Year: 1990
Type: review
Abstract: T here has been considerable interest recently in the potential of fish oils to prevent coronary artery disease.The article by Braden et al, "Dietary Fish Oil Accelerates the Response of Cor- onary Thrombolysis With Tissue Plasminogen Acti- vator: Evidence for a Modest Platelet Inhibitory Effect In Vivo" in a recent issue of Circulation' is another in a series of rigorous studies on the effects of fish oils on experimental thrombosis performed by these Vanderbilt University investigators.They have nicely demonstrated that feeding high levels of the two important polyunsaturated fatty acids of fish oils, namely eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) (C20: 5w-3) and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) (C22: 6c-3), sig- nificantly shortens the time for recombinant tissue- type plasminogen activator (rt-PA) to cause reperfu- sion in thrombosed coronary arteries in dogs.However, the high intake of fish oils failed to delay the development of an occluding thrombus when the endothelial surface of a cannulated coronary artery was injured electrically and failed to reduce the incidence of reocclusion as compared with control animals fed the usual dog chow.The study was designed, as the investigators state, "to determine whether fish oils inhibited plateletdependent events in vivo."It was nicely designed for that purpose.However, that is not to say that it was ideally designed to isolate the effects of only throm- boxane and prostacyclin on the parameters mea- sured.In any in vivo manipulation that results in a blood clot and its lysis, one must consider the potent effects of thrombin on platelet aggregation, as well as those of thromboxane.Thrombin is a more aggressive aggregator of platelets than is thromboxane.Aspirin will inhibit platelet aggregation caused by thrombox- ane, but thrombin will aggregate platelets even in the presence of aspirin except at very low concentrations.In a recent study, Fitzgerald, Wright, and FitzGerald2 used this same canine model to examine the effect of a dose of aspirin that was selected to achieve a more than 95% inhibition of serum throm- boxane B2 (TXB2) in the dog.Compared
Source: Circulation
Author: A Leaf
Institution: Harvard University
Language: English
Subfield: Nutrition and Dietetics
Field: Nursing
Domain: Health Sciences
Open Access status: bronze
OpenAlex ID: W2060357671