It's Never Too Late to Eat Fatty Fish
Feb. 28, 2001 (San Antonio) -- It's probably not a good idea to wait until you're 72 -- but even if you do, eating fatty fish can still save your life. A study presented here at an American Heart Association meeting shows that elderly adults can lower their risk of having a fatal heart attack by dining on as few as one serving of fatty fish each week.
"If you want to reduce your risk of dying of heart attack, it may not be the same having fried fish as fatty fish," David S. Siscovick, MD, tells WebMD. "If you are over 65, eating fatty fish may reduce your risk of a fatal heart attack." Siscovick is co-director of the University of Washington Cardiovascular Health Research Unit in Seattle.
Earlier studies in middle-aged adults also show that eating fatty fish protects the heart. The current study is the first to show that this protection extends to more elderly people.
A team led by Siscovick and colleague Dariush Mozaffarian, MD, looked at the fish-eating habits of nearly 4,000 men and women aged 65 years and older as part of the Cardiovascular Health Study. The average study participant was 72 at the time the study started, and nearly 79 by the time it ended.
The bottom line: Those who ate at least one serving of fatty fish every week were 35% less likely to die of a heart attack. Fatty fish include tuna, salmon, and mackerel. Eating lean fish had no effect on heart attack death risk. Lean fish -- typically eaten fried -- include cod, catfish, and snapper.
Unlike fats from animal meats, fish fats contain omega-3 (or N-3) polyunsaturated fatty acids, which have been shown in previous studies to help keep a person's cholesterol numbers healthy. People in the study who ate more fatty fish had higher blood levels of these omega-3 fats.
"Other studies have suggested that you can alter fatty acids [in your body] over a period of weeks to months -- and those changes may have relatively short-term effects on heart function," Siscovick says. "We think the way people are eating over recent time is important, not just what they ate when they were younger."