The Pharmaceutical Journal Vol 267 No 7167 p425-429
29 September 2001

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Antifracture therapy

The dual benefits of pravastatin and cod liver oil

From Mr G. P. Walsh, DRCOG

A change of emphasis in cod liver oil’s dual heart and anti-fracture roles might be brought more to pharmacists’ and physicians’ notice by Australasian researchers who now seek an extension to their six-year pravastatin anti-fracture LIPID study mostly in men.¹

In this they may be joined by two St Thomas’ hospital researchers who find post- menopausal women, rather than men, most fracture prone.2

Five million Britons have long taken cod liver oil for “arthritis” and “anti-fracture” cures and yet at double the dose (20ml cod liver oil) it might, like pravastatin, also reduce coronary heart disease (CHD).

A dose of 20 to 40ml pure cod liver oil (used clinically for four years on 50 patients from 1982) eased angina, exercise tolerance and increased HDL cholesterol3 and saw many patients 20 years later begin to survive CHD. But lack of a licence seems to dog its cheap use — 40ml liquid pure cod liver oil costs only 50p per day.

Fortunately cod liver oil BP is still licensed but, being fortified 40 per cent with vitamin D to cure rickets, it may risk causing urinary calcium stones; about which 11 years ago your journal issued my warning.

Now, however, with the new anti-fracture emphasis, which even forces waiting list hip fracture surgery to be sent expensively to Germany, the risk may be monitored and worth taking.

Geoffrey Walsh
Blackburn, Lancashire

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