First Department of Geriatric Cardiology, Chinese PLA General Hospital, Beijing, PR China.
PLoS One. 2012;7(9):e46028. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0046028. Epub 2012 Sep 21.
Effect of fish oil supplementation on flow-mediated dilation, an index of endothelial function in humans, remains controversial. We performed a meta-analysis to determine whether fish oil supplementation could improve endothelial function.
Human intervention studies were identified by systematic searches of Medline, Embase, Cochrane's library and references of related reviews and studies. A random-effect model was applied to estimate the pooled results. Meta-regression and subgroup analyses were performed to evaluate the impact of study characteristics on the effect of fish oil supplementation on flow-mediated dilation.
A total of sixteen records with 1,385 subjects were reviewed. The results of the pooled analysis showed that fish oil supplementation significantly improved flow-mediated dilation (weighed mean difference: 1.49%, 95% confidence interval 0.48% to 2.50%, p = 0.004). Meta-regression and subgroup analysis suggested that the quality of included studies were inversely related to the overall effect (regression coefficient = -1.60, p = 0.04), and the significance of the effect was mainly driven by the studies with relatively poor quality. Sensitivity analysis including only double-blind, placebo-controlled studies indicated fish oil supplementation has no significant effect on endothelial function (weighed mean difference: 0.54%, 95% confidence interval -0.25% to 1.33%, p = 0.18). Besides, normoglycemic subjects or participants with lower diastolic blood pressure seemed to be associated with remarkable improvement of endothelial function after fish oil supplementation.
Although current evidence suggested a possible role of fish oil in improving endothelial function, large-scale and high-quality clinical trials are needed to evaluate these effects before we can come to a definite conclusion.
鱼油补充剂对人体内皮功能的血流介导扩张（一种内皮功能的指标）的影响仍存在争议。我们进行了荟萃分析，以确定鱼油补充剂是否可以改善内皮功能。
通过系统检索 Medline、Embase、Cochrane 图书馆以及相关综述和研究的参考文献，确定了人类干预研究。应用随机效应模型来估计汇总结果。进行了荟萃回归和亚组分析，以评估研究特征对鱼油补充剂对血流介导扩张影响的作用。
共综述了 16 项记录，涉及 1385 名受试者。汇总分析结果表明，鱼油补充剂显著改善了血流介导扩张（加权均数差：1.49%，95%置信区间 0.48%至 2.50%，p = 0.004）。荟萃回归和亚组分析表明，纳入研究的质量与总体效应呈负相关（回归系数为-1.60，p = 0.04），并且该效应的显著性主要由质量相对较差的研究驱动。仅包括双盲、安慰剂对照研究的敏感性分析表明，鱼油补充剂对内皮功能没有显著影响（加权均数差：0.54%，95%置信区间-0.25%至 1.33%，p = 0.18）。此外，血糖正常的受试者或舒张压较低的参与者似乎在鱼油补充后内皮功能有明显改善。
尽管目前的证据表明鱼油在改善内皮功能方面可能发挥作用，但需要进行大规模、高质量的临床试验来评估这些效果，然后我们才能得出明确的结论。
