A double-blind, placebo-controlled trial of fish oil concentrate (Maxepa) in stroke patients

The feeding of large amounts of fish or fish oils to healthy volunteers has been shown to reduce plasma triglycerides and platelet aggregation, and prolong the skin bleeding time. To determine whether a commercially available marine oil (MaxEpa) would have similar effect in stroke patients, we performed a double-blind, placebo-controlled study in 11 patients (7 men, 4 women) with completed stroke (7) or transient ischemic attacks (TIA’s) (4). Ten 1 ml opaque capsules containing either MaxEpa or olive oil were given daily for 6 weeks, and then the patients were crossed-over. Aspirin was avoided during the trial. The data were analyzed by paired-sample t-tests. A significant reduction was found in serum triglycerides, but total serum cholesterol and HDL cholesterol were unaffected. The bleeding time was modestly prolonged after 3 weeks of treatment, but the differences between MaxEpa and olive oil treatments were not significant at 6 weeks. Aside from an increase in collagen-stimulated malondialdehyde formation no other statistically significant changes in hemostatic factors were observed. We conclude that the ingestion of up to 10 MaxEpa capsules daily for 6 weeks has little influence on such established risk factors as cholesterol concentration and platelet function in patients with stroke or TIA’s.