Eating More Fish = Less Chance of Dementia?

Filed in archive Studies on January 4, 2007

According to an observational study funded by Agricultural Research Service (ARS, U.S. Department of Agriculture's chief scientific research agency) and led by Ernst J. Schaefer, people who ate the most fish on a weekly basis were almost 50% less likely to develop dementia or mental deterioration.

Schaefer (a physician specializing in nutrition and health with the Jean Mayer USDA Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging at Tufts University in Boston, Mass.) and his co-authors were looking for a relationship between blood levels of the fatty acid DHA and the risk of developing dementia.

DHA (short for docosahexaenoic acid) is the so-called "heart-healthy" omega-3 fatty acid.

[Previous studies have already linked either low DHA, or low fish intake levels with the incidence of dementia.]

They found that the participants who reported consuming an average of about three servings of oily fish a week--equivalent to blood levels of DHA at 180 milligrams daily--were associated with a significantly reduced risk of developing dementia of all types, including Alzheimer's disease. No other fatty acid blood level was independently linked to the risk of dementia.

The study, published in the November 13 issue of the Archives of Neurology, suggests that relatively higher fish consumption over time correlates with a lower incidence of dementia in people over 55 years of age.

So let's eat more fish as we get older.

Source: USDA/ARS