatory agents, including steroids and NSAIDS, have failed to make a difference after myocardial infarction.”
Fatty fish like sardines, salmon and herring are rich sources of omega-3 fats.
