The effect of fish oil supplementation on serum phospholipid fatty acids profile during pregnancy: A double blind randomized controlled trial

Abstract

Omega-3 fatty acids (FAs) are essential unsaturated long-chain FAs necessary for proper health and growth. The objective of the authors in this study was to evaluate the effect of fish oil supplementation in pregnancy on maternal serum FA profiles. Participants (n = 150 pregnant women aged 18-35 years in Tabriz, Iran) were randomly assigned to receive either 1,000 mg fish oil supplements daily containing 120 mg docosahexanoic acid (DHA) and 180 mg eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA), or placebo from week 21 of pregnancy to delivery. The primary outcome measures were mean serum DHA and EPA proportion of total FAs at weeks 35-37 of pregnancy. Analyses were based on intention-to-treat. No significant differences were observed between the groups in consumption of fish and serum FAs levels at baseline. Fish oil supplementation significantly increased the mean DHA proportion of total FAs in the intervention compared to the placebo group at weeks 35-37 [adjusted Mean Difference (aMD) = 0.15; 95% CI 0.08-0.23]. The mean EPA proportion of total FAs also increased in the intervention group, but the difference between the groups was not significant (aMD = 0.04; 95% CI -0.01 to 0.08). The dietary recommendation for consumption of 1,000 mg/day fish oil supplements during pregnancy seems beneficial for better serum FA composition.

The impact of fish oil and/or probiotics on serum fatty acids and the interaction with low-grade inflammation in pregnant women with overweight and obesity: secondary analysis of a randomised controlled trial

“…To our knowledge, no prior studies evaluating the effect of the combination of fish oil and probiotics on sFA exist. Although plausible, and suggested by previous studies (8)(9)(10) , in this study, the effect of a combination of fish oil and probiotics on sFA composition was not significantly different from that of fish oil alone.…”

“…The n -6/ n -3 PUFA ratio was lower in the fish oil and fish oil + probiotics groups compared with placebo and the intervention was associated with differences in the concentration and % of some SFA and MUFA. Previous studies evaluating the effect of fish oil on sFA in pregnant women have shown that the percentage of DHA in serum PL increased in pregnant women who were instructed to consume daily fish oil supplements, in a smaller dose than used in our study, 120 mg DHA and 180 mg EPA daily, from week 21 of pregnancy to delivery ( 9 ) . Similarly, 0·5 g DHA and 0·15 g EPA ( 26 ) and 0·2 g DHA ( 27 ) have been able to increase DHA in plasma and erythrocyte PL, respectively.…”

“…Another strength is the high number of participants who gave a blood sample after at least 9 h over night fasting for the analysis of the fatty acids. Even though the power calculations were done based on the reduction of incidence of GDM and fasting glucose levels (14) , we are confident that the power with this high number of study subjects is sufficient to detect changes in fatty acid levels after the dietary intervention, compared with previous reports with, for example, n 40 (28) , n 48 (27) , n 61-64 (26) and n 67-68 (9) pregnant women per intervention group. Moreover, we analysed all four lipid fractions and expressed fatty acids in two units, concentration and percentage of total fatty acids; percentage is more commonly used in research as it requires less resources.…”

“…phosphatidylcholine (PC)), cholesteryl esters (CE) and TAG or bound to albumin in the form of NEFA. Although techniques to measure fatty acids in all four lipid fractions are available, many of the prior studies of pregnant women have utilised the PC fraction to analyse blood fatty acids (8)(9)(10) .…”