Krill oil may not provide better pain relief for symptomatic knee OA vs. placebo
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Key takeaways:
- Compared with placebo, krill oil supplementation did not improve pain relief or effusion-synovitis for patients with knee OA.
- Krill oil and placebo groups had similar changes in VAS pain scores at 24 weeks.
According to published results, krill oil supplementation did not improve VAS pain scores for patients with significant knee osteoarthritis pain and effusion-synovitis compared with placebo treatment.
“Another source of marine omega-3 fatty acid is Antarctic krill,” the researchers wrote in the study. “Both krill oil and fish oil contain omega-3 fatty acids; however, krill oil has better bioavailability than fish oil.”
Researchers performed a randomized, double-blinded placebo-controlled trial of 262 patients (mean age, 61.6 years) from five institutions in Australia who presented with clinical knee OA, significant knee pain and effusion-synovitis on MRI.
Researchers randomly assigned participants to receive either two 1-gram pills of krill oil per day (n = 130) or two placebo pills per day (n = 132) for 24 weeks. Primary outcome measure was VAS pain score (from 0 to 100) for the duration of the 24-week intervention period.
All 262 patients were included in the primary outcome analysis; however, 106 patients in the krill oil group and 109 patients in the placebo group had complete pain assessment at final follow-up.
Researchers found krill oil did not significantly improve knee pain compared with placebo. Mean change in VAS pain score was 19.9 for the krill oil group and 20.2 for the placebo group. In addition, 51% of patients in the krill oil group (n = 67) and 54% of patients in the placebo group (n = 71) had at least one complication.
“Suppressing inflammation could attenuate adverse effects of inflammation, reduce pain and slow deleterious changes in knee structure,” the researchers wrote. “However, data reported herein demonstrated no effect of krill oil on pain or effusion-synovitis volume, indicating no change in intra-articular inflammation.”
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