The omega-3 cardiovascular literature is a lesson in how dose and form decide outcomes. Low-dose mixed EPA/DHA trials mostly disappoint. High-dose EPA ethyl ester tells a different story. Reporting those together as "fish oil doesn't work" is bad reading.

Meta-analyses that pool incompatible doses produce confident nulls about nothing in particular.

This is the dose-response point people skip. Pooling 840mg/day with 4g/day EPA and reporting one hazard ratio is not a meta-analysis, it is an average of two different experiments.

I have started writing the specific form and dose on the handout I give patients, because "take fish oil" produced exactly the disappointing results the low-dose trials did.

Agreed on both. Worth adding the counterweight: the high-dose EPA trial used mineral oil as placebo, and there is a live argument about whether that inflated the effect size. I still find the result persuasive, but not as clean as advocates present it.