Posted by brandonb 7 hours ago
If I had afib I'd talk to a doctor about it before taking it and probably would stay well under 1G on any day I don't eat fish and skip it entirely on a day that I do.
Not a dr, not a health professional, not anyone you should listen to perhaps at all, but this is my understanding.
Doctors err on the side of "I read a note that said omega 3 = bad for afib" and stop thinking from that point onward.
The TL;DR (IIRC) is that we tend to only see this in trials where atrial fib is a tertiary endpoint so there’s not really compelling data to suggest AF is a risk.
But give it a listen and see what you think, it was a while ago I listened to it and I’m not qualified to give actual advice!
For example, Scott Alexander wrote in 2014 on his blog Slate Star Codex about how Omega-3 lowers crime rates and Omega-6 increases crime rates. And he links to some cool RCTs where you can check the methodology yourself.
https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/02/18/proposed-biological-ex...
Eat your fish!
Unfortunately it tends to be more expensive. I have recs if you’re in the UK but not much use otherwise!
natural sources for omega FAs include hemp hearts and pumpkin seeds.
There's a bunch of less harmful stuff you can fill your diet with that just by virtue of displacing terrible things has positive effects.
if you want the purest Omega3 EPA without all the contaminants that are in OTC supplement nonsense (they are completely unregulated and untested by batch)
ask your doctor for a script of generic VASCEPA
CostPlusDrugs has the cheapest generic Vascepa that I've found
The dose is usually two pills a day but trust me on this, start with one for a long time, it takes your GI a long time to handle it without bathroom urgency
What I found from a quick search says the opposite:
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7760937/
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3534764/
> "An X-ray diffraction study found that EPA and DHA exert different effects on the lipid bilayer of cell membranes. EPA readily incorporates into the cell membrane core and stabilizes it, whereas DHA does not"
> "Why does this matter? Cell membranes are essential for cellular function: not only do they provide structural support for cells, but they also facilitate cell-to-cell communication and nutrient/toxin transport. Different effects of EPA and DHA on membrane stability likely elicit different effects in cell signaling. A second study revealed that in addition to stabilizing cell membranes, EPA is also protective against harmful reactive oxygen species and lipid peroxidation"
basically EPA modulates the immune system, DHA does not
There was a big push for this hypothesis in the 2010s, but on closer inspection the only research that seemed to support it was where the “low n3:n6 ratio” cohort were there by virtue of low n3, not high n6.
Where studies compare groups of people where ratios were manipulated but both were at adequate levels, I don’t believe we see any evidence of a deleterious effect.