This was part of a longer article Dr. Joel Fuhrman sent us on meat consumption- how much to eat, what kinds of meat, how often to eat it. This deals with the question of fish as a health food, and the risks vs the benefits. I thought this argument interesting because everyone thinks of fish as health food, and I love to eat sushi! Here is what he says:
"Even though some fish in the diet has been shown to be beneficial at reducing heart disease risk, presumably because of those beneficial fish oils, and there are studies that indicate some fish in the diet is longevity promoting, I still do not recommend people eat much fish.
We do not need to eat fish to get those benefits from fish oil, we can take a supplement for that and there is too much good evidence linking fish consumption with higher rates of breast cancer, plus the pollutants in fish are of a major concern.
Whether it is the pollution in fish or the cancer promoting effect from the high level of animal protein, eating fish is linked to a higher rate of breast cancer. When 23,963 women were followed as part of the Diet, Cancer and Health study, what stood out most was the link between fish consumption and breast cancer. The conclusion of the researchers was, “this study showed that higher intake of fish was significantly associated with higher incidence rates of breast cancer.
Surprisingly, women consuming little or no fish were found to have approximately half the incidence of breast cancer compared to high consumers of fish. This study should not be ignored. It received scant media attention. Frequent fish consumption has also been linked to increased occurrence of thyroid cancer.
If fish are consumed on a regular basis it should be a maximum of once per week and it should be of the cleanest variety, not those in the highest range of mercury or other pollutant contamination. That limits the choice in most cities in the continental US to ocean perch, shrimp, haddock, scallops, talapia, hake and trout, eliminating swordfish, pike, mackerel, shark, lobster, tilefish, grouper, sea bass, marlin, snapper and halibut as simply too high in mercury and bluefish, herring, clams, crab and oysters as simply too polluted.
Most other fish are in-between these two categories.
Therefore, I do not recommend the eating of fish more than a few times a month, and I would much rather people who eat some animal products utilize eggs, (especially those high omega-3 eggs) and white meat fowl, such as turkey, chicken or fat-free dairy.
To conclude, if you want to eat animal products on a regular basis, limit the consumption to one or two servings of two eggs or egg whites, or one serving of eggs and one serving of white meat turkey a week, or one serving of eggs and one serving of low-fat dairy and one serving of white meat or an occasional fish. Do not eat fish for the supposed health benefits of fish. It is not advisable to consume enough fish to get enough omega-3 fats for your heart health. It is much more reasonable to just take a daily amount of DHA to assure nutritional excellence and adequacy, such as my DHA Purity, which is algae-derived DHA and refrigerated to maintain freshness."
This is an interesting perspective and not something we normally read. The World's Healthiest Foods website has a different take on this subject, only focusing on the health benefits and not mentioning the risks.
Citation for The Study On Breast Cancer and Fish Correlation:
Stripp C, Overvad K,
Christensen J, et al. Fish intake is positively associated with breast cancer
incidence rate. J Nutr 2003;133(11):3664-3669. J Urol 2004 Apr;171(4):1402-7.
I find it interesting that you encourage us to use supplements in this article in order to gain the health benefits of eating fish. However you discourage limiting meat because we can only get vitamin B12 through supplements if we do so. What is the basis of this?
Posted by: Rachel W | January 04, 2011 at 11:56 AM