{"id":131422,"date":"2020-11-18T07:58:05","date_gmt":"2020-11-18T07:58:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/eu.intelligentlabs.org\/omega-3-against-heart-disease\/"},"modified":"2025-06-29T08:32:49","modified_gmt":"2025-06-29T08:32:49","slug":"omega-3-against-heart-disease","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eu.intelligentlabs.org\/en-gb\/omega-3-against-heart-disease\/","title":{"rendered":"Omega-3 For Heart Disease – How Much To Take Daily?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

One of the questions I am often asked is ‘Why does Intelligent Labs recommend so much omega-3 per day (for heart disease prevention and other conditions)’?<\/strong> It’s a good question and yes, it’s true, our recommendation is certainly at the upper end of the recommendations of different brands in the industry. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We recommend a 3-capsule serving of our triglyceride omega-3 fatty acids<\/strong><\/a>, which comes to 2250mg of omega-3’s a day. Most of the other high-quality omega-3 brands will recommend just 2 of their capsules, which will normally come to between 1000mg and 1500mg of omega-3’s per day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My reply has always been that the more you take, the better it is for you. <\/strong>However, from time to time I would run into a problem, where I would be sent some published research which actually seemed to show the opposite was true, and that omega-3’s weren’t actually beneficial at all! <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The problem with many omega-3 studies\u2026<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

This is where the science could often be frustrating, in that many studies would simply have the subjects split into 2 groups. One that didn’t supplement with omega-3, and one that did. The problem with this is that what happens if the supplementation group isn’t given enough omega-3?<\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

There were in fact relatively few studies that actually investigated both the impact of omega-3 supplementation against no supplementation and also the effect that different amounts of omega-3 supplementation had on cardiovascular disease risk. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

For me, it seemed only natural that if you are going to try to work out if it’s a good idea to take omega-3 for heart disease, then you also really need to work out the optimal dosage. However, there were only a small number of studies that actually wanted to work this out! <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"So<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

A new study that actually answers the question on omega-3 and heart disease!<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

So, I was really excited when there was a recent meta-analysis published in the Mayo Clinic Proceedings Journal<\/a> that looked at exactly this. “What is the Effect of Omega-3 Dosage on Cardiovascular Outcomes?<\/strong>“, was published in September 2020 and is a meta-analysis. A meta-analysis is a study that looks at multiple other studies done previously and collates all of the results together to attempt to come to a better conclusion than just using the results of any single study.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The authors used 40 other studies that had a combined 135,267 participants<\/strong> that specifically looked at the effects that different dosages of omega-3<\/strong> had on Cardiovascular Disease Events<\/strong> and Myocardial Infarction<\/strong> (aka heart attacks).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cardiovascular Disease Events were classed as a combination of different manifestations of heart disease and included heart attack, angina, stroke, heart failure, peripheral arterial disease, sudden death, and non-scheduled cardiovascular surgical interventions. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The other great thing about this meta-analysis is that they only included studies that looked at different doses of omega-3 and did NOT give any other dietary advice<\/strong>. So, the study participants continued with the diet they have always been eating. This is a really important differentiator, because if a study shows the risk of heart disease changes and people take omega-3 and change their diet, how do we know which one is responsible? Removing studies that offer dietary advice gets around this problem.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What the science says\u2026<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The studies ranged from 400mg of an omega-3 supplement<\/a><\/strong> a day all the way up to 5.5 grams (5500mg). Here is what the researchers found:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

* They found that there was a dose-dependent reduction in the risk of Myocardial Infarction of 9% for each additional 1g (1000mg) of omega-3 supplementation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

* They also found that there was a 5.8% reduction in Cardiovascular Disease Events for each additional gram of omega-3 supplementation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Both results were statistically significant. These results are best understood by looking at them plotted on a graph as below:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Omega-3<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

So, from now on my job will be a little easier when it comes to helping people decide on an omega-3 dosage for heart disease, and in explaining why we tend to recommend a little more than other companies!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

Reference:<\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bernasconi, Aldo A., et al. \u201cEffect of Omega-3 Dosage on Cardiovascular Outcomes, An Updated Meta-Analysis and Meta-Regression of Interventional Trials.\u201d Mayo Clinic Proceedings, 2020. Crossref, doi:10.1016\/j.mayocp.2020.08.034.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One of the questions I am often asked is ‘Why does Intelligent Labs recommend so much omega-3 per day (for heart disease prevention and other conditions)’? It’s a good question and yes, it’s true, our recommendation is certainly at the upper end of the recommendations of different brands in the industry. We recommend a 3-capsule…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":131423,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_kad_blocks_custom_css":"","_kad_blocks_head_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_body_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_footer_custom_js":"","_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[695],"tags":[690,678],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-131422","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nutrition","tag-heart-health","tag-omega-3"],"taxonomy_info":{"category":[{"value":695,"label":"Nutrition"}],"post_tag":[{"value":690,"label":"Heart Health"},{"value":678,"label":"Omega-3"}]},"featured_image_src_large":["https:\/\/eu.intelligentlabs.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/how-much-omega-3-do-you-actually-need-to-protect-against-heart-disease-01-1024x521.jpg",1024,521,true],"author_info":{"display_name":"Andy Mobbs","author_link":"https:\/\/eu.intelligentlabs.org\/en-gb\/author\/andy\/"},"comment_info":0,"category_info":[{"term_id":695,"name":"Nutrition","slug":"nutrition","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":695,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":0,"count":140,"filter":"raw","cat_ID":695,"category_count":140,"category_description":"","cat_name":"Nutrition","category_nicename":"nutrition","category_parent":0}],"tag_info":[{"term_id":690,"name":"Heart Health","slug":"heart-health","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":690,"taxonomy":"post_tag","description":"","parent":0,"count":13,"filter":"raw"},{"term_id":678,"name":"Omega-3","slug":"omega-3","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":678,"taxonomy":"post_tag","description":"","parent":0,"count":146,"filter":"raw"}],"wpml":{"language":"en-gb","is_original":true,"original_post_id":131422,"translations":{"en-gb":{"id":131422,"language":"en-gb","is_original":true},"en-ie":{"id":166546,"language":"en-ie","is_original":false},"en-mt":{"id":166011,"language":"en-mt","is_original":false}}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eu.intelligentlabs.org\/en-gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131422","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eu.intelligentlabs.org\/en-gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eu.intelligentlabs.org\/en-gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eu.intelligentlabs.org\/en-gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eu.intelligentlabs.org\/en-gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=131422"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/eu.intelligentlabs.org\/en-gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131422\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":138009,"href":"https:\/\/eu.intelligentlabs.org\/en-gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131422\/revisions\/138009"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eu.intelligentlabs.org\/en-gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/131423"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eu.intelligentlabs.org\/en-gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=131422"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eu.intelligentlabs.org\/en-gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=131422"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eu.intelligentlabs.org\/en-gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=131422"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eu.intelligentlabs.org\/en-gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=131422"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}