Health Benefits from Eating Fish

In addition to providing high-quality protein, essential fatty acids, and other nutrients required daily in the human diet (discussed in the following article ‘‘Nutritional Aspects of Fish Compared with Other Protein Sources’’), fish consumption is also associated with certain health endpoints over the longer term. This article provides a brief overview of health endpoints that have been shown, or are hypothesized, to be associated with fish consumption. In some cases the weight of evidence supports the relationship between eating fish and a lowered risk of disease (e.g., coronary heart disease or CHD). For other health endpoints, the link is more controversial (e.g., arthritis) and more research studies are needed. This report refers to the changes in health endpoints associated with fish consumption as benefits, because they generally involve a reduction in the risk of chronic disease. The article begins with an overview of the major studies that have examined the association between fish consumption and CHD, those studies that have found associations and those that have not. It then continues with a brief description of studies that have looked at fish consumption in relation to several other endpoints. The concept that eating fish may reduce the risk of CHD apparently originated from reports on the small population of nonacculturated Eskimos in arctic Greenland, where high consumption of marine animals (e.g., seal, fish) was observed (Bang et al., 1971, 1980). It was claimed that coronary