Affordable 4p Supplement May Cut Your Risk of Life-Threatening Heart Issues by Over 40%!

A SUPPLEMENT costing as little as 4p per pill on the High Street could help protect people from debilitating heart issues.

As a rich source of , fish is often recommended by experts for heart .

People typically take the fish oil pills to boost levels of omega 3 fatty acids, known as healthy fats that are not found in many foods other than fish and nutsCredit: Getty

It is also credited with various other beneficial effects such as .

Now, Australian scientists have discovered that taking a daily fish oil supplement could even slash the risk of and by more than 40 per cent among people with kidney failure.

The researchers tracked more than 1,000 patients with the condition who underwent – a life-sustaining treatment that cleans the blood, removing waste products and excess fluid when the kidneys can’t do this job effectively.

The experts did not explain exactly why the supplement boosted heart health among the group.

But they suggested it could be because the pills are good sources of eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA), which typically have lower levels of.

Professor Kevan Polkinghorne, a nephrologist at Monash University in and study co-author, said: “Patients on dialysis have extremely high cardiovascular risk, and very few therapies have been shown to reduce that risk.

“In a field where many trials have been negative, this is a significant finding.

“Dialysis patients typically have much lower levels of EPA and DHA than the general population.

“This may help explain the magnitude of benefit observed in this group.”

It comes as research last year found that kidney disease was now the , claiming nearly 1.5million lives, overtaking conditions including tuberculosis.

But unlike most other leading causes of death, like or , death rates had increased since 1990.

Kidney failure dramatically increases the risk of heart issues because failing kidneys or fluid effectively, putting pressure on the heart.

In the study, the scientists split patients with kidney failure into two groups, with 610 participants given a daily 4g fish oil supplement to take, that contained 1.6g of EPA and 0.8g of DHA.

The other 618 participants were given a daily corn-oil placebo supplement.

Over a follow-up of more than three and a half years, the researchers discovered that 158 people in the fish oil group had suffered a serious heart issue, compared to 309 in the placebo group.

After accounting for factors that could skew the results such as previous heart complications, they found that those who took the daily fish oil supplement were 43 per cent less likely to have a serious heart issue.

Specifically, they were 63 per cent less likely to suffer a stroke and 45 per cent less likely for the heart issue to prove fatal, according to the scientists.

The risk of having a heart attack also dropped 44 per cent compared to those in the placebo group.

Writing in the The New England Journal of Medicine , the researchers said the findings could offer hope for dialysis patients, when few treatments had previously worked for them.

But further research was first vital before the findings could be implemented more widely.

People typically take the fish oil pills to boost levels of , known as healthy fats that are not found in many foods other than fish and nuts.

They are easy to buy in supermarkets and chemists and cheap – with Asda’s own brand version costing just 4p per pill.

But scientists do not yet agree on whether it is good for you, as both too little and too much have been linked to health problems.