Here’s One Good Reason to Eat Fatty Fish Each Week!

If you don’t eat much fish, then you may want to consider making some alterations to your diet after reading this. According to a new clinical study published in the journal Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases, consuming one portion of fatty fish per week (or four portions of lean fish), could reduce your risk of developing rheumatoid arthritis (RA) by as much as 50 percent.

For this RA clinical study, a team of scientists at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden mailed out a simple questionnaire to all the women who been born between 1914 and 1948 and had taken part in the Swedish Mammography Cohort Study from 1987 to 1990. The questionnaire was designed to help the research team acquire a base knowledge of these women’s physical traits, educational level, and diet.

Then in 1997, a follow-up questionnaire was mailed to the 56,030 women who were still alive. This follow-up asked for all the same information, except that it also had questions regarding their smoking background, level of physical activity, and usage of aspirin or daily supplements.

Determining Dietary Habits

In order to get a good determination of these women’s dietary habits, they had to fill out food frequency questionnaires which showed they would eat each of 67 different foods in 1987, and 96 food options in 1997. Amongst the most common choices were a variety of lean and fatty fish.

From 2003 to 2010, the research team monitored the health of nearly 32,000 women. Of those monitored, approximately 205 were diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis. Overall, the results showed a significant discrepancy between the women who ate the most omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) in their diets and those that ate the least (they ate four times as much on average!). Of the women who were diagnosed with RA, nearly 30 percent had a dietary intake of omega-3 PUFAs that was less than 0.21g per day.

Fatty Fish Lowers Risk of Rheumatoid Arthritis

The women who ate at least a single serving of fatty fish (or four servings of lean fish) a week had a 52 percent lower risk of developing this inflammatory autoimmune disease, the symptoms of which can be excruciatingly painful. Interestingly, the data suggested that the women who ate more than one serving of all varieties of fish each week for at least 10 years showed only a 29 percent risk for this progressive form of arthritis compared to those that ate less than one portion.

The authors of this study also noted that group which consumed little to no omega-3 PUFAs happened to contain the largest concentration of smokers but the lowest concentration of alcohol drinkers and aspirin users.

Arthritis is a disease stigmatized by a number of misconceptions. It is more common in people over the age of 50, and the symptoms tend to afflict the joints primarily, causing debilitating inflammation and stiffness. However, there are more than a 100 different types of arthritis, rheumatoid arthritis being one of the most common here in the United States. Unfortunately, this is a disease which can strike at any age, and since it is systemic, the symptoms of RA can affect the entire body (joints, skin, and vital organs). Increased consumption of fish may lower one’s risk of this widespread affliction.