Effect of dietary fish oil supplementation on fever and cytokine production in human volunteers

Abstract The effect of dietary fish oil supplementation on acute phase responses to intramuscular injection of typhoid vaccine, and in vitro cytokine production, was investigated in human volunteers. Half of the subjects supplemented their normal diet with 4.5 g/day of fish oil for 6–8 weeks. Injection of typhoid vaccine in unsupplemented subjects caused an increase in white cell count, resting heart rate, metabolic rate, oxygen consumption, and oral temperature. Fish oil supplementation inhibited the tachycardia and attenuated the maximal increases in oral temperature and metabolic rate following typhoid vaccine. However, interpretation of these latter results were complicated by similarly attenuated responses in saline-injected subjects. The in vitro production of interleukin-1 and interleukin-6 from whole blood was suppressed by fish oil supplementation, however, production of tumor necrosis factor α was not significantly altered. Fish oil supplementation may therefore provide a non-pharmacological approach of attenuating several of the responses associated with injury and infection and this may be related to reduced cytokine (IL-1 and IL-6) production.