New news on fish and diabetes

You know I love to talk about good food and good health.  Because if anything, I've learned over the past 20 years that what we eat has more bearing on our long term health, happiness, and well-being than just about anything.  

So, I was super-excited this week to see an article come across my email feed, all about another reason to enjoy fish!  Specifically oily fish.  Let's define what that means. 

Fish, across the board, is a healthy protein source, low in saturated fats.  Much better for you, in general, than a steady diet of beef for example.  But fish that are "oily" have even more reasons to start planning your menu. Most ocean dwelling whitefish, by contrast, live at or near the ocean floor; while most oily fish spend their time in the upper ocean water.  Salmon for example, obtain their high concentration of omega 3 oils by eating natural sources of omega 3 oils from the ocean, including krill, plankton, and small shellfish. This is why salmon flesh is also very high in vitamin A and natural carotenoids. Farmed salmon is fed a manufactured feed that contains less of all those things, so farmed salmon is not as likely to be healthy option.  Other excellent choices for oily fish include sardines, herring, Atlantic Mackerel, and rainbow trout (currently the only farmed fish I recommend). 

But back to the article: The journal, Diabetes Care, published this article just last month.  It reports over 10 years of data collected from over 160,000 people in Great Britain, (that's a lot of data points!), relating the development of type 2 diabetes to the amount of oily fish consumed in the diet. After adjusting for all other diabetes risks, people who ate 2 or more servings of oily fish per week were 22% less likely to develop diabetes, a very significant reduction! There was no reduction in diabetes risk for those who reported eating non-oily fish.  AND, those who reported regular use of fish oil supplements also reduced their risk of diabetes, but not quite as much as those who ate oily fish. 

This is just the latest example of so many ways that you (yes, you!) have power to change your health outcomes and decrease disease risk just by changing your menu! 

How do you know which fish to buy?  Look for the Marine Stewardship Council label,

 Or, check the customizable seafood guide from the Environmental Working Group

And one last thing, in case you were wondering, putting any fish in the deep fryer does not make it an oily fish!  (sorry).  

Photo by Caroline Attwood on Unsplash

 

To your good health!

 

Robert Pendergrast, MD, MPH

Aiken-Augusta Holistic Health. 

 

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