Eating fish, but not meat, offers key health benefits

Compared with meat eaters, fish eaters have a lower risk of several adverse heart diseases, including stroke. These findings, which were part of new research looking at the diets and risk of developing or dying from heart diseases of more than 420,000 people in the UK, also concluded that vegetarianism was associated with a lower risk of developing heart disease. The study, led by researchers from the University of Glasgow and published today in the European Heart Journal, suggests that a pescatarian diet should be promoted and encouraged as a healthy option. The study, which set out to find whether vegetarians, fish, poultry or meat eaters had a higher risk of developing or dying from heart diseases, used data from the UK Biobank to link diets with health in the British population. Researchers found that meat-eaters, who comprised 94.7% of the cohort, were more likely to be obese than other diet groups. After a median follow-up of 8.5 years, fish eaters, compared with meat-eaters, had lower risks of cardiovascular outcomes such as stroke, heart disease and heart failure. Vegetarians had lower risk of developing heart diseases.