Health Blog: Krill oil and metabolic syndrome

Share

Tweet

Email This Page

Sign up here for
our Newsletter: *

A recent study demonstrated that daily doses of krill-oil supplements may reduce markers of metabolic syndrome.

Metabolic syndrome is the name medical researchers give to a group of factors that occur simultaneously and demonstrably increase the risk for stroke, heart disease and type 2 diabetes.¹

According to the Mayo Clinic, you have metabolic syndrome if you have three or more of the following:

• Obesity, particularly around your waist (having an apple shape)
• A systolic (top number) blood pressure measurement higher than 120 millimeters of mercury (mm Hg) or a diastolic (bottom number) blood pressure measurement higher than 80 mm Hg
• An elevated level of the blood fat called triglycerides and a low level of high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol — the "good" cholesterol
• Resistance to insulin, a hormone that helps to regulate the amount of sugar in your body

The study demonstrated that krill-oil supplements reduced endocannabinoids in study participants, specifically 2-arachidonoylglycerol (2-AG), an endocannabinoid that is more present in obese people than in people of normal weight. The endocannabinoids system is associated with appetite, pain sensation, mood and memory.

Significantly, other participants took fish oil (from menhaden) or olive oil instead, and the study found that krill oil reduced the endocannabinoids more efficiently. The researchers speculate that this was so because krill oil’s long-chain omega-3s are more efficiently absorbed into visceral adipose tissue (belly fat) phospholipids. The omega-3s in krill oil are bonded to phospholipids, as opposed to the omega-3s in fish oil, which is triglyceride based.

The researchers – scientists from the US, Italy, Norway and Finland – recruited 63 overweight and obese people between the ages of 35 and 64, and gave them krill oil, olive oil or fish oil for 4 weeks, then tested their blood for levels of 2-arachidonoylglycerol (2-AG). Those taking the krill oil were the only ones who showed a decrease in 2-AG.

The researchers were cautious, as researchers always are, about jumping to big conclusions, but they were encouraged by the findings. They concluded: “Future studies will have to investigate whether longer dietary interventions and higher dietary levels of krill oil, apart from still down-regulating the endocannabinoid system, also improve the metabolic syndrome, thus possibly representing an alternative to [the cannabinoid CB1 receptor] antagonists/inverse agonists for the treatment of this disorder.” 

References:

1. S. Banni, et al; “Krill oil significantly decreases 2-arachidonoylglycerol plasma levels in obese subjects,” Nutrition & Metabolism, 2011, 8:7 (online at http://www.nutritionandmetabolism.com/content/8/1/7)