Fish may be good for the heart — reports

Press, 29 May 1985, Page 14

Fish may be good for the heart — reports

NZPA-AP Boston Eating fish is linked with a significant reduction in the risk of dying from heart disease, and people should try to include this food in their diets at least once or twice a week, a new study concludes. The study, conducted in the Netherlands, found that people who regularly ate modert amounts of fish were far less likely to die of heart diseae than those who never ate fish. “It seems justifiable to include a recommendaton for one or two fish dishes a week in dietary guidelines for the prevention of coronary heart disease,” the researchers wrote. However, a doctor cautioned that eating fish was just one part of a sensible diet, and that people concerned about their hearts should also strive to cut down on saturated fat and cholesterol, which can clog arteries that supply the heart muscle with blood. The ~utc ' 2y is one of three reports in the “New England Journal of Medicine” that examine the apparent benefits of fish. They bolster circumstantial evidence that fish is good for the heart. Some of fish’s mystique emerges from cultures where fish is an im-

portant part of the daily fare. For instance, heart disease is rare among the Eskimos of Greenland, who eat about 390 g of fish a day, and in Japan, where people average about 80g of fish daily. The latest study was conducted in the town of Zutphen by Dr Daan Kromhout and colleagues from the University of Leiden. They followed the health of 852 middle-aged men for 20 years. About 20 per cent of the men ate no fish at all when the study began in 1960, and the average consumption was just over 14 grams a day. Over the course of the study, 78 men died of heart disease. However, the more fish the men ate, the less likely they were to die from this disease. The researchers found that those who averaged at least 28g of fish daily were less than half as likely to die of heart disease than were those who never consumed fish. Obesity, cigarette smoking. high blood pressure, high cholesterol levels and physical inactivity are anioung conditions and habits associated with heart trouble.

However, the researchers found that none of these could explain the link they found between fish and health. In an editorial in the “Journal,” Dr John Glomset of the University of Washington said fish “had a substantial protective effect.” But he cautioned: “The study remains to be completed. however, because an important question that has yet to be answered is whether the consumption of fish also correlated, perhaps unfavourably, with mortality from cancer and other diseases."