Omega-3 Fatty Acids in the Treatment of Prostate Cancer

Commonly found in dark fish meat (such as salmon, herring or mackerel), and known for their therapeutic effects, omega-3 fatty acids are proving to be especially effective against advanced prostate cancer, as a reported in the Clinical Cancer Research, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research.

A study conducted on 466 men diagnosed with severe prostate cancer and 478 healthy men concerning their dietary intakes showed that men that consumed the highest amount of long chain omega-3 fatty acids had a 63 percent reduced risk of aggressive prostate cancer than the ones with the lowest intake.
Researchers also genotyped nine COX-2 single nucleotide polymorphisms, from which variant rs4647310 is a well known inflammatory gene. Men with high intake of omega-3 fatty acids had a substantially reduced risk, even if they carried the COX-2 variant.

John S. Witte, Ph.D., professor of epidemiology and biostatistics at the University of California San Francisco recommends eating dark fish one or more times per week, since, according to him, “the COX-2 increased risk of disease was essentially reversed by increasing omega-3 fatty acid intake by a half a gram per day.”