Effect of dietary supplementation with very-long-chain n-3 fatty acids in patients with psoriasis

In several studies dietary fish oil has been found to have a beneficial effect on psoriasis, but the results are contradictory and based mainly on open studies or studies of small numbers of patients. In a four-month double-blind, multicenter trial, we randomly assigned 145 patients with moderate-to-severe psoriasis to receive in their diet either highly purified ethyl esters of n-3 fatty acids ("fish oil"; 6 g of oil per day, containing 5 g of eicosapentaenoic and docosahexaenoic acid) or an isoenergetic amount of corn oil containing mainly n-6 fatty acids. All the patients were advised to reduce their intake of saturated fatty acids. A 48-hour dietary recall was performed, and the fatty-acid pattern in the serum phospholipids was monitored in a subgroup of patents. In the fish-oil group, n-3 fatty acids were increased in serum phospholipids (P