Heart warning over oily fish intake
Updated on 22 April 2009
Eating oily fish protects men from heart failure, but not if they consume too much, new research has suggested.
Scientists found men who ate oily fish such as herring, mackerel or salmon once a week were 12% less likely to develop heart failure than men who never ate oily fish.
Measuring intake of omega-3 fatty acids, which are found in oily fish, showed a stronger protective effect.
Men who consumed around 0.36 grams of omega-3 a day had their risk of heart failure reduced by a third compared with men who consumed little or no omega-3.
But the study found that consuming more oily fish or omega-3 did not reduce the risk further. In fact it had the opposite effect.
Men who ate two or more servings of oily fish a week had nearly the same level of risk as men who ate none.
The same pattern was true for omega-3. Men who consumed 0.46 or 0.71 grams a day were about as much at risk as men who consumed none or very little.
The research was carried out by scientists from the US and Sweden who studied 39,367 Swedish men aged between 45 to 79 over a six-year period.
Details of the men's diet were recorded and their health was monitored. During the study period 597 men without a history of heart disease or diabetes developed heart failure, 34 of whom died.
Dr Emily Levitan, from the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical School in Boston, said: "Our study shows that a moderate intake of fatty fish and marine omega-3 fatty acids is associated with lower rates of heart failure in men, but that the men did not gain a greater benefit by eating more of these foods. The apparent U-shaped relationship of fatty fish and marine omega-3 fatty acids with heart failure was unexpected."
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