Heart Failure in Women Slashed By Consuming More Omega-3 Rich Fatty Fish

Omega 3-rich sockeye salmon

A rather large scale, long term study was analyzed by joint researchers from Harvard Medical School in the US and Karolinska Institute in Sweden on the possible effects of dietary choices.

Specifically, the researchers followed 36,234 women, who were between the ages of 48 and 83, over an 18 year period. The women “reported their intakes of various foods though periodic surveys” during this timeframe.

Here was the interesting takeaway: “Their analysis showed that eating one serving of fatty fish per week was associated with a 14 percent reduction in the risk of heart failure, compared with women who did not eat any fatty fish.

And it showed that eating two servings of fatty fish per week was associated with a 30 percent reduction in risk.

The researchers also estimated the women’s omega-3 intake (based on the types of fish eaten), and found that the highest intakes of omega-3s were associated with a 25 percent reduction in risk.”

Heart failure in women is a serious condition that claims the lives of thousands of women tragically. Anything that can slash this risk, such as possibly consuming more omega-3 rich fatty fish is welcome news.

Sources:

http://www.vitalchoice.com/shop/pc/home.asp?kbid=2705

http://www.vitalchoice.com/shop/pc/articlesView.asp?id=998

My-Omega-3′s Comments:

Very promising information, if not too surprising to those of us who have been long time advocates of eating more fatty fish. What’s interesting to note is we also read a study which concluded that those who eat deep fried fish actually suffered a possible increase in adverse heart related events!

It’s unfortunate that many people in the Western world only seem to eat fish when it’s “tasty” as in the form of “fish and chips,” which tend to be deep fried and battered or fish sandwiches at fast food restaurants which are also battered and fried. These people would most likely be better off not eating those types of fish at all!

It’s important that you not only cook your fish in a healthy manner — steamed, or baked are best — but that you choose a type of fish that is one of the fattier species, which usually have much higher concentrations of the healthy omega-3 long chained fatty acids, such as salmon, hoki, tuna, herring, and so on.

Another thing to note about the study above is that it was not a clinical study. It’s nearly impossible to conduct a clinical study on that many people over such a long time span. Rather, it was an epidemiological study; therefore, it cannot be viewed as conclusively cause-and-effect when it comes to heart failure reduction by eating more omega-3 rich fatty fish.

For example, other dietary choices in addition to or despite the fatty fish consumed by those women who suffered lower rates of heart failure could be the or a possible cause or causes.

For our part, however, we’ll continue to include a couple of servings of high quality fatty fish, such as that offered by VitalChoice, in our diets each week, in addition to daily fish oil supplementation.