Hello and

I'm your host, Monica Reinagel, and today I want to share some perspective on a recent

on a recent study that caught a lot of people by surprise.

This study, which was published in the British Medical Journal, suggested that taking fish oil supplements might increase, that's right, increase your risk of having a stroke.

Not surprisingly, this has sparked a lot of discussions and raised questions about these super popular supplements.

So if you're wondering whether you should keep taking your fish oil supplements or if it's time

to reconsider, stay tuned. This study utilized data from the United Kingdom's BioBank Project

which followed over 400,000 participants aged 40 to 69 over the course of 15 years.

And much to everyone's surprise,

the analysis revealed that for people without heart disease,

taking a fish oil supplement was associated with a 13% increased

risk of developing atrial fibrillation and a 5% increased risk of stroke.

Among those who had heart disease, on the other hand,

regular use of fish oil supplements

appear to reduce the risk of adverse cardiovascular events

or death.

So while taking fish oil appeared to have some benefit for those already with heart disease,

healthy people seemed to be worse off when they took fish oil. But it's also important to point out here that the

overall risks of stroke or atrial fibrillation in this cohort were pretty low to begin with.

And this is when it's important to distinguish

between a relative risk and an absolute risk. Let me explain what I mean here. The

absolute risk of stroke in this study was 1%, meaning that only 1% of all the subjects

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