Influence of preoperative administration of omega-3 fatty acid-enriched supplement on inflammatory and immune responses in patients undergoing major surgery for cancer.

What Was Tested

The paper reports a study of Arginine, published as a randomized controlled trial.

The researchers investigated the influence of preoperative administration of a supplement rich in arginine, omega-3 fatty acids, and RNA, Impact (Japan), on inflammatory and immune responses in patients undergoing major surgery for cancer.

Who Took Part

PubMed indexes the participants as adults, middle-aged adults and older adults, both men and women.

Patients in the supplement group (n = 12) received 1 L/d of Impact (Japan) for 5 d before surgery, and those in the control group (n = 14) received an ordinary diet without Impact (Japan) before surgery.

Plasma levels of omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids, thromboxane B(2), prostaglandin E(2), inflammatory markers, nutritional markers, cytokines, and cytokine receptors were obtained 5 d before the operation at the starting point of supplementation in the supplement group.

How the Study Was Run

In design terms this was a randomized study.

The participants were allocated by chance, so the Arginine group and the comparison group should start out alike.

Samples were collected on postoperative days (PODs) 0, 1, 3, and 7.

What Was Measured

Topics PubMed links to this paper include Arginine, Cytokines, Dietary Supplements, Digestive System Neoplasms, Dinoprostone, Fatty Acids, Omega-3 and Fatty Acids, Omega-6.

What This Means in Plain Language

The paper is a randomized study of Arginine.

Its findings take up roughly 4 sentences of the abstract and are left out here on purpose; the source paper is the place to read them.

The publication is from 2005 (Nutrition (Burbank, Los Angeles County, Calif.)), a journal based in United States.

More context: all human trials.