Fish oil claims not supported by research

Fish oil is now the third most widely used dietary supplement in the United States, after vitamins and minerals, according to a recent report from the National Institutes of Health.

At least 10 per cent of Americans take fish oil regularly, most believing that the omega-3 fatty acids in the supplements will protect their cardiovascular health.

But there is one big problem: The vast majority of clinical trials involving fish oil have found no evidence that it lowers the risk of heart attack and stroke.

From 2005 to 2012, at least two dozen rigorous studies of fish oil were published in leading medical journals, most of which looked at whether fish oil could prevent cardiovascular events in high-risk populations.

These were people who had a history of heart disease or strong risk factors for it, like high cholesterol, hypertension or Type 2 diabetes.

All but two of these studies found that compared with a placebo, fish oil showed no benefit.

And yet during this time, sales of fish oil more than doubled, not just in the United States but worldwide, said Andrew Grey, an associate professor of medicine at the University of Auckland in New Zealand and the author of a 2014 study on fish oil in JAMA Internal Medicine.

“There’s a major disconnect,” Grey said.

“The sales are going up despite the progressive accumulation of trials that show no effect.” In theory at least, there are good reasons that fish oil should improve cardiovascular health. Most fish oil supplements are rich in two omega-3 fatty acids — eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) and docosahexaenoic acid — that can have a blood-thinning effect, much like aspirin, that may reduce the likelihood of clots.

Omega-3s can also reduce inflammation, which plays a role in atherosclerosis. And the Food and Drug Administration has approved at least three prescription types of fish oil — Vascepa, Lovaza and a generic form — for the treatment of very high triglycerides, a risk factor for heart disease. But these properties of omega-3 fatty acids have not translated into notable benefits in most large clinical trials.

Some of the earliest enthusiasm for fish oil goes back to research carried out in the 1970s by the Danish scientists Dr. Hans Olaf Bang and Dr. Jorn Dyerberg, who determined that Inuits living in northern Greenland had remarkably low rates of cardiovascular disease, which they attributed to an omega-3-rich diet consisting mainly of fish, seal and whale blubber.

Dr. George Fodor, a cardiologist at the University of Ottawa, outlined flaws in much of this early research, and he concluded that the rate of heart disease among the Inuit was vastly underestimated. But the halo effect around fish oils persists.

The case for fish oil was bolstered by several studies from the 1990s, including an Italian study that found that heart attack survivors who were treated with a gram of fish oil daily had a drop in mortality, compared with patients taking vitamin E.

These findings prompted groups like the American Heart Association to endorse fish oil about a decade ago as a way for heart patients to get more omega-3s in their diets.

“But since then, there has been a spate of studies showing no benefit,” said Dr. James Stein, the director of preventive cardiology at University of Wisconsin Hospital and Clinics. Among them was a clinical trial of 12,000 people, published in The New England Journal of Medicine in 2013, that found that a gram of fish oil daily did not reduce the rate of death from heart attacks and strokes in people with evidence of atherosclerosis.

“I think that the era of fish oil as medication could be considered over now,” said the study’s lead author, Dr. Gianni Tognoni of the Institute for Pharmacological Research in Milan.

Stein said the early fish oil studies took place in an era when cardiovascular disease was treated very differently than it is today, with far less use of statins, beta blockers, blood thinners and other intensive therapies. So the effect of fish oil, even if it were minor, he said, would have been more noticeable.

“The standard of care is so good today that adding something as small as a fish oil capsule doesn’t move the needle of difference,” he said. “It’s hard to improve it with an intervention that’s not very strong.”

Stein also cautions that fish oil can be hazardous when combined with aspirin or other blood thinners.

“Very frequently we find people taking aspirin or a ‘super aspirin’ and they’re taking fish oil, too, and they’re bruising very easily and having nosebleeds,” he said.

“And then when we stop the fish oil, it gets better.”

Like many cardiologists, Stein encourages his patients to avoid fish oil supplements and focus instead on eating fatty fish at least twice a week, in line with federal guidelines on safe fish intake, because fish contains a variety of healthful nutrients other than just EPA and DHA.

“We don’t recommend fish oil unless someone gets absolutely no fish in their diets,” Stein said.

But some experts say the case for fish oil remains open. Dr. JoAnn Manson, the chief of preventive medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, said the large clinical trials of fish oil focused only on people who already had heart disease or were at very high risk. Fish oil has also been promoted for the prevention of a variety of other conditions, including cancer, Alzheimer’s and depression.

Manson is leading a five-year clinical trial, called the Vital study, of 26,000 people who are more representative of the general population.

Set to be completed next year, it will determine whether fish oil and vitamin D, separately or combined, have any effect on the long-term prevention of heart disease, Type 2 diabetes, and other diseases in people who do not have many strong risk factors.

Manson says that although she recommends eating fatty fish first, she usually does not stop people from taking fish oil, in part because it does not seem to have major side effects in generally healthy people.

“But I do think people should realise that the jury is still out,” she said, “and that they may be spending a lot of money on these supplements without getting any benefit.”

Boston Marathon bomber sentenced to death

Latest Developments U.S. Attorney Carmen Ortiz said the death sentence for Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was the result of a fair and impartial trial. "Even in the wake of horror or tragedy we are not intimidated by acts of terror or radical ideas," she said. The Boston Marathon bombings were not a religious crime, she said, even though the bombers claimed to represent Islam. It was a political crime committed by a pair of adults who adopted an ideology of hate, Ortiz said.

Full Story A federal jury Friday sentenced Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev to death, the final chapter to a brutal, emotionally exhausting trial that brought forth indelible images of an unspeakable crime.

There was no visible reaction from Tsarnaev, 21, as several survivors and relatives of victims dabbed tears from their eyes.

Bill and Denise Richards, parents of the bombing's littlest victim, 8-year-old Martin, looked on stoically from the second row near the jury box. They were against the death penalty.

The jury's verdict marked the first time in the post-9/11 era that federal prosecutors have won the death penalty in a terrorism case. Tsarnaev will likely be sent to the federal death row in Terre Haute, Indiana.

The six counts that brought Tsarnaev a death sentence all relate to the second of two pressure-cooker bombs, which caused the explosion on Boylston Street in front of the Forum restaurant on April 15, 2013.

As the proceedings ended Friday, Tsarnaev sat in a wooden chair, hands at his side, head tilted toward the jury. He shifted slightly and looked at his lawyer. U.S. District Court Judge George O'Toole thanked the defendant's lawyers and added, "Mr. Tsarnaev has comported himself with propriety."

When the jury left the courtroom one last time, O'Toole said, "And so, jurors, this is it." As U.S. marshals stepped forward to take Tsarnaev away, he gave a wry smile.

Survivors of his acts and others reacted immediately.

Sydney Corcoran, who suffered shrapnel wounds; and her mother, who lost both legs, said on Twitter: "My mother and I think that NOW he will go away and we will be able to move on. Justice. In his own words, 'an eye for an eye.'" Survivor Jarrod Clowery said he was happy not to have had to make the choice between life and death himself but he stands behind the jury's decision.

Boston Mayor Martin Walsh, in a statement, thanked the jurors.

"I hope this verdict provides a small amount of closure to the survivors, families, and all impacted by the violent and tragic events surrounding the 2013 Boston Marathon," he said. "We will forever remember and honor those who lost their lives and were affected by those senseless acts of violence on our city," he said.

Jeffrey Toobin said a years-long appeal process is expected, but "the overwhelming likelihood is that he will die" as the sentence is eventually carried out.

The jury deliberated for more than 14 hours over parts of three days before reaching its sentencing decision. In the wake of Tsarnaev's conviction in April on all 30 charges against him, jurors were tasked with deciding whether Tsarnaev should be sentenced to life in prison or death.

The horrifying events of the attacks were relived in the Boston courtroom.

Jurors saw the second bomb go off by the Forum restaurant and they viewed videos and photographs of the carnage. They heard the screams and saw people on the street, dying even as bystanders rushed to help. And they heard from people who survived against all odds but continue to struggle with their injuries. Rescuers spoke of the decisions they had to make in the face of such overwhelming bloodshed: Who could they save, and who should they leave behind? The bombing of the finish line of the Boston Marathon, recalled other acts of terror on U.S. soil including the attacks of September 11, 2001. The homemade bombs, built with pressure cookers loaded with gunpowder, BBs and nails, also injured at least 240 people; 17 of them lost limbs.

Boston was on edge for days as the suspects remained at large. Finally, on April 18, police released surveillance images of two suspects they called "black hat" and "white hat." It didn't take long for the two to be identified as brothers Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev.

Within just a few hours of the release of the photos, a campus police officer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology was shot to death as the fleeing brothers tried to take his gun. But they were thwarted by a locked safety holster.

The Tsarnaevs hijacked a Mercedes SUV; Tamerlan told the driver he was responsible for the marathon bombing. The driver escaped when the brothers stopped at a convenience store for gas and snacks.

Tamerlan Tsarnaev, a 26-year-old married father and former Golden Gloves boxer, died hours later in a standoff with police in Watertown, a Boston suburb. Out of ammunition, he tossed his empty pistol at an officer and walked into a hail of police bullets. As officers wrestled him to the ground, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev ran at them in the stolen Mercedes SUV, running over his brother and dragging him.

The younger Tsarnaev was finally arrested the next day; he was discovered hiding in a tarp-covered pleasure boat in a Watertown backyard.

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev hid in the boat for hours. At some point, he picked up a pencil and wrote what prosecutors called his "boat manifesto." Streaks of blood covered portions of the writing and more than a dozen bullet holes obliterated parts of words.

It said he was "jealous" that his brother had achieved paradise by dying like a holy warrior during the gun battle with police. About the bombings, Tsarnaev wrote that he didn't enjoy killing innocents, but that circumstances called for it: "The US Government is killing our innocent civilians but most of you already know that," he wrote. "Know you are fighting men who look into the barrel of your gun and see heaven, now how can you compete with that. We are promised victory and we will surely get it."

He wrote that he couldn't stand to see the U.S. government "go unpunished" for killing Muslims.

"We Muslims are one body, you hurt one you hurt us all." He ended with: "Now I don't like killing innocent people it is forbidden in Islam but due to said [word lost to a bullet hole] it is allowed." Laid-back terrorist? In all, the trial consumed 59 court days. More than 150 witnesses testified over 10 weeks and hundreds of exhibits were shared with the jury.

All 12 of the original jurors stayed on the panel throughout the trial; no one asked to be excused. Only one day was lost due to a juror's illness.

Jury selection began during the first week in January, and 108 inches of snow fell in Boston before it was over. The first witnesses took the stand in early March, and Tsarnaev was found guilty in mid-April. The sentencing stage of the trial began on April 21.

Prosecutors focused their case on the stories of the dead and maimed, and of the brothers' social media activities and Internet exploration of radical jihad, including an al Qaeda online magazine article called "Build a Bomb in the Kitchen of Your Mom." It offered detailed instructions for how to construct pipe and pressure cooker bombs. The defense sought to humanize Tsarnaev, turning its focus on his Russian immigrant family, and particularly on Tamerlan, the older of the two brothers. Defense attorney Judy Clarke said the crimes never would have been committed if not for Tamerlan.

The defense case featured testimony from former teachers, coaches and friends who found Dzhokhar Tsarnaev to be a laid-back, caring friend, industrious student and hard worker. As a youngster, he was academically gifted, overcoming the language barrier and skipping the fourth grade. His report card was studded with A grades.

Clarke emphasized Dzhokhar's youth and his quiet, "gentle" nature, despite growing up a neglected, "invisible child" in a chaotic family. He became untethered by his father's disabling slide into mental illness and his mother's embrace of religious extremism.

When their parents departed for Russia in 2012, Tamerlan became the dominant adult influence in Dzhokhar's life, she said.

Clarke asked jurors to spare Tsarnaev's life, saying he is not beyond redemption. A vote for life, she said, is a vote for hope. But she could not tell the jury the answer to the question that always has lingered over this trial: Why did he do it?

"If you expect me to have an answer, a simple clean answer as to how this could happen, I don't have it," she said. Prosecutors said Tsarnaev sought to make a political statement. The bombing, Assistant U.S. Attorney Steve Mellin said, did exactly what it was meant to: It terrorized Boston and the rest of the country.

The trial highlighted the presence of Big Brother-style surveillance in matters public and private. The Tsarnaevs were visually identified from business surveillance videos of the marathon's finish line crowd. Jihadi material was retrieved from encrypted computer files, and investigators traced the purchase of the pressure cookers, fireworks, ammunition and an afternoon spent practicing at a New Hampshire shooting range. Prosecutors cited surveillance video of Tsarnaev buying milk at a Whole Foods Market 20 minutes after the bombing and tweets such as "Ain't no love in the heart of the city" and "I'm a stress-free kind of guy" as evidence of his callousness.

Investigators were able to retrieve Dzhokhar's backpack, taken by friends from his dorm room, from a landfill. Inside, they found gunpowder residue and hollowed-out fireworks. Tsarnaev also obtained a 9mm semiautomatic pistol from a friend; the gun was used to shoot MIT police Officer Sean Collier between the eyes as he sat in his patrol car on the night of April 18. Prosecutors called the shooting "an ambush" and said the brothers were after Collier's service weapon as they attempted to escape.

Another surveillance camera caught two men running from the shooting; a flash can be seen, the brake lights of Collier's squad car flicker on, then off, then on again. A passing bicyclist was later identified; he pointed out Dzhokhar Tsarnaev in court as the young man he saw leaning into the patrol car.

The killing of a police officer was, by itself, enough for prosecutors to seek the death penalty. But it came in the aftermath of the main event -- the bombing of the Boston Marathon.

The videos and photographs of the bloody mayhem that exploded near the finish line shortly before 3 p.m. on April 15, 2013, were difficult to watch and impossible to forget.

'This is messed up' The stories of the survivors and first responders were dramatic and haunting. Among them:

[More photos] Oshiomhole marries Ethiopian model in Edo

Oshiomhole marries Ethiopian model

Edo State governor, Adams Oshiomhole, on Friday got married to Ethiopian model, Lara Fortes.

The wedding ceremony was held at the Etsako West Local Government Council Marriage Registry, Auchi, Edo State, while the reception took place at Oshiomhole’s country home in Iyamho.

Oshiomhole’s lost his first wife Clara in December 2010 after a long fight with cancer. She was 54 years old.

[Photo credit: Alexander Okere] APC National Chairman, John Odigie-Oyegun, at the event.

L-R: Senator Bukola Saraki, President-elect, Muhammadu Buhari; Governor Adams Oshiomhole; his wife, Lara Oshiomhole; parents of the bride, Mr. And Mrs. Fortes at the wedding ceremony of the governor in Iyamho, Etsako West Local Government Area of Edo State.

A struggle to save the scaly pangolin

Bunra Seng, Conservation International’s director in Cambodia, holds a young male pangolin at the Phnom Tamao Wildlife Rescue Centre in Takeo, Cambodia.

With its scaly exterior, peculiar body shape and propensity for rolling into an armored ball when threatened, the pangolin has invited comparison to the artichoke and the pine cone.

But a three-year-old female pangolin at the Phnom Tamao Wildlife Rescue Centre here seemed oblivious to her odd appearance and unaware that she was missing two feet, both lost to a poacher’s snare.

Accompanied by her lone male offspring, she ambled through the leaves and underbrush, sniffed amiably at a visitor’s shoe and headed off to check for leftovers in the bowl of mashed insects prepared by a caretaker at the center.

Elephants and rhinoceroses often serve as the poster animals for the illegal trade in wildlife — the elephant killed for the ivory in its tusks, the rhino for its horn.

But the most frequently trafficked mammal, wildlife experts say, is a far less familiar creature: the pangolin, an insectivore with a tongue longer than its body and a tail so powerful it can hang upside down from tree branches.

Pangolin meat is considered a delicacy in parts of China, where it is believed to nourish the kidneys. Pangolin scales, made of keratin, like human fingernails, are used in traditional medicine to treat skin diseases and other ailments. Trade in the animal has a long history: In 1820, King George III of England was presented with a suit of armor made from pangolin scales.

But the demand for pangolins — and with it the hunting of the animals — has grown sharply in recent decades. Poaching has increased not only in Southeast Asia but also in Africa, according to Traffic, an organization that monitors wildlife trade.

Customs officers seize thousands of pangolins and hundreds of pounds of pangolin scales each year, often disguised as other goods. In late January, officials in Uganda said they had seized two tons of pangolin skins packed in boxes identified as communications equipment. In France a few years ago, more than 200 pounds of pangolin scales were discovered buried in bags of dog biscuits.

“You’ve got a big ship coming from Indonesia and it’s labeled frozen fish, and it turns out to be 14 tons of frozen pangolins,” said Annette Olsson, a technical adviser for Conservation International in Southeast Asia who helped open the pangolin rescue center in Phnom Penh but now works in Singapore. The Cambodian government runs the centre with the assistance of the Wildlife Alliance, a conservation group.

Most countries, including Cambodia, have laws against hunting pangolins. But enforcement is often weak, and the incentive for local poachers in poor rural areas to catch and sell pangolins and other wildlife to middlemen for smuggling organizations is strong, said Bunra Seng, Conservation International’s director in Cambodia.

Sunda pangolins, one of eight pangolin species, were once common here. Bunra said that as a child, he used to see them in the countryside.

But so many have been killed that they and Chinese pangolins are listed as critically endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. The international union considers all of the pangolin species threatened.

“The pangolin runs the risk of becoming extinct before most people have even heard of them,” Britain’s Prince William said last fall in a promotion for an Angry Birds video game tournament intended to bring attention to the animals.

Peter Knights, the chief executive of WildAid, said his and other conservation groups were mounting efforts to rescue the pangolin in advance of the 2016 meeting of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora.

Pangolins are listed under the convention’s Appendix II as animals that are not yet threatened with extinction but may become so. WildAid and other organisations argue that pangolins should be moved to Appendix I, which prohibits all commercial trade.

The pangolin’s odd appearance has not helped its cause, Olsson said.

“That’s one of the problems with species like pangolins,” she said.

“It’s not huge and not very charismatic. It’s small and weird and just disappearing.”

Yet, a scaly creature with beady eyes, a narrow snout and a long tail is not without whimsy. A Pokemon character, Sandslash, was loosely based on the pangolin, thought to be the only scaled mammal. And a Colombian company, Cyclus Manufactura, makes a folding pangolin backpack based on the animal’s biomechanics, according to the firm’s website.

Scientists are slowly beginning to learn more about the pangolin’s physiology and behavior. These nocturnal animals are difficult to observe in the wild, even more so now that they are growing scarce, and their habits have been “literally a black box,” Olsson said.

Once thought to be a relative of the anteater, the sloth and the armadillo, the pangolin belongs to the taxonomic order Pholidota, and genetic studies suggest it is more closely related to raccoons and giant pandas than to animals it resembles.

Burrowing in trees or tunnels, pangolins have weak eyes but keen noses to smell insects and powerful claws to dig them up.

Their long tongues are sticky, able to scoop up hundreds of ants at once, their ears closing up to prevent the ants from swarming inside. Like skunks, pangolins can emit a foul odor when threatened.

New York Times Service

Manchester United want all Arsenal’s targets – Wenger

Arsene Wenger

Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger admits he is fearful that Premier League rivals Manchester United will splash the cash on his potential targets this summer.

United, who have already announced the addition of PSV winger Memphis Depay for a fee of €27.5 million ahead of next season, spent heavily at the same stage last year,

Blues legend B.B. King dies

Riley B. King, the legendary guitarist known as B.B. King, whose velvety voice and staccato-picking style brought blues from the margins to the mainstream, died Thursday night.

He was 89. His daughter, Patty King, said he died in Las Vegas, where he announced two weeks ago that he was in home hospice care after suffering from dehydration.

Speakership: We’ve no candidate, PDP Reps insist

Dogora & Gbajabiamila

The Peoples Democratic Party caucus at the House of Representatives again clarified on Thursday that it had not endorsed any candidate for the position of Speaker of the 8th Assembly.

The caucus made the clarification just as it rose from a closed-door meeting at the National Assembly.

There were speculation on Wednesday that the caucus had endorsed the Chairman, Committee on House Services, Mr. Yakubu Dogara, as its candidate for the job. Dogara is an APC lawmaker from Bauchi State.