A previous trial (written up by Richardson http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/reprint/115/5/1360 ) quotes “Placebo treatment consisted of olive oil capsules,which were carefully matched with the active treatment with respect to both appearance and flavor.”

Note the last word ‘flavor’. As I am sure Dr Richardson would be accurate – she has published often on EFA research – Presumably something must have been included in the placebo to give the ‘fishy taste’

I note this was done in County Durham so presumably the officers know how to do RCTs and were, presumably, sufficently impressed by the results they saw in the children to consider offering the supplement to all Year 11 pupils.

Anyone going to the FTTB conference? I am sure Dr Portwood would enjoy answering questions on the trial!

Not sure about fish oils. They seem to be processed and enriched in some way, so it sounds like there is a lot of “production processing”, which would be energy-costly. Of course, a counter-argument might be that they can use bits of the fish that in normal eating would be thrown away. Equa$en do give some info on the process on their website, but I can’t be bother to go and look. Perhaps someone else can check it out.

On the whole, though, I would imagine that promoting the actual eating of oily fish would be more eco-friendly. But then, “Pills for Ills” seems to be the modern way. I remember one of our neighbourhood middle-class mothers yakking on in the playground about how she was stuffing her two kids with fish oil capsules. “Have you tried giving them fish?” I asked. “Oh, they won’t touch fish”, she said. Hmm… now whose fault is that? Children learn to like what their parents present to them as good to eat, in my experience.

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It does have a touch of the busman’s holiday feel, though that isn’t the right idiom. Do you think that the lower you finish in the raffle, the more of Patrick’s books you get to take home?

Re. jdc’s coments about the oil and what would be a better placebo, the Holfordwatch gang suggested “tinned tuna oil”, or similar, tinned tuna having pretty minimal omega-3 levels.

The wider point is, I guess, that if you were running a major, randomized, blinded human placebo trial of your fish oil, then having a proper “active placebo” would be a large part of making the experiments reliable. I wonder if the Prof John Stein / Wellcome Trust incarcerated young offender fish oil trial is going to use a more sophisticated placebo than (say) olive oil? I would hope so. The news stories said “placebo trial” but didn’t mention what the placebo was going to be – though I would think that kind of info would have to have been in the original grant application and the Ethical Approval submissions, inter alia.

Of course, Durham avoided this irksome sort of stuff by having no control group, let alone no placebo arm.

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Re EPA/DHA-free fish oil – apparently the Equazen process uses winterisation and molecular distillation to increase the relative amounts of Eicosapentaenoic Acid and Docosahexaenoic Acid. I assume that it would also be possible to manipulate the levels downwards. I guess if you started with a fish oil that was relatively low in EPA/DHA it would be easier to achieve a low EPA/DHA level. E.g., cod contains @150mg EPA/DHA per 100g whereas sardine contains about 1000mg per 100g [USDA].

PDF of the ‘Equazen Process’

He was also asked asked about inducements by reporters from BBC “You and Yours” and strenuously denied that any had been offered or taken.

I believe him.

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