Eat fish – at least monthly

Small Amount of Fish in Diet Is Said to Yield Big Benefits

Men who eat seafood as seldom as once a month may cut their risk of the most common kind of stroke by more than 40 percent, a new study by the Harvard School of Public Health has found.

Many studies over the last two decades have found that eating fish reduces the risk of stroke and heart attack. What is surprising about this one is that it shows how little fish – one to three meals a month of virtually any fish or shellfish, like salmon sushi, tuna on rye, broiled lobster or McDonald’s Filet-O-Fish – appears to produce the maximum benefit.

“Previous studies found that you had to eat fish once or twice a week,” said Dr. Ka He, the Harvard nutritionist who led the study, which was released yesterday by The Journal of the American Medical Association. “And they found a linear association ? the more fish you ate, the more benefit you got. But in our study, we found a threshold. Further fish did not provide further benefit.”

This is certainly good news, especially for those men who do not eat fish. They do not have to eat it that often. I assume that almost anyone can find some fish they like. But then I probably eat fish 3-5 times weekly, so I am not test.

This study is probably not the final answer on the fish question. It does provide some simple advice – eat fish occasionally – for men. Women apparently are different.

A Harvard study of strokes among 80,000 female nurses followed for 14 years reported in The Journal of the American Medical Association in January found that women who ate fish five or more times a week had a 52 percent lower risk of stroke than women who ate fish less than once a month. But it found that the relative benefit dropped to only 22 percent for those who ate fish once a week and 7 percent for those who ate fish once a month.

Dr. He agreed that the protocols of the two studies were roughly the same, and he said he could not explain why his study found a threshold level, while the other study found a progressive benefit.

Obviously we need more research here. In the meantime my favorite fish is tuna – either tuna steak, tuna salad, or tuna sushi. I will continue to eat fish on a regular basis. Like my mother’s chicken soup – it couldn’t hurt!