Omega-3 rich fish good for the brain AND heart
Omega-3 fatty acids found in fish are known to be good for the brain - now new research has found oily fish can reduce the risk of heart disease in young women in particular.
Women who rarely or never ate fish had 50% more cardiovascular problems over eight years than those who ate fish regularly, researchers in Denmark found.
The large study took stats from more than 48,000 women aged 15 to 49, but the majority were under 30 years old. In three different assessments over a 30-week period, women who never ate fish had a three-fold higher disease risk compared to women who ate fish every week.
The most popular fish consumed by women in the study were cod, salmon, herring and mackerel.
"The biggest challenge in getting health messages like this across to younger populations is that usually the benefits may not be evident for 30 or 40 years, but our study shows this is not the case,” said Marin Strøm, Ph.D., lead researcher and post doctoral fellow at the Centre for Fetal Programming, at Statens Serum Institut in Copenhagen, Denmark.
“We saw a strong association with cardiovascular disease in the women who were still in their late 30s."
The study was reported in Hypertension: Journal of the American Heart Association.
