Endocrine Abstracts

Introduction: Nonfasting duration is much longer than fasting time in a day. Although there is a few reports on the importance of postprandial triacylglycerol (TG) on cardiovascular outcome, TG variation after meal is one of main obstacle of clinical trial. The purpose of this study is to determine effects of a 6-week period of omega-3 fatty acid supplementation on fasting and postprandial TG and metabolic parameters in response to standard test meals.

Methods: The study population included 26 patients with hypertriglyceridaemia (≥200 mg/dl). They were educated and randomly allocated to treatment group by omega-3 fatty acid supplementation (Omacor, 2 g/day) or control group, and followed-up for 6 weeks in three hospitals. At days 1 and 42 visit, fasting and postprandial-3 h data were obtained respectively, before and after standard meals with 710 kcal.

Results: In intragroup analysis, treatment group with omega-3 fatty acids showed significant decrease on fasting TG (258.2 mg/dl vs 254.2 mg/dl, P=0.046) and especially post-prandial TG (357.3 mg/dl vs 277.2 mg/dl, P=0.033), while control group showed no significant difference during follow-up (271.2 mg/dl vs 255.1 mg/dl, P=0.790 for fasting TG and 343.7 mg/dl vs 324.7 mg/dl for post-prandial TG). However, in intergroup analysis, there was no significant difference between two groups in fasting and post-prandial TG (% change: P=0.287 and 0.303 respectively). There was no significant improvement in other lipid profiles. No significant adverse events were registered during this study.

Conclusion: The omega-3 fatty acids achieved a significant reduction of fasting and post-prandial triglycerides without adverse reactions. Because the trend of improvement in post-prandial TG appeared in the treatment group than control group, further study including more subjects will be needed.

Disclosure: This study was supported by Gun-il Pharmacy, Seoul, Korea.