A study conducted by a team of 357 Italian cardiology centers has found that omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA) can reduce both mortality and hospitalization for people suffering from heart failure.

Daily supplements of PUFA- the kind of acids that are to be found in fish oil-were given to half of the patients with heart failure who participated in the trial ( more than 7,000), the other half receiving placebo capsules. The death rate in the first group was 27 %, while the placebo group’s rate rose to 29%.

The results were published Sunday, August 31, in the online journal The Lancet and and presented at a meeting of the European Society of Cardiology held in Munich, Germany.

Although the reduction seems quite small, its importance is undeniable, since there are very few treatments for heart-failure that affect total mortality.

Dr. Dariush Mozaffarian, an associate professor of medicine and epidemiology at Harvard Medical School and the Harvard School of Public Health, who has conducted his own PUFA studies, stated that similar results had been reported in two earlier trials. Still, they were both “double-blind” ones, neither the patients nor the doctors knowing who was getting the active substance and who the placebos.

In a parallel study conducted by the same consortium of cardiology centers, half of the patients were given a drug called rosuvastatin, which is also known as Crestor, and the other half a placebo. They were afterwards monitored for four years. The results revealed only minor differences in heart failure rates between the two groups.

Thus, it is to be noted that omega-3 fatty acids from fish are more effective in reducing mortality and hospital admittance rates than the aforementioned drug.

Oil from fish such as salmon and tuna are also thought to increase the body's good cholesterol levels and protect the heart and brain, though scientists have yet to explain how.