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MAJOR U.S. STUDIES CONFIRM HEALTH BENEFITS OF SEAFOOD
”Seafood the most important food for health,” researcher says.
TWO landmark United States research studies have confirmed the health benefits of seafood.
Both compared the health benefits versus risk of consuming seafood and both overwhelmingly found in favour of seafood consumption.
The results led one of the researchers involved to comment that “seafood is likely the single most important food one can consume for good health”.
A spokesman for the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) in Boston said that their researchers had conducted the single most comprehensive analysis to date of fish and health.
The results show the benefits of eating even two meals of fish a week reduced the risk of death from coronary heart disease (CHD) by 36%. “Notably … the investigators also demonstrated that intake of fish or fish oil reduces total deaths from any causes by 17%,” he said.
“Overall, for major health outcomes among adults, the benefits of eating fish greatly outweigh the risks,” said Dr Dariush Mozaffarian, lead author of the study and an instructor in epidemiology at HSPH and in medicine at Brigham & Women’s Hospital. “Somehow this evidence has been lost on the public.”
“(Finding) that fish or fish oil intake reduces total mortality by 17% is a remarkable reduction considering that this is the benefit for deaths from all causes,” Dr Mozaffarian said.
“These results from over two decades of research clearly show there is a health risk if adults don’t eat fish,” according to co-investigator Dr Eric Rimm.
The authors conclude that, based on the evidence, the benefits of eating one to two servings of fish a week greatly outweigh the risks among adults and, except for a few species of fish, women of child-bearing age. “It is striking how much greater both the amount of the evidence and the size of the health effect are for health benefits, compared with health risks. Seafood is likely the single most important food one can consume for good health,” said Mozaffarian.
The research results were published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (“Fish Intake, Contaminants, and Human Health: Evaluating the Risks and the Benefits,”) on October 18, available at the JAMA website: http://jama.ama-assn.org/.
The second study has also confirmed that substituting seafood for other protein sources decreases risk for heart disease.
The Institute of Medicine study -- released as a 450-page report, "Seafood Choices: Balancing Benefits and Risks." -- confirms that seafood is a good source of high-quality protein, low in saturated fat, and rich in many vitamins and minerals. The full report can be found on the Institute of Medicine website: http://www.iom.edu/CMS/3788/23788/37679.aspx.
In Australia, the reports have been welcomed by Mr Roy Palmer, Deputy Chairman of Seafood Services Australia (SSA), as further evidence of the life-saving benefits of seafood.
“Governments in Australia could save thousands of lives and hundreds of millions of dollars every year in health care costs by encouraging everyone to eat seafood two to three times a week,” Mr Palmer said.
“There is a huge body of international research confirming seafood’s reputation as a life-saving food,” Mr Palmer said.
“National Heart Foundation figures show more than 50,000 Australians die of cardiovascular disease every year, making it our biggest killer, and almost 3.7 million people are affected by the disease, 1.1 million of them disabled long-term.
“If we could encourage all Australians to switch to eating seafood two or three times every week, the death toll from CV disease would plummet and the cost of prescriptions for cholesterol-lowering drugs could be cut as well. And $1 billion is just the cost of prescriptions for cholesterol drugs. The Heart Foundation says the direct health system costs of cardiovascular disease already total $7.6 billion a year, predicted to rise to over $11 billion within five years.
Mr Palmer said more work was needed to convey the good news about seafood to Australian consumers.
“That is why independent studies by researchers with no involvement in the seafood industry are so important. These people are concerned primarily with health and know that increasing average per capita consumption of seafood in western nations would significantly improve the health of those populations.
“They make the point there is a real need to make factual information available to consumers and that is a task Seafood Services Australia has taken on here. It is an important task.”.
For further information, telephone Mr Roy Palmer on 0419 528 733 and also see the SSA website: http://www.seafood.net.au/health.
Issued: Fri Jun 22 20:02:31 EST
Reference-id: SSANEWS0185
News archive: For more news stories visit the SSA News Archive
Seafood Services Australia is a not for profit company supported by the Australian seafood industry and the Australian Government through funding from the Fisheries Research and Development Corporation.
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