You can do a lot with olive oil. Drizzle first-press, extra-virgin oil over leafy greens. Add leeks, capers, maybe a few sun-dried tomatoes and you have a scrumptious salad.

I put heart-healthy olive oil in the water when I boil pasta and in the water in which I bathe. A large bottle, with a shiny silver spout, sits in our cupboard awaiting its next call to action.

But there's another good-for-you oil awaiting action. It's in the cupboard in our home too. I'm talking about fish oil, in capsule form.

In Europe it's standard operating procedure (small pun coming) to prescribe fish oil after surgery. Every patient leaving an Italian cardiac care unit goes home with a prescription for purified fish oil or omega-3 fatty acids (think fatty fish like salmon or sardines). A New York Times article referenced Dr. Massimo Santini, Chief of Cardiology at Rome's San Filippo Neri Hospital, as saying it's "tantamount to malpractice" to omit the prescription.

In the United States, heart attack survivors are not typically prescribed omega-3 fatty acids, even though international practice guidelines recommend it, according to preventive cardiologist, Dr. Terry Jacobson, at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia.

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There's accumulating research that suggests fish oil actually regulates the heart's electrical activity. A recently published study in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology found the heart rate of participants (over 5,000 of them) was significantly lower per minute the more fish/fish oil consumed. In this case, improvements were seen in people who ate just one or two meals of fish a week (the fish was always baked or broiled, not fried).

The largest study on fish oil ever conducted (11,000 participants) took place in Italy more than a decade ago. Post-heart attack patients were given one gram of prescription fish oil a day. After three years, the number of deaths was reduced by 20 percent and the number of sudden deaths by 40 percent compared to a control group without the intervention.

Another study sought to demonstrate fish oil reduced cardiac arthymia in high-risk patients, but those findings were less conclusive. The results were summarized in a recent article in Tufts University Health and Nutrition Newsletter.

According to the researchers, "The intervention data has not supported the observational data." I interpret that statement as, "We really think this approach works, but we couldn't prove it."

As with many health-related issues, expect continuing dialogue, even debate. (See correction*)The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) formally approved prescription fish oil (sold under the brand name Omacor) in 2004. So, why don’t more physicians prescribe it? More expensive and more invasive procedures seem to be routinely covered. Something fishy, don’t you think?

If you're traveling in Rome and have a heart attack, you're likely to come back home with a bottle of fish oil supplements. If that heart attack happens here in the U.S., it's less likely. But fish oil supplements are readily available, without prescription, on drug store shelves and good-for-you fatty fish is sold at local markets. So, I guess it's up to you.

Oh, one final thought on fish oil. Do not put it in your bath water.

Sharon Johnson is as associate professor in the College of Health and Human Sciences at Oregon State University and on the faculty of the OSU Extension Service. She can be reached at s.johnson@oregonstate.edu

*Correction: The original version of this column made an incorrect reference to FDA approval of prescription fish oil. The sentence has been corrected in this version. Return to sentence with error