Heart-attack victims who eat margarine enriched with Omega-3 fatty acids dont have any additional protection against another heart attack, researchers reported.
In the study, published this week in the New England Journal of Medicine, researchers in the Netherlands gave some of the the 5,000 men and womenall heart-attack survivorsa small daily portion of margarine enriched with the fish-oil fatty acids DHA and EPA as well as the plant-derived fatty acid ALA. Another group consumed margarine enriched with nothing at all. (Omega-3s are often added to margarine and peanut butter, and are in fatty fish like salmon.)
A followup to the 40-month study showed that of all the patients, 13.9 percent had suffered a repeat cardiovascular event - meaning a fatal or non-fatal heart attack, or an episode in which cardiac intervention was needed. There was no significant difference, the researchers reported, between those who had eaten margarine with added Omega-3s and those who had eaten a placebo.
However, the type of margarine patients consumed did make a difference among those who were diabetic, the researchers said. Results from this subgroup of patients showed that they benefited from eating margarine with either DHA and EPA or ALA. According to U.S. News and World Report, those patients had about 50 percent fewer heart attacks and irregular heart rhythms when compared with the diabetic patients who ate non-enriched margarine.
