Big effect
Fish oil cut insulin resistance by 2.06 standard deviations in MASLD patients — a huge effect, but other metabolic measures like BMI and HDL didn't change.
This meta-analysis provides early evidence that fish oil may powerfully improve a key marker of metabolic health in people with fatty liver disease, but the benefit appears limited to that clinical population and didn't extend to weight or cholesterol.
A meta-analysis of 7 trials (439 people) found that fish oil supplementation significantly reduced HOMA-IR, a measure of insulin resistance, by a large amount in patients with metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease (MASLD). However, other outcomes like body mass index, HDL cholesterol, and uric acid levels did not improve, and the results came from a clinical group, so healthy people may not see the same effect.
Where this fits in the evidence
This is among the first studies we've indexed on Fish Oil for Reduced HOMA-IR — treat it as an early signal until more research accumulates.
The study
- Systematic Review
- n = 439
- 2025-01-24
- Frontiers in nutrition
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