July 26, 2013 — Getting more fish into your diet has never been easier—and the payoff in better health and longevity has never been clearer. Whether you’re grilling salmon filets, adding anchovies to stewed vegetables in ratatouille, or serving up “burgers” made with canned tuna, healthy fish can take many forms. Even far from the sea, flash-frozen fish and inexpensive canned options mean there’s no excuse for not enjoying the health benefits of fish.
“The advantages of eating fish are many,” says Alice H. Lichtenstein, DSc, director of Tufts’ HNRCA Cardiovascular Nutrition Laboratory. “Fish offers omega3 fatty acids and, depending on how it is prepared, is low in calories and saturated fat.” Besides the inherent nutritional positives of fish, she adds, substituting fish (not fried or heavily breaded) for entrées such as steak and quiche pays off doubly.
The American Heart Association recommends eating fish at least twice a week, particularly fatty varieties high in omega-3s such as salmon, mackerel, herring, lake trout, sardines and albacore tuna. A “serving” is 3.5 ounces cooked, or about three-quarter cup of flaked fish.
TWO MORE YEARS: Now there’s fresh evidence that following that advice can not only reduce your risk of cardiovascular disease, but actually help you live longer—especially if you’re already age 65 or older. “Although eating fish has long been considered part of a healthy diet, few studies have assessed blood omega-3 levels and total deaths in older adults,” says Dariush Mozaffarian, MD, PhD, of the Harvard School of Public Health. New findings by Dr. Mozaffarian and colleagues published in Annals of Internal Medicine, he says, “support the importance of adequate blood omega-3 levels for cardiovascular health, and suggest that later in life these benefits could actually extend the years of remaining life.”
The researchers examined 16 years of data from about 2,700 US adults age 65 or older who participated in the long-term Cardiovascular Health Study. Participants, average age 74, were generally healthy and did not take fish-oil pills. Rather than relying on dietary questionnaires to measure fish consumption, the study took blood samples at baseline to analyze total omega-3s as well as levels of three specific omega-3s found in fish: DHA (docosahexaenoic acid), EPA (eicosapentaenoic acid) and DPA (docosapentaenoic acid).
Read the full story from the Tufts University Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy