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1 From the Department of First Aid and Emergency Medicine and the Department of Clinical Pharmacology, S Orsola Hospital, Bologna, Italy, and Civil Hospital, Recanati, Italy.
2 Address reprint requests to A Belluzzi, Via Vizzani, 36, 40138 Bologna, Italy. E-mail: Belluzzi{at}altavista.net.
| ABSTRACT |
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Key Words: Polyunsaturated fatty acids fish oil Crohn disease ulcerative colitis inflammatory bowel disease n3 fatty acids review
| INTRODUCTION |
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| CLINICAL STUDIES |
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Lorenz et al (11) treated 29 CD patients in different stages of clinical disease activity and 10 UC patients with active disease in a 7-mo, controlled, crossover trial. Patients received 3.2 g n3 fatty acids/d and olive oil as a placebo while conventional treatment was continued. The washout period was 1 mo. Encouraging positive results were obtained in the UC patients, whereas the activity score of the disease did not improve in the CD patients.
In 1992, Hawthorne et al (12) published the first large placebo-controlled study of n3 fatty acids and inflammatory bowel disease. In this study, 96 UC patients in different activity stages of the disease were enrolled and assigned to receive either 4.5 g EPA/d as triacylglycerol (treatment group) or olive oil (placebo group) for 1 y. Conventional treatment was allowed to continue in both groups. In patients with active disease at entry, a significant steroid-sparing effect of fish oil was shown, but fish oil did not affect the predicted endpoint, ie, the prevention of clinical relapse in the group of patients enrolled while their disease was in remission. Remarkably, leukotriene B4 production in stimulated neutrophils was reduced by >50% in the treatment group.
Stenson et al (13) carried out a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled crossover study with 5.4 g n3 fatty acids as triacylglycerol (18 capsules daily) or olive oil as the placebo in 24 patients with active UC. Patients received the treatment for 4 mo followed by a washout period lasting 1 mo. In this study, fish-oil treatment induced significant body weight gain, significantly improved the histology score, and reduced leukotriene B4 production in rectal dialysates by 60%. No significant steroid-sparing effect of fish oil compared with placebo was found, however, and the endoscopy score was not significantly improved (P = 0.06).
Aslan and Triadafilopoulos (14) carried out a similar placebo-controlled, crossover trial by giving 4.2 g n3 fatty acids/d or corn oil as the placebo. Seventeen patients with active UC received the treatment for 3 mo followed by a washout period lasting 2 mo. A steroid-sparing effect of n3 fatty acids was observed in 72% of patients, and in 56% of patients the activity score of the disease improved significantly. Improvements in the histology score were not significant.
Matè et al (15) reported preliminary data on a group of 38 CD patients in clinical and laboratory remission characterized by a Crohn's Disease Activity Index <150. The patients were randomly assigned to receive either a diet enriched with fish (from 100 to 250 g fish/d) or a regular diet for 2 y. Symptomatic remission of the disease was longer in those who received the enriched diet.
More recently, Loeschke et al (16) presented data from a placebo-controlled trial of prevention of UC relapse. Sixty-four patients with disease in remission were randomly assigned to receive 5.1 g n3 fatty acids as ethyl esters or corn oil as a placebo daily for 2 y. Ongoing treatment with 5-aminosalicylic acid was allowed for 3 mo. Interestingly, after 3 mo, the fish-oil group had experienced fewer relapses than did the placebo group (P < 0.02) but this beneficial effect did not last until the end of the study (2 y). We can speculate that the fish oil and the 5-aminosalicylic acid had synergetic effects; however, we cannot rule out the possibility that compliance decreased over time in the fish-oil group, which would have affected the clinical outcome.
Lorenz-Meyer et al (17) published data from a large, placebo-controlled trial in which 204 CD patients recovering from an acute relapse were randomly assigned to receive n3 fatty acids (n = 70; 5.1 g/d as ethyl esters), a diet poor in carbohydrate (n = 69), or a placebo (n = 65) for 1 y. Low doses of prednisolone were allowed for 8 wk. In an intent-to-treat analysis, none of the treatments prevented clinical flare-ups, but in the per-protocol analysis the diet poor in carbohydrate (20 dropouts) seemed to be effective (P < 0.05). It is important to stress that >60% of patients treated with steroids after an acute relapse have further relapses at 6 mo, after steroid treatment is suspended (18).
The crossover design of most of these studies, with short washout periods between the 2 treatments, did not allow for a complete displacement of the extra n3 fatty acids from the membrane, which may have interfered with the final results. Endres et al (4) showed that the inhibition of cytokine production lasts for >10 wk after the suspension of supplementation with n3 fatty acids.
| PLACEBO EFFECTS |
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-linolenic acid, a precursor of the 1-series of prostanoids that may have antiinflammatory properties in many chronic inflammatory disorders (21). Moreover, in many of the studies in which fish oil was used, patient compliance was poor (2224). This poor compliance was caused by the poor palatability of the diets and by minor but annoying side effects such as halitosis, belching, and diarrhea resulting from the high daily intake of fish-oil preparations, which is necessary for satisfactory intestinal absorption and incorporation of n3 fatty acids into membranes.
We carried out a study of patient tolerance in a group of CD patients with a new n3 fatty acid preparation that consisted of 500 mg enteric-coated (gastric resistant) capsules of EPA (40%) and DHA (20%) as a free fatty acid mixture. This was compared with a traditional preparation of n3 fatty acids as triacylglycerol. In addition to patient tolerance, we evaluated the incorporation of the n3 fatty acids into phospholipids in plasma and red blood cell membranes. The new preparation showed the best incorporation of EPA and DHA in red blood cell phospholipid membranes and had no associated side effects (25).
We also performed a 1-y, double-blind, placebo-controlled study to investigate the effect of this new formulation in 78 CD patients who had a high risk of relapse (26). Patients with a well-established diagnosis of CD in clinical remission were evaluated for eligibility for this study according to the Crohn's Disease Activity Index. This index incorporates 8 itemsthe daily number of liquid or very soft stools, abdominal pain, general well-being, extraintestinal manifestations of CD, use of opiates to treat diarrhea, abdominal mass, hematocrit, and body weightto yield a composite score ranging from 0 to 600. Higher scores indicate more disease activity. Patients with scores of
150 are considered to have inactive disease. The main eligibility criteria for our study were a Crohn's Disease Activity Index <150 for
3 mo but <2 y and
1 of the following: serum
1 acid glycoprotein >1.3 g/L (reference range: <1.2 mg/L), serum
2 globulin >9 g/L (reference range: <8 g/L), erythrocyte sedimentation rate >40 mm/h (reference range: <20 mm/h). Patients received either 9 capsules containing a total of 2.7 g n3 fatty acids or 9 placebo capsules (a mixture of capric and caprylic acids) daily. A special coating protected the capsules against acidity for
30 min. Of the 39 patients in the n3 fatty acid group, 11 (28%) had relapses, 4 dropped out because of diarrhea, and 1 withdrew from the study. In contrast, of the 39 patients in the placebo group, 27 (69%) had relapses, 1 dropped out because of diarrhea, and 1 withdrew from the study (P < 0.001). After 1 y, 23 patients (59%) in the n3 fatty acid group remained in remission compared with 10 (26%) in the placebo group (P = 0.003). The Kaplan-Meier life-table curves for patients remaining in clinical remission are shown in Figure 1
. Logistic regression analysis indicated that only n3 fatty acids and not sex, age, previous surgery, duration of disease, or smoking status affected the likelihood of relapse (26).
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-linolenic acid and linoleic acid, with that of n3 fatty acids and olive oil in 43 patients with UC in different phases of activity. The patients' normal treatments were continued. After 6 mo, no beneficial effects were shown in the patients taking evening primrose oil except for an increase in stool consistency. | CONCLUSION |
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| REFERENCES |
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