Omega 3 Helps Maintain Muscle in Cancer Patients

DUBLIN, Ireland—Eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) given to cancer patients helped decrease the amount of weight loss and increased muscle mass in an Irish study. In the double-blind study (Ann Surg. 2009 Mar;249(3):355-63), 53 patients with cancer awaiting oesophagectomy surgery (considered to be one of the most stressful and serious operations a patient can undergo) were randomly assigned to treatment group, which received EPA for five days prior to surgery, or a control group, which did not receive EPA The treatment group also received EPA daily for 21 days after surgery. In the treatment group, patients maintained all aspects of body composition after the operation, whereas patients in the control group lost significant amounts of muscle mass.

EPA is a long-chain essential omega-3 fatty acid (EFA) found in fish oil. The researchers said that using specialized nutritional feeds with a highly purified form of EPA enabled them to administer a dose of omega 3 that was much higher than that typically found in food.