Funding outcome

Heart disease remains a leading cause of death in Canada. End stage heart disease often results in heart attack or stroke in adulthood, but long standing evidence documents that heart disease progression begins in childhood. Current guidelines for children and youth rely on assessing 'traditional' blood cholesterol levels, including 'bad cholesterol' [known as low density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C)]. However, bad cholesterol is often normal in overweight and obese youth, which suggests that other cholesterol sources may be involved in heart disease progression. Recent studies have shown that dietary fat derived from the intestine or 'remnant cholesterol' can also contribute to heart disease, the result of being fat intolerant. We have also established that overweight children and youth have very high levels of remnant cholesterol and are fat 'intolerant', which could explain how some might be at risk of developing early heart disease. We propose this may also be the case for children and youth with unhealthy weight. Fish oil supplementation has been shown to be very effective at reducing blood lipids and can improve fat intolerance in adults. We propose to establish that high dose fish oil supplementation can improve fat intolerance in adolescent youth (13-20 years) and decrease heart disease risk. For this pilot, youth with obesity will take 3g/day of either fish oil (n=10) or placebo (n=10) for 8-weeks. We will take blood samples and measure fat intolerance before and after the intervention. Findings from this study will provide new and preliminary evidence for a larger randomized clinical trial in order to advance nutritional approaches and reduce heart disease risk in youth with obesity.