Cardiac patients who ate domesticated salmon fed with a large amount of omega-3 fatty acids showed reduced risk for further development of the disease, says professor Harald Arnesen at Ullevaal Hospital. These patients showed a significant reduction of known risk markers for development of coronary heart disease. All patients experienced a reduction of their cholesterol level. This coincides with what we already know “ that salmon is a sensible part of the typical Norwegian diet.
It is the first time that different feed for domesticated salmon was shown to affect the health of cardiac patients. The study, From Fjord to Fork, is a co-operative project involving the fish farm Nutreco ARC, The Norwegian Institute of Public Health, the National Institute of Nutrition and Seafood Research, and Ullevaal Hospital, with support for the Research Council of Norway.
The research was carried out with 60 cardiac patients who were split into three groups. During a six-week period the patients ate 700 grams salmon every week divided over five meals. The first group ate salmon fed with fish oil that contained a large amount of omega-3 fatty acids. The second ate salmon fed with a mixture of 50 percent fish oil and 50 percent vegetable oil. The third group ate salmon fed with pure vegetable oil.
The salmon fed with fish oil had a higher level of omega-3 than the salmon that had the mixed feed and the salmon fed with vegetable oil. The level of omega-3 fatty acids in the salmon feed was reflected in the salmon filets and further in the patients ™ serum omega-3 levels.
forskningsradet.no/
In behavioral studies, the researchers also found that the transgenic mice on low-DHA diets showed "profound performance deficits" in learning and remembering the location of hidden, submerged platforms in a tank called the Morris water maze. Supplementing the mice with DHA, however, prevented this deficit.
"The present results provide, for the first time, evidence that the combination of genetic (mutant human APP) and environmental risk factors (dietary essential fatty acids) for AD can act synergistically to quantitatively reduce synaptic proteins, specifically, dendritic scaffold proteins, that are critical for cognition as evidenced by memory deficits observed in the Morris water maze paradigm," wrote the researchers.
"The results show a dramatic impact of diet on the expression of the AD-related postsynaptic marker phenotype and provide new insight into how essential fatty acid intake may modulate the expression of neurodegenerative diseases, including AD," they wrote.
The researchers also wrote that their findings "suggest that patients bearing a genetic risk of AD may be more vulnerable to a lack of essential fatty acids," which tend to be reduced in the brain both in normal aging and AD. They concluded that their findings "support the idea that increased DHA intake should be considered as a potential neuroprotective strategy for AD."
cell/