A Fish A Day Keeps Your Mind Okay
Ginger hates it but she gets some everyday. Cod liver oil, that is. We sneak it into her food to help keep her healthy. Remember when your mom used to force it down your throat? Yucks! How can anything which tastes so bad be good for you?
Now that we’re all grown up, we willingly seek out good sources of essential fatty acids (EFA) – of which cod liver oil is one – for its numerous health benefits. A new study reported in the August issue of The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition reminds us why we should get plenty of EFA into our bodies. The study examined 15,000 people aged 65 and older in China, India, Mexico, Venezuela, Cuba, Peru and the Dominican Republic, and found that regular fish consumption helped to keep dementia at bay. According to the study’s senior author, Dr. Emiliano Albanese, a clinical epidemiologist at King’s College London, “there is a gradient – the more fish you eat, the less likely you are to get dementia”.
Meat had the opposite effect. “The more meat you eat, the more likely you are to have dementia”, said Dr. Albanese.
The study found that people who ate fish a few days a week were almost 20 per cent less likely to develop dementia than those who ate no fish at all. Those who included fish in their diet almost every day were almost 20 percent less likely to get dementia than those who consumed fish just a few days each week.
Fish, especially oily cold water fish like salmon, mackerel, sardine, tuna and herring, is rich in omega-3 long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids, one of the essential fatty acids required by the body to keep cells healthy. Omega-3 supports cell health and regeneration, and normal growth and development, including healthy brain function.
Dr. Albanese also said that in animal studies, omega-3 fatty acids were found to reduce the build-up of atherosclerotic plaque and may also prevent amyloid plaque accumulating in the brain, a characteristic of Alzheimer’s disease.
So eating fish regularly helps protect against dementia. Just as well that fish is my favorite animal protein. If you don’t like to eat fish as much as I do, you can always take essential fatty acids supplements like Neways EFA Recovery Plus to ensure that your body gets all the EFA it needs.
Join me for sashimi?
Posted: August 7th, 2009 under Diet, Essential Fatty Acids.
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In a study published in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, Dr Akio Nakamura and his colleagues reported that stressed-out lab rats showed reduced stress levels when they were exposed to linalool, a chemical found in citrus fruits and flowers like lemon and lavender. Over 100 genes are active in stressful situations, and inhaling linalool reduces their activity. Breathing in linalool helped the lab rats’ levels of neutrophils as well as lymphocytes – key components of the immune system – return to near-normal levels.
Neutrophils are the most abundant white blood cells in mammals. Their job is to squeeze through the capillary walls and into infected tissue to kill invaders like bacteria, and then engulf the remnants by surrounding the bacteria cell and absorbing it. Stress factors, like heavy doses of radiation and chemotherapy used in cancer treatment, can reduce the numbers of neutrophils so that formerly harmless bacteria begin to proliferate. Life-threatening infections may then result.