DHA can reduce heart risks in postmenopausal women. (sample size was small)
"heart rate (7% decrease)"
"These results also show that DHA supplementation can favorably influence selected cardiovascular disease risk factors and potentially reduce the risk of coronary heart disease in postmenopausal women."
AND interestingly
those on HRT seem to hang onto DHA. DHA is essential to reproduction.
How does body know (or at least think) it needs DHA?
Oestrogen related hormones would be the obvious guess.
Could DHA and oestrogen have a two way link - not enough DHA more oestrogen - enough DHA oestrogen levels drop? There are hazy hints of this possibility in trial results.
These are abstracts only -if you have time best to look at whole trial.
RB
http://www.ajcn.org/cgi/content/full/79/5/765
Differential eicosapentaenoic acid elevations and altered cardiovascular disease risk factor responses after supplementation with docosahexaenoic acid in postmenopausal women receiving and not receiving hormone replacement therapy
ABSTRACT
.....Treated subjects received 2.8 g DHA from 12 capsules per day.....
In conclusion, supplementation with DHA resulted in a significantly greater increase in EPA concentrations and a significantly greater estimated percentage retroconversion of DHA to EPA in postmenopausal women not receiving HRT than in postmenopausal women receiving HRT. DHA supplementation in postmenopausal women was also associated with changes in serum triacylglycerol concentrations (20% decrease), HDL-cholesterol concentrations (8% increase), the ratio of serum triacylglycerol to HDL cholesterol (28% decrease), and heart rate (7% decrease). Further research on the effects of estrogen on mitochondrial and peroxisomal ß-oxidation is required to determine the mechanism of the apparent decrease in in vivo DHA retroconversion to EPA in women receiving HRT. These results also show that DHA supplementation can favorably influence selected cardiovascular disease risk factors and potentially reduce the risk of coronary heart disease in postmenopausal women.