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 ndependently, fish oil supplements and exercise reduce
the amount of fat in the bloodstream, which ultimately improve
cardiovascular health. So, one would expect to get a double benefit
when combining the two treatments. However, researchers at the
University of Missouri-Columbia found in a recent study that
that is simply not so.
 Their
study results, published in this month's issue of the Journal
of Applied Physiology, show that not only does the beneficial
effect not double, neither exercise nor fish oil has any effect
on fat levels when coupled in treatment.
Doctors monitor
high triglyceride - or fat levels because they lead to high cholesterol,
increasing the risk of cardiovascular diseases. Doctors commonly
treat this condition in their patients with exercise and fish
oil supplements.
"With
exercise, you get an effect. With fish oil, you get an effect.
But together you get no effect. The treatments counteract each
other. It wasn't what we were expecting to see," said Tom
Thomas, professor of exercise physiology at MU. "The message
here is that sometimes two is not better than one."
Thomas emphasized
that he doesn't encourage anyone to make rash decisions about
stopping exercise or fish oil treatments based on his study,
because each treatment improves health in many ways other than
lowering fat. "They still help with other things - exercise
also improves muscle strength and circulation, and fish oil also
helps reduce clotting and prevent irregular heartbeats. We don't
want people to miss out on these benefits until we find out more."
He said the
next step is to study why this negative effect happens. Once
they identify the cause, which he suspects is enzyme-related,
his team can begin to overcome the problem it has uncovered.
Currently, he and his team also are studying the long-term effects
of combining fat ingestion and exercise using pigs as the subjects.
Exercise physiology
research like this study are important in the battle to get Americans
healthier because it has proven difficult to get them to change
their diets. "We've tried for years to get Americans to
lower their fat intake, but the national average has only changed
from about 35 to 32 percent - not enough to do much good,"
Thomas said. "Now we're looking into how exercise can help
when you eat that much fat and if it matters which kind of fat
you're eating." 
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