News Release

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
David B. Wasser, Media Director
For Release: Tuesday, October 31, 1995, 3:00 pm Central Time 
Doctors Say: Don't Buy the Fish Story

A new report in the Journal of the American Medical Association(1), suggests that eating oily fish reduces the likelihood of heart attacks. This latest fish story must be put in context of other evidence which does not support the use of fish products. 
A much larger Harvard study, published earlier this year in the New England Journal of Medicine(2), found that men who ate the most fish actually ended up with more heart problems than those who rarely ate fish. The 44,895-person study also showed that omega-3 fatty acids did not help either. Those whose diets were richest in omega-3's had more heart problems than those whose diets contained far less. 

The only diet/lifestyle program that has been shown to reverse heart disease, pioneered by Dr. Dean Ornish of the University of California at San Francisco, uses a low-fat, vegetarian diet along with mild exercise, stress reduction, and smoking cessation. Plant foods have no cholesterol and are usually low in fat, while animal products, including fish, always contain cholesterol, and are usually much higher in fat. 

Using a fish-based instead of a vegetarian diet can be risky. The blood-thinning effect of fish oils can increase the risk of hemorrhagic strokes. Second, all fish contain both cholesterol and fat, including saturated fat. Third, fish and shellfish are highly contaminated. As water passes over fish gills, industrial and agricultural chemicals in waterways dissolve into their blood, and end up in muscle tissue. As larger fish eat smaller fish, the contaminants become more concentrated. A 1992 Consumer Reports survey found that half of the flounder sampled in New York contained pesticides. Highly toxic PCB's were found in 43 percent of salmon, 50 percent of whitefish, and 25 percent of swordfish. The National Research Council reports that PCB's are found in virtually every site where fish or shellfish are tested, even in spots as remote as rural Alaska, the Virgin Islands, and Hawaii. Of 145 sites recently sampled for mercury in shellfish, it was found in every single one of them. Avoiding fish eliminates half of all mercury exposure. Fish oils are also highly unstable, encouraging the production of free radicals. [ c-c: Also see Sharon Beder's Toxic Fish and Sewer Surfing if you are interested in pollutants found in fish in Australia. ]

"Fish diets are certainly nothing like diets based on vegetables, fruits, grains, and legumes," said Neal Barnard, M.D., of the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine. "Vegetarian diets, along with an otherwise healthy lifestyle, can actually reverse existing heart disease, with none of the stroke risk that fish oils can bring. And while you can buy organic, pesticide-free produce, there is no such thing as "organic fish" -- fish are loaded with chemical contaminants." 
 
 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1. Siscovick DS, Raghunathan TE, King 1, et al. Dietary intake and cell membrane levels of long-chain n-3 polyunsaturated fatty ac ids and the risk of primary cardiac arrest. JAMA 1995;274:1363-7. 
2.Ascherio A. Rimm EB, Stampfer MJ, Giovannucci EL, Willett WC. Dietary intake of marine n-3 fatty acids, fish intake, and the risk of coronary disease among men. N Engl J Med 1995;332:977-82. 
 
 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 

For additional information or membership, contact PCRM at: 

PCRM
5100 Wisconsin Avenue, Suite 404
Washington, DC 20016
Phone: (202) 686-2210
FAX: (202) 686-2216 
 
 

Copyright © 1994-1996 Shecora Associates, Inc., Brookline, NH. All Rights Reserved. Comments or suggestions to info@sai.com