EATING FISH PREVENTS STROKE

1684 -- 1/5/03

Gabe Mirkin, M.D.

A study in the Journal of the American Medical Association shows that eating fish as seldom as once month can reduce your chances of getting stroke by as much as 40 percent.

This study followed almost 52,000 doctors for 12 years and showed that eating fish once a month is as effective in preventing strokes as eating fish every day, and that any kind of fish offers protection. Previous studies showed that preventing strokes and heart attacks required eating fish two or three times week.

This flies in the face of the other large study from Harvard called the Nurse's Study that followed 80,000 nurses for 14 years and showed that the more fish you ate the better the protection. If the new study is correct, we need to look for something other than omega-3s as the source of protection against strokes because lighter-fleshed fish and shrimp that is very low in omega-3s was found to be as protective as salmon that is high in omega-3s. Even though we don't know what substances in fish and shellfish prevents strokes, something does, so eating fish and shellfish should be part of a healthful diet.

JAMA, December 25, 2002