Can You Take Fish Oil Before Surgery Updated

Can You Take Fish Oil Before Surgery

Supplements and surgery: what you demand to know (part i)

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May 26, 2015 | By Dr. Ronald Hoffman

Dear Doctor Hoffman:

I am well-nigh to undergo surgery. Are there any nutritional supplements I can take to promote recovery? Are there any that I should avoid?

I often get this question from my patients and from listeners to Intelligent Medicine, so here'due south an assay of the latest findings.

A University of Michigan handout for surgical patients lists the following supplements to avoid prior to surgery:

Alpha-lipoic acid	Acetyl- l- carnitine	Cinnamon	Chamomile	Creatine
Echinacea	Ephedra	Fish Oil	Garlic	Ginger
Gingko biloba	Ginseng	Glucosamine- Chondroitin	Glutamine	Goldenseal
L-carnosine	Licorice	Kava kava	Milk thistle	Multivitamins
Omega-3	Resveratrol	Skullcap	St. John's wort	Vitamin Due east

ts_surgery_sm2 Certain "problematic" herbs are singled out, merely you lot'll see that, at the end of the day, they're pretty much discouraging the apply of supplements birthday. This is mostly unjustified.

Let's look at the show for why these supplements may or may not be problematic prior to surgery:

Garlic: Garlic supplements have a platelet-inhibiting effect, and at least i report has shown that garlic pills may promote increased bleeding into the eyeball after delicate cataract surgery. Ease up for a week before surgery.

Ginger: No bodily research confirms that the potential blood-thinning backdrop of ginger boost surgery take chances. In fact, its use has been advocated to forestall mail service-procedure nausea. Still, you may want to curtail pre-op use as a precaution, and then employ it for nausea after surgery as needed.

Ginkgo biloba: Ginkgo may slow blood clotting. Information technology may cause extra bleeding during and afterwards surgery. Finish using ginkgo at least two weeks before a scheduled surgery.

Vitamin Due east: While vitamin E is known to be a blood thinner at high doses, virtually studies advise that these furnishings don't emerge if you take less than 400 International Units (IU) per day. Additionally, vitamin East plays a role in preventing immunosuppression and free radical impairment, as well as promoting wound healing. Keep your intake around 200-400 IU/twenty-four hour period prior to surgery.

Kava (and other sedating herbs like Skullcap, Hops, and Valerian): Considering painkillers, sedatives and anesthetics are given during surgery, it might be reasonable to withhold these calming agents prior to and immediately after an performance. Chamomile is and so mild, it's hard to imagine it could cause a problem, other than balmy constipation in those so inclined.

Milk Thistle and St. John's Wort: Both tend to slightly accelerate the metabolism of drugs, so they might weaken the effects of crucial drugs administered during surgery. Stop taking a week earlier an performance.

Ephedra: It's off the marketplace, but in case you lot're still working off an old stash, terminate taking it because it might accelerate eye rate or elevate claret force per unit area.

Licorice: A valuable herb that is part of many traditional Chinese medicine formulas, it has a tendency to promote sodium retentiveness, high blood pressure level, edema, and potassium deficiency–conditions that might prove hazardous in the delicate peri-operative period. Stop for iii days prior to surgery. Notation: This caution DOES NOT use to DGL (deglycyrrhizinated licorice) that doesn't contain glycyrrhizin.

Fish oil: Omega-iii fat acids tend to get a bad rap from surgeons because of their purported claret-thinning effects. However, fish oil taken at lower doses may have distinct benefits in surgery. When combined with the amino acid L-arginine, fish oil was constitute to reduce post-surgical inflammation in patients undergoing colorectal and middle surgery. Other studies have establish Omega-three supplements lower the gamble of postal service-operative atrial fibrillation in heart bypass patients past 54%; they besides had shorter hospital stays.

The fish oil-bleeding story may be, in fact, a shibboleth. Quoting from a recent scientifi c review:

"2 studies accept demonstrated that in spinal decompression and spinal arthrodesis [fusion] there is no difference in surgical bleeding when patients take fish oil. Another written report revealed that omega-3 PUFA supplementation added to TPN later major abdominal surgery did not increase haemorrhage take a chance. In a review of nineteen clinical trials of either vascular surgery or procedures involving femoral artery punctures, no increment in haemorrhage events was observed. Lastly, in a recent big randomized blinded placebo controlled trial examining the event of fish oil on preventing post-cardiac surgery atrial fibrillation (OPERA trial), no difference in clinically significant bleeding was found between the two groups. In fact, fewer blood products were administered perioperatively in the n-3 PUFA group."

Information technology's reasonable to curtail very high-dose fish oil immediately prior to surgery, simply 1 or ii 1000 mg EPA/DHA capsules per day should be fine, and may evidence helpful.

As for the other supplements on the U of M "hitting listing," I can't retrieve of a reason non to take them, but they're not particularly helpful for the surgical patient. I would recommend suspending their employ temporarily to avoid crowding out the following beneficial supplements.

For a detailed discussion of this subject, meet the chapter "Preparing for Surgery and Recovery" in my book, How to Talk with Your Doctor , and continue an middle out for next week's newsletter, where I'll exist sharing my recommendations for beneficial supplements to accept prior to surgery.

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