The study found that margarine spreads delivering 376 mg of EPA+DHA per day did not reduce the risk of secondary cardiovascular events in a specific population. Despite the specificity of the population studied, media outlets worldwide have carried broad, generic headlines like "Study Casts Doubts on Omega 3 Benefits," GOED noted.
The study’s limitations included:
• A relatively low dose for secondary prevention of heart disease
• All patients were receiving state-of-the-art combination drug therapies already
• The average heart attack of the patients at the time of enrollment was already more than four years prior
• The age of the patients was significantly older than previous studies
The coverage the study has received has been broad and somewhat negative, GOED says. Thirty-six hours after the original paper was published, GOED tracked more than 354 different news outlets around the world carrying the story. In GOED's opinion, a factual headline would highlight the low dose, that the patients were already four-year survivors of heart attacks, and that they were all on aggressive combination pharmaceutical therapies. None of the 354 headlines highlighted all three of these factors.