At the beginning of the 1980´s researchers became aware of the benefits of omega-3 fatty acids for cardiovascular health.
Fascinated by the observation by the Danish physicians Bang and Dyerberg that Greenland Eskimos very seldom suffered from heart attacks, which was believed to be due to the their high intake of omega-3 fatty acids with the diet, professor Tom Saldeen, MD, PhD and his collegues at the University of Uppsala, Sweden started to investigate the relationship between omega-3 fatty acids and heart attacks.
They discovered that Swedes who were victims of heart attacks had a deficiency of omega-3 fatty acids in their hearts. From there it was not a long step to try to prevent heart attacks by increasing the amount of omega-3 fatty acids in the diet.
During these studies they found that fish oils containing omega-3, commercially available at that time, had a low quality and easily became rancid due to loss of antioxidants during the purification of the fish oil from environmental poisons.
After several years of research professor Saldeen and his collaborator Rolf Wallin, PhD, had solved this problem and a stable fish oil was available. It was soon found that the stable fish oil did not only have a better taste, but also had much more beneficial effects.
There was immediately a great interest for this stable fish oil and a large pharmaceutical company decided to try to produce it. However, the attempts were unsuccesful since there were a lot of technological problems when turning from low scale to large scale production.
A company, Eskimon AB, for production of the stable fish oil was started in Uppsala in 1988. In 1991 a new plant was built at Hållnäsgatan in Uppsala and in 1992 the name of the company was changed to Cardinova AB.
The company is devoted to research, development, and manufacturing only, and the products are marketed through external distributors in 20 different countries.
The first year the distribution was only to Sweden, then the other Nordic countries followed, and after that other European countries. During the last five years distributors in several non-European countries have been engaged.
In 1998 a new bigger plant was built, also at Hållnäsgatan in Uppsala, and in 2005 Cardinova moved into a new, even bigger plant at Ullforsgatan in Uppsala. The production is performed according to the GMP rules for pharmaceutical companies, and is regularly inspected by the Swedish authorities.
All products are based on scientific research performed within the company and/or externally at different universities.
Professor Tom Saldeen and his research group (Rolf Wallin PhD, Olle Haglund PhD, Riitta Luostarinen MD, PhD, Jawahar Mehta MD, PhD, Dan Lawson MD, PhD, Baichun Yang MD, PhD, Liying Chen MD, PhD, Dayuan Li MD, PhD, Meilin Liu MD, PhD, Hongjiang Chen MD, PhD, Karin Engström PhD, Håkan Sandler MD, PhD, Ritva Jokela MD, Ann-Sofie Saldeen MD, Katarina Saldeen MD, PhD, Pia Saldeen MD,PhD, Birgitta Alving and Agneta Wallmon) have performed important experimental as well clinical studies regarding the effects of Eskimo-3 and Cardi-E.
The group has presented eight doctoral theses dealing with fish oils, especiallly Eskimo-3, and with vitamin E, especially Cardi-E.
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