#HealthspanMD #Cardiologist #Afib
So welcome everyone this is dr hearst and today i am going to talk about vitamin d and fish oil uh particularly in my patients with atrial fibrillation are they a good idea or are they a waste of money so many of my afib patients but really many of my patients take fish oil or vitamin d or both but are they wasting their money recent research suggests that maybe
They are so i understand why people would think that vitamin d and fish oil are a good idea for preventing atrial fibrillation or preventing heart problems it wasn’t that long ago the original studies particularly for fish oil suggested that there was a heart benefit to them and one of the reasons for that heart benefit was thought to be because it lowered the
Risk of rhythm problems with heart and you know some research has shown that vitamin d low vitamin d levels are associated with a higher risk for atrial fibrillation as well as other heart related issues however there hasn’t been any large placebo-controlled randomized trials that looked at whether taking fish oil or vitamin d would lower the risk of atrial
Fibrillation or other heart problems until now so the vital rhythm study was a study of over 25 000 people so this is a big study over the age of 50 and they followed them for a little over three years and they had some of the group take vitamin d 2000 international units some take fish oil or omega-3 fatty acid which was 840 milligrams and just followed them
To see if there was less atrial fibrillation in those people who took those supplements and what they found was that there was no difference in the rates of atrial fibrillation between the two groups so it didn’t matter if you took fish oil supplements or if you took vitamin d supplements there was no change in atrial fibrillation now this is really important
Information for us because uh it one it establishes that there’s probably not a benefit at least in preventing atrial fibrillation for these medications but also there’s been several studies with fish oil more fish oil studies more recently that have shown an increase an increase in atrial fibrillation in those people taking fish oil and that included the newer
Fish oil or omega-3 fatty acid uh epa pure epa which is like spent high cosmet ethyl so what am i telling my patients now about these medications i don’t see a role in prevention for vitamin d or fish oil over-the-counter fish oil supplements we’ve had multiple trials for both and none have shown benefit there is one trial for omega-3 fatty acids that’s a reduced
Trial that looked at this icosapent ethyl uh there was a reduction in event rates and even in mortality with that study but there also was a slight increase in atrial fibrillation the medication still is quite expensive so i think it’s something that you need to talk to your doctor about is whether that is a good idea or not but i think the message is clear a
Really good study now this vital rhythm study telling us that there’s not a role for vitamin d or fish oil supplements in the prevention of atrial fibrillation so look forward to seeing you next time this information is for educational purposes only and is not medical advice don’t make any decisions about your medical treatment without first talking to your doctor
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Transcribed from video
Does Vitamin D and Fish Oil Prevent Afib? || HealthspanMD By HealthspanMD
