Yet another study has linked the benefits of eating "fatty" fish (salmon, herring, mackerel, etc.) with helping to prevent heart failure. Once again, it's those valuable omega-3 fatty acids that do the trick.
In the largest study yet looking at heart disease and fish consumption, reported in today's on-line issue of the European Heart Journal, researchers followed nearly 40,000 Swedish men (ages 45 to 79) with no history of heart problems for six years. It found that men who consumed approximately 0.36 grams of omega-3 fatty acids a day from fish were 33 percent less likely to develop heart failure than the men who consumed little or no marine omega-3 fatty acids.
"We divided the men into five groups based on their intake of fatty fish," lead researcher Emily Levitan at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center explained in a press release . "The first group consumed little or no fatty fish; at the other end of the spectrum, the fifth group consumed significant quantitities, three or more servings per week. We found that while the 'middle group' - who ate one serving per week - had a 12 percent reduced risk of heart failure, the next two groups, who ate either two servings a week or three or more servings a week, had nearly the same heart failure risk as the men who ate no fish at all."
Can't stand fish?
Researchers report they had similar findings with subjects who consumed fish oil supplements.
