Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, March 27, 1990 TAG: 9003270257
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A/1 EDITION: EVENING
SOURCE: Cox News Service
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium
The study indicated that men who ate two or three modest helpings of fish a week were 40 percent less likely to die of heart attacks than men who ate no fish at all, said Dr. Therese Dolecek, a nutrition epidemiologist at Bowman Gray Medical School in Winston-Salem, N.C.
Dolecek presented her findings to other scientists attending a conference here last week on the health benefits of Omega 3, the fish oil-derived substance thought to protect Eskimos from heart disease.
Scientists at the meeting said an international consensus is emerging that dietary deficiencies in Omega 3 polyunsaturated fatty acids play a significant role in many diseases.
More than 300 researchers from 23 countries spent four days extolling the benefits of Omega 3 - not only in prevention and treatment of heart disease, but in connection with a variety of other ailments, including cancer, diabetes, psoriasis and rheumatoid arthritis.
Studies presented at the meeting included findings that the development of visual acuity in premature infants was improved by the inclusion of fish oil in their formula, that Omega 3 slowed the buildup of platelets and substances such as cholesterol on the walls of blood vessels and that cardiac arrhythmia in rats and marmosets was reduced when they were fed Omega 3-enriched diets.
Scientists from Albany Medical College in New York and Massachusetts General Hospital reported that high doses of fish oil led to significant clinical improvements among rheumatoid arthritis patients.
The conference called for requirements that Omega 3 be incorporated into baby formulas and urged government health agencies to recognize "vitally important differences" between Omega 3 and other forms of polyunsaturated fatty acids.
The Omega 3 researchers acknowledged that scientists in some more established disciplines remain skeptical about the importance of Omega 3. For example, the American Heart Association declined in dietary recommendations issued last summer to urge increased consumption of Omega 3, although it did recommend eating fish several times a week.
Dolecek's study, financed by the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute, was repeatedly cited as evidence that Omega 3 is a genuine and essential nutrient and not a "snake-oil" cure or a food fad.
She based her conclusions on a statistical analysis of data collected on the lifestyles of 12,000 men who were studied in the late 1970s and 1980s after being found to be at high risk of developing heart disease.
Half of them were given drugs, put on diets and encouraged to quit smoking, and half were not. Dolecek's research was restricted to the half who received no therapeutic intervention.
"It is quite apparent that fish had a protective effect against coronary heart disease, as well as against cardiovascular death and death from all causes," Dolecek said of her study.
by CNB