Omega-3 and Fatty Fish Intake on Atherosclerosis Sufferers

December 9, 2010

December 8/Winston-Salem, N.C./Health & Medicine Week -- New investigation results, "Relation of Omega-3 Fatty Acid and Dietary Fish Intake with Brachial Artery Flow-mediated Vasodilation in the Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis," are detailed in a study published in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. "The relation between dietary fish intake and brachial artery measures, including brachial artery flow-mediated dilation (FMD), has not been well established across sex and racial-ethnic groups. We hypothesized that consumption of nonfried fish and plasma phospholipid measures of long-chain omega-3 (n-3) fatty acids would be positively associated with larger FMD in men and women across racial-ethnic groups," scientists in the U.S. report.
"We investigated cross-sectional associations of brachial artery measures with fish intake (ascertained with a food-frequency questionnaire) and plasma phospholipid omega-3 concentrations in 3,045 adults, aged 45-84 years, who were free of clinical cardiovascular disease. In overall multivariate-adjusted analyses, there were no significant associations between fish intake or any brachial artery measures. However, when stratified by sex, there was an association between the highest quartile of nonfried fish consumption and a 0.10-mm lower (1 SD) brachial artery diameter in men (p=0.01) and a 0.27% smaller FMD in women (p=0.02) compared with the lowest quartile of nonfried fish intake in each respective sex strata. When stratified by race-ethnicity and race-ethnicity by sex, additional heterogeneity was noted, but results were difficult to interpret because of small sample sizes. Plasma phospholipid omega-3 concentrations showed a similar directionality of association with brachial artery measures observed for nonfried fish consumption, although statistical significance was not achieved in fully adjusted models," wrote J.S. Anderson and colleagues, Wake Forest University, Department of Internal Medicine.

The researchers concluded, "This study indicates that the association between nonfried fish intake and baseline brachial artery size varies by sex, with suggestive evidence of sex differences in the association between nonfried fish intake and FMD."

Anderson and colleagues published their study in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition ("Relation of Omega-3 Fatty Acid and Dietary Fish Intake with Brachial Artery Flow-mediated Vasodilation in the Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis," The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 2010;92(5):1204-13).

For more information, contact J.S. Anderson, Cardiology, Dept. of Internal Medicine, Wake Forest University School of Medicine, Winston-Salem, NC 27127 USA.

From the December 9, 2010, Prepared Foods' Daily News
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