Dietary fish oil supplementation increases survival in mice following Klebsiella pneumoniae infection.

The effect of dietary fish-oil supplementation on survival of NMRI mice after Klebsiella pneumoniae infection was investigated. 30 mice in each group were fed a fish-oil enriched diet, olive-oil enriched diet or standard chow diet. After 6 weeks, the mice were injected intramuscularly with Klebsiella pneumoniae. After 120 h the survival of the mice fed fish-oil enriched diet was 40%, while the survival for mice fed standard or olive-oil enriched diets was 20% and 25%, respectively. The survival curve over 120 h was significantly improved (p = 0.0034) for mice fed a fish-oil enriched diet, compared to the survival curves for mice fed the other 2 diets. The study was repeated by comparing the survival of mice fed a fish-oil enriched diet to those given a corn-oil enriched diet. After 120 h the survival curve for mice fed the fish-oil enriched diet was significantly better compared to the survival curve for mice given the corn-oil enriched diet (p = 0.01). A fish-oil enriched diet therefore increases survival in mice following Klebsiella pneumoniae infection, whether compared to a standard diet, olive-oil enriched diet or corn-oil enriched diet.