Inflammation Research Analysis

Inflammation

Research analysis led by Kamal Patel.
All content reviewed by the Examine.com Team. Published: Feb 6, 2013
Last Updated: Apr 29, 2017

Should I take Fish Oil if I am sick?

The Human Effect Matrix looks at human studies (it excludes animal and in vitro studies) to tell you what supplements affect inflammation

Grade	Level of Evidence [show legend]
	Robust research conducted with repeated double-blind clinical trials
	Multiple studies where at least two are double-blind and placebo controlled
	Single double-blind study or multiple cohort studies
	Uncontrolled or observational studies only

Outcome	Magnitude of effect ? The direction and size of the supplement's impact on each outcome. Some supplements can have an increasing effect, others have a decreasing effect, and others have no effect.	Consistency of research results ? Scientific research does not always agree. HIGH or VERY HIGH means that most of the scientific research agrees.	Notes
Fish Oil	Minor	Moderate See all 17 studies	Highly mixed and unreliable influences on circulating inflammatory cytokines (although, due to immunosuppression on cellular adhesion factors, the overall effect may still be antiinflammatory)
Curcumin	Notable	Very High See all 5 studies	There appears to be a decrease in disease states or conditions characterized by inflammation associated with curcumin ingestion, does not appear to be too discriminatory in which inflammatory states it benefits
Ginger	Minor	Very High See all 4 studies	Inflammatory parameters seem to be reduced following ginger consumption
Serrapeptase
Coenzyme Q10
Conjugated Linoleic Acid
Vitamin C
Japanese Knotweed
Alpha-Lipoic Acid
L-Carnitine
Melatonin
Panax ginseng
Spirulina
Stinging Nettle
Benfotiamine
Glutamine
Olive leaf extract
Phosphatidylserine
Pycnogenol
Quercetin
Salvia hispanica
Sea Buckthorn
Theaflavins
Vitamin D
Whey Protein
Boron
Bromelain
Coffee
Hibiscus sabdariffa

All comparative evidence is now gathered in our A-to-Z Supplement Reference.

The evidence for each separate supplement is still freely available here.

Byleveld PM, et al. Fish oil feeding delays influenza virus clearance and impairs production of interferon-gamma and virus-specific immunoglobulin A in the lungs of mice. J Nutr. (1999)
Schwerbrock NM, et al. Fish oil-fed mice have impaired resistance to influenza infection. J Nutr. (2009)
Byleveld M, et al. Fish oil feeding enhances lymphocyte proliferation but impairs virus-specific T lymphocyte cytotoxicity in mice following challenge with influenza virus. Clin Exp Immunol. (2000)