Eat plenty of fat fish to boost your health

There are good fats, bad fats, and in-between fats. The good fats are polyunsaturated fats, also called PUFAs. The backbone of these fatty acids contains more than one double bond. Among these PUFAs, two essential families are distinguishable: omega-6 and omega-3 polyunsaturated acids. Omega-3 polyunsaturated acids, more informally known as omega-3, are particularly beneficial.

Omega-3 are particularly abundant in fatty fish. Notably, fish is one food where fattier is healthier. Indeed, the fattier the fish, the more omega-3 it contains. Omega-3 boast major cardiovascular benefits. They have been proven to thin the blood and, as a result, they can prevent the formation of blood clots that, in turn, can provoke heart attacks and strokes.

The benefits of these fish fats were first discovered in the 1970s when Danish scientists investigated the Eskimo diet. At that time, these people consumed plenty of fatty fish and also suffered far fewer heart problems. More concrete evidence was published by the New England Journal of Medicine several years later in a report that demonstrated that the Eskimos’ cardiovascular protection was due to their high intake of omega-3 contained in fatty fish like whale and seal meats.

Today, it is well established that people that primarily eat seafood live longer.1 This is primarily attributed to the many benefits exerted by PUFAs, including their cardiovascular benefits, as mentioned above, in addition to anticancer effects, as evidenced in the EPIC study. This large Women’s Health Study, involving 38,022 middle-aged women, revealed that consuming one or more servings of fish per week was associated with a 42% reduction in the risk of developing age-related macular degeneration.2


1 Mozaffarian D, Lemaitre RN, King IB, et al. Plasma phospholipid long-chain ω-3 fatty acids and total and cause-specific mortality in older adults: a cohort study. Ann Intern Med. 2013;158:515-25.
2 Christen WG, Schaumberg DA, Glynn RJ, et al. Dietary ω-3 fatty acid and fish intake and incident age-related macular degeneration in women. Arch Ophthalmol. 2011;129:921-9