[insertnickname]

And this:

>This was a large, well designed study that supports previous research linking high blood levels of omega-3 fatty acids with prostate cancer risk. However, it cannot show that fish oil supplements cause prostate cancer and it is possible that other confounders affected men’s risk (although the researchers tried to take these into account).

Their conclusion contradicts their own headline.

[shishy]

It does not contradict their headline.

Headline says there is some correlation between the two but they are careful to explain later that this does not necessarily imply causation and that further research is required.

[insertnickname]

The correlation they have found is between high levels of fish oil in blood tests and prostate cancer. They do not know whether those high levels are the result of supplementation or merely of eating fish. At least that's how I understood the article.

[shishy]

Fair but the article does address this albeit briefly:

"Still, it is unlikely that the high levels of these fatty acids found in the highest quartile would be the result of diet alone. Adults are advised to eat two portions of fish a week, one of them oily, as part of a healthy balanced diet."

You are right that the study doesn't explicitly say fish oil supplements directly caused the high levels of fish oil which were observed in these patients with prostate cancer.

Dailymail at it again :).

[insertnickname]

I suppose the NHS isn't to blame for what the Daily Mail wrote, but it's a bit confusing that they have a page on their website with the title "Fish oil supplements linked to prostate cancer". I now see that it's supposed to be part of a whole series ("Behind the Headlines") dissecting articles about health, so the headline is a quote or a restatement of what the Daily Mail wrote. It would be nice if they put it in quotemarks or otherwise indicated more clearly that they, the NHS, aren't making the claim (which clearly they aren't).