Preventive cardiology
Intake of Tuna or Other Broiled or Baked Fish Versus Fried Fish and Cardiac Structure, Function, and Hemodynamics

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.amjcard.2005.08.025Get rights and content

Fish intake is associated with improved cardiovascular health, including a lower risk of arrhythmic death, atrial fibrillation, and heart failure. However, the physiologic effects that may produce these cardiovascular benefits are not well-established. We investigated the cross-sectional associations between a usual dietary intake of fish during the previous year and cardiac structure, function, and hemodynamics as determined by physical examination and 2-dimensional, Doppler, and M-mode transthoracic echocardiography among 5,073 older adults enrolled in the Cardiovascular Health Study. On multivariate-adjusted analyses, consumption of tuna or other broiled or baked fish was associated with a lower heart rate (p <0.001), lower systemic vascular resistance (p = 0.002), and greater stroke volume (p <0.001). Tuna/other fish intake was also associated with a higher E/A ratio (p = 0.004), a measure of more normal diastolic function. In contrast, fried fish or fish sandwich (fish burger) intake was associated with left ventricular wall motion abnormalities (p = 0.02), a reduced ejection fraction (p <0.001), lower cardiac output (p = 0.04), a trend toward a larger left ventricular diastolic dimension (p = 0.07), and higher systemic vascular resistance (p = 0.003). In conclusion, in this large population-based study, the intake of tuna or other broiled or baked fish was associated with improved cardiac hemodynamics, but fried fish intake was associated with structural abnormalities indicative of systolic dysfunction and potential coronary atherosclerosis. These findings suggest potential specific physiologic mechanisms that may, in part, account for the effects of fish intake on cardiovascular health.

Section snippets

Design and population

CHS was a prospective, population-based, multicenter cohort study of determinants of cardiovascular risk among older adults.14 In 1989 to 1990 and 1992, 5,888 men and women aged ≥65 years were randomly selected and enrolled from Medicare eligibility lists in 4 United States communities. The baseline evaluation included health status, medical history, physical examination, electrocardiography, echocardiography, carotid ultrasonography, pulmonary function testing, and laboratory testing.14, 15, 16

Results

Bivariate (unadjusted) associations between fish intake and selected participant characteristics are listed in Table 1. The relations with other participant characteristics in CHS have been previously reported.3, 4, 5, 6 Tuna/other fish consumption was associated with a slightly younger age, women, and higher education, and fried fish consumption was associated with men and a lower education level. Tuna/other fish and fried fish consumption were associated with a slightly higher body mass

Discussion

In this large, population-based study, the consumption of tuna or other broiled or baked fish was associated with several hemodynamic parameters, including lower HR, lower SVR, and greater stroke volume. These findings represent unique data on the relations among fish intake, physical examination findings, and echocardiographic measures in >5,000 adults. The associations of tuna/other fish intake with HR and SVR each appeared independent of the other measures. In contrast, the relations of

Acknowledgment

The investigators are grateful to the CHS participants, without whom this research would not be possible. For a full list of CHS investigators and institutions, see “About CHS-Principal Investigators and Study Sites” at http://chs-nhlbi.org.

References (32)

  • C.M. Albert et al.

    Fish consumption and risk of sudden cardiac death

    JAMA

    (1998)
  • D. Mozaffarian et al.

    Cardiac benefits of fish consumption may depend on the type of fish meal consumedthe Cardiovascular Health Study

    Circulation

    (2003)
  • D. Mozaffarian et al.

    Fish intake and risk of incident atrial fibrillation

    Circulation

    (2004)
  • D. Mozaffarian et al.

    Fish consumption and stroke risk in elderly individualsthe Cardiovascular Health Study

    Arch Intern Med

    (2005)
  • P.L. McLennan

    Myocardial membrane fatty acids and antiarrhythmic actions of dietary fish oil in animal models

    Lipids

    (2001)
  • J.P. Chin et al.

    Marine oils dose-dependently inhibit vasoconstriction of forearm resistance vessels in humans

    Hypertension

    (1993)
  • Cited by (115)

    • DNA barcoding of yellow croakers (Larimichthys spp.) and morphologically similar fish species for authentication

      2021, Food Control
      Citation Excerpt :

      Seafood comprises an important economic product and a significant source of high-quality protein. Seafood is frequently considered to be healthier than other types of meat, and beneficial for preventing many diseases (Mozaffarian et al., 2006; Tacon et al., 2013). The safety, health, and the accurate labeling of seafood products are important in terms of public health.

    • Cardioprotective and neuroprotective effects of nutraceuticals derived from marine origin

      2021, Functional Foods and Nutraceuticals in Metabolic and Non-communicable Diseases
    • Marine n-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids affect the blood pressure control in patients with newly diagnosed hypertension – a 1-year follow-up study

      2017, Nutrition Research
      Citation Excerpt :

      The content of n-3 PUFA in different supplements may vary substantially and might partially explain the conflicting results and variability in the observed beneficial effects. Consistent with the results in our study, data from a cohort of 5073 men and women above 65 years showed that larger habitual consumption of fish (≥3 times fish a week) was accompanied by significantly lower SBP and DBP, 5 and 2 mmHg respectively, compared to subjects eating fish less than once a month [37]. Additionally, in a study from Tanzania [38] fish eaters had lower BP and lower proportion of hypertensive subjects, when compared to farmers living on a vegetarian diet.

    • Overview of Nutritional Epidemiology

      2017, Nutrition in the Prevention and Treatment of Disease
    View all citing articles on Scopus

    This study was supported by contracts N01-HC-85079 through N01-HC-85086, N01-HC-35129, and N01-HC-15103 and a Mentored Clinical Scientist Award (K08-HL-075628) to Dr. Mozaffarian from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland.

    View full text