JULY 30, 2003

Column

By: Angela Gary
The Banks County News
July 30, 2003

Column

By: Rochelle Beckstine
The Banks County News
July 30, 2003

Fish for your health
In a world where it seems “healthy” food changes from week to week, there is one litany that has stayed constant—fatty fish is good.
It seems strange that science should tout anything fatty as the new miracle food, but that is exactly what they’ve been doing for the last several years.
Study after study has proven the benefits of diets high in fatty fish, including salmon, tuna, sardines, herring and trout. These fish contain essential fatty acids which our bodies need for good health. The two most essential fatty acids are omega-6 and omega-3, but it is important to have these in the right balance in order for the acids to do any good for our hearts, joints, brains, pancreas, mood stability and skin.
Omega-6 is in the vegetable oils we use so much in our food and most Americans get too much of this since it is present in most processed foods. Conversely, omega-3 is found only in fish and fish oil, all green leafy vegetables, flax seed, hemp and walnuts.
As more and more studies focus on fish, the resounding evidence suggests adding fish rich in omega-3 to your diet once or twice a week is the most important diet change you can make. For many reasons.
It’s a proven brain food. People who ate fish aged 65 to 94 cut their risk of Alzheimer’s Disease by 60 percent and improved learning and memory.
Fish is also the ultimate mood lifter, boosting the brain’s ability to process serotonin and alleviating depression in some cases.
And fish is good news for the heart, too. One serving of fish a week decreases the risk of a fatal heart attack for middle-aged adults by 50 percent. Eating fish two to four times a week will reduce the risk of ever getting heart disease by 30 percent.
And for people who have had a heart attack, adding fish oil supplements to their diet will reduce the risk of sudden cardiac death by 42 percent in the three months after the attack. Fish will also reverse the artery damage caused by smoking.
Fish has so many heart healthy benefits because the omega-3 acids work on many levels to raise levels of beneficial HDL (which protects against heart disease), reduce blood levels of triglycerides (the blood fats that raise the risks of heart disease and diabetes), act as natural anticoagulants altering the ability of platelets to clump together and reduce the tendency of blood to form artery-clogging clots, prevent heart arrhythmias that can lead to sudden cardiac death and slow the progression of existing heart disease.
Now that’s one mouthful worth its weight in healthcare costs.
But that’s not all fish can do. It will improve brain and eye development in infants and children. It will reduce the risk of diabetes by lowering blood triglyceride levels and making membranes more fluid so that they’re better able to respond to insulin responders.
Best of all, fish can decrease the risk of cancer by inhibiting hormone-processes that cause cancer.
If you’re counting calories, don’t worry that salmon will put you over your limit because even the fattiest fish is leaner than the leanest red meat.
And by choosing fish as your protein source instead of other meats or cheese, you reduce your saturated fat intake.
So while margarine is on the way out, fish is still very much in.
Rochelle Beckstine is a columnist for MainStreet Newspapers.

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