Eat Fish, Be Happy

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Eat Fish, Be Happy

http://www.drweil.com/u/Page/General473/

 

Omega 3 fatty acids - abundant in fish - are crucial for heart and

mental health, say researchers. So why do we eat so much of the

wrong kind of fat? By Brad Lemley, DrWeil.com News

 

An American who visits Japan cannot help but be struck by how

relatively happy people there seem to be. Despite crushing

workloads, an economy that's been in the dumps for 15 years and

grim, urban landscapes of concrete, the country's residents

generally seem to smile, laugh and exude a sense of contentment.

Statistics back up that impression: The Japanese have the lowest

rates of major depression in the developed world.

 

Conversely, rates of major depression in the United States - land of

open spaces, higher incomes, more social freedom and relatively

little overcrowding - are roughly 30 times higher.

 

What's the Japanese secret? At least part of it may be: Fish.

 

Specifically, the omega 3 fatty acids in seafood of all kinds,

according to Dr. Joseph R. Hibbeln, senior clinical investigator at

the National Institute of Alcohol Abuse & Alcoholism, and perhaps

the world's leading authority on the relationship between fat

consumption and mental health. The average Japanese citizen eats

about 145 pounds of fish annually, he said. The average American

eats about 42 pounds.

 

But there is more involved than sheer poundage of fish eaten. On May

1, at the Nutrition and Health Conference in New York City,

sponsored by the University of Arizona's College of Medicine and

Columbia University's College of Physicians and Surgeons, Hibbeln

laid out his case that an imbalance between omega 3 and omega 6

fatty acids in the American diet is a modern nutritional disaster.

This imbalance, he said, appears to contribute not only to

depression, but also dyslexia, hyperactivity, even a tendency toward

violence and murder. Conversely, he said, bringing the fats into

proper proportion appears to drastically alleviate those conditions.

 

Omega 3 fatty acids are prevalent in fatty tissues of fish, and to a

lesser extent in a plant- based sources such as walnuts and

flaxseeds - in other words, they are fairly rare commodities in the

standard American diet. Conversely, omega 6 fatty acids are the type

prevalent in most vegetable oils, particularly soybean oil.

Incredibly, production of soybean oil for food consumption in the

U.S. has risen 1,000-fold from 1909 to 1999, and is part of

virtually every fried or processed food Americans eat.

 

" This now means that, on average, 20 percent of all calories in the

U.S. diet come from one food source: soybean oil. That means that

about 10 percent of all calories in the U.S. diet come from one

molecular species: linoleic acid, " said Dr. Hibbeln. " That is much

different from 100 years ago. It is also different from the

environment we evolved in. Four to five million years of human

evolution occurred in a seafood-rich environment with no seed oils, "

he said.

 

The problem with too little omega 3 vs. omega 6 is that " the enzymes

that process it are very promiscuous, " said Dr. Hibbeln, meaning

they will build cell membranes out of either kind of fat. Cell

membranes " stuffed " with omega 6 fatty acids are associated with

inflammation and almost every negative physical and mental health

outcome one can name: heart disease, diabetes and mental disorders

of all kinds, he said.

 

Conversely, cell membranes with abundant omega 3 fatty acids are

associated with lowered rates of not only heart disease and

diabetes, but also depression, prison violence and even murder.

Hibbeln said lowered rates of seafood consumption correspond with a

100-fold increase in the murder rates between countries; with fish-

shunning Bulgaria on the most violent end of the spectrum, and fish-

loving Japan on the peaceful end. He also cited a 2002 study showing

that adding vitamins, minerals and omega 3 fatty acids to British

prisoners' diets dropped felony-level violent offenses by 37 percent

in nine months.

 

Low levels of omega 3 may play a large role in postpartum

depression. " It is very important for pregnant women to get

sufficient amounts of omega-3 fatty acids, because the baby uses the

mom as its source of these fats to form the developing brain, " he

said. " So if mom is not getting enough, she will end up depleted,

because the omega 3 will go preferentially to the baby. " Hibbeln

said two recent trials showed a 50 percent reduction in post-partum

depression in women with relatively high intakes of omega 3 fatty

acids.

 

So what, specifically, should we do? Another presenter at the

conference, Dr. Richard Deckelbaum, director of the Institute of

Human Nutrition at Columbia, stated that the current intake of omega

3 fatty acids in the U.S. is " about one-third to one-sixth what we

would consider the recommended levels. " He and other researchers

recommend simultaneously lowering omega 6 consumption and raising

omega 3 consumption to rectify the imbalance.

 

Still, many are afraid to eat more fish because of concerns over

pollutants. The two researchers echoed the long-standing

recommendation of Dr. Weil, who advises eating fish that are

relatively low on the food chain, which reduces accumulation of

ocean-borne pollutants such as mercury in their tissues. " Larger,

more carnivorous fish are more likely to contain dangerous levels of

toxins. I avoid swordfish, marlin, shark, and bluefish for that

reason, " Dr. Weil said. Dr. Weil's recommendation, similar to that

of Drs. Hibbeln and Deckelbaum, is to eat wild-caught salmon,

herring, sardines and bluefish.

 

If you don't want to eat more fish, try supplementing with fish

oils. Dr. Weil recommends seeking out oils that receive a five-star

rating from International Fish Oil Standards (IFOS), a Canadian

organization that assesses the purity of commercial fish oil

supplements.

Visit their Web site for a list of IFOS-recommended fish oils

(www.nutrasource.ca).