A daily fish oil supplement may help lower the risk of serious cardiovascular complications in people undergoing dialysis for kidney failure. The finding comes from a large international clinical trial jointly led in Australia by Monash Health and the School of Clinical Sciences at Monash University.

The research, known as the PISCES trial, included 1,228 participants receiving dialysis treatment at 26 sites across Australia and Canada. The results were published in The New England Journal of Medicine.

Participants who took 4 grams of fish oil each day experienced significantly fewer major cardiovascular events than those who received a placebo. The supplement contained the omega-3 fatty acids EPA and DHA, which are naturally found in fish oil.

Overall, the group taking fish oil had a 43 percent lower rate of serious cardiovascular events. These included heart attack, stroke, cardiac death and vascular related amputations.

Adjunct Professor Kevan Polkinghorne, a nephrologist at Monash Health and adjunct in the School of Clinical Sciences, led the Australian portion of the trial.

“Patients on dialysis have extremely high cardiovascular risk, and very few therapies have been shown to reduce that risk,” Polkinghorne said. “In a field where many trials have been negative, this is a significant finding. Dialysis patients typically have much lower levels of EPA and DHA than the general population. This may help explain the magnitude of benefit observed in this group.”

Polkinghorne emphasized that the results apply specifically to people undergoing hemodialysis for kidney failure. He noted that the findings should not be generalized to healthy individuals or to other groups of patients.

For more information, visit www.monash.edu.