Brief Critique of “Effects of n3 Fatty Acid Supplements in Diabetes Mellitus: ASCEND Study” New England Journal of Medicine 2018 Aug

The video of this presentation is archived at ichnfm.org/18, and the transcript in PDF format — which is considered the final and citable version — is archived at academia.edu/37329403; any corrections or updates will be made to the PDF file. The video contains citations which are not replicated in the PDF document; both the video and the PDF transcript should be reviewed for a complete representation of the information. This version was updated on September 4, 2018.

Introduction: Hello everyone. This is Dr. Alex Vasquez with the short version of my “Critique of the Effects of Omega 3 Fatty Acids Supplements in Diabetes” recently published as the Ascend Study in the New England Journal of Medicine, 2018 August. If you’d like to see the longer and more detailed version of this review, please see ichnfm.org/18 for my videos from 2018.

This was not a placebo-controlled study: This is a randomized and supposedly “placebo-controlled” trial of 15,000 subjects. The intervention included either omega-3 fatty acids or olive oil — so this was not a placebo-controlled study. This was a comparison of relatively low-dose EPA and DHA against low-dose olive oil — so again, this is not a placebo-controlled study.