Iranian Journal of

Background: The prevalence of Diabetes mellitus as the most common metabolic disorder of human is progressively increasing. Dyslipidemia is common among diabetic patients characterized by elevated plasma TG, LDL-C and reduced HDL-C levels which increase risk of cardiovascular events. Fish oil supplement which contains omega-3 has been proposed to correct the atherogenic lipid profile associated with diabetes mellitus. Doubt remain whether the net effect of fish oil supplement on lipid profiles are beneficial in diabetes. We therefore performed this randomized double-blind clinical trial to investigate this.

Methods: Ninety six patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus were randomized assigned to take 3 times daily supplementation (capsule) with either fish oil or corn oil for 8 weeks (48 patients in each group). At begining also end of study we measured laboratory variables (FBS, TG, Total cholesterol, LDL and HDL) in both groups.

Results: At begining of the study demographic and laboratory measurements were similar in both groups (P>0.05).At 8^th weeks there  were  no statistically  significant  differences  in variables  measured except for  LDL and HDL in fish oil  group that leads to increase and decrease respectively. Although both groups show improvement in LDL / HDL and Total cholesterol / HDL ratios but mean charges were statistically significant in fish oil as compared with corn oil group. (P=0.001, P=0.005 respectively).

Conclusion: Fish oil supplement showed statistically significant improvement in LDL/HDL, Total cholesterol/HDL ratios as compared with corn oil. This may leads to decrease cardiovascular events.