Eating Fish 'Reduces Artery Damage In Smokers'

Ananova ^ | 1-6-2003

[blam]

Eating fish 'reduces artery damage in smokers'

Eating fish can help reverse the artery damage caused by smoking which leads to heart attacks and strokes.

Scientists have found that one serving of fish may be enough to stop arteries hardening in smokers while vitamin C is also beneficial, as is a drug used to treat gout.

Researchers gave 15 smokers supplements of taurine, an amino acid which exists naturally in all kinds of fish - not just the "oily" varieties thought to be the most healthy.

Taurine lessened a harmful effect caused by smoking which causes blood vessels to lose their flexibility.

The condition, known as endothelial dysfunction, means that arteries are not able to dilate as they should. It is one of the earliest signs of atherosclerosis, the narrowing of arteries which is a major cause of heart attacks and strokes.

A team of Irish scientists measured endothelial function by applying tourniquets to the forearms of smokers and non-smokers but only in the latter group did the tourniquet stimulate blood vessels in the arm to dilate.

However, there was no difference between the two groups when smokers were given a supplement of 1.5 grammes of taurine per day, the amount found in one serving of fish.

The scientists, who have published their findings in the American Heart Association journal Circulation, are cautious not to recommend eating fish as an antidote to smoking.

Professor David Bouchier-Hayes, from Beaumont Hospital in Dublin, said: "We're not trying to find a therapeutic treatment for smoking, because we believe that the best therapy for smokers is to stop smoking. Nonetheless, smokers provide a good clinical model for treatment of endothelial dysfunction."

The researchers found that vitamin C had a similar, though less pronounced, effect on the blood vessels of smokers while an American study reported in Circulation shows the drug allopurinol - used to treat gout - improves smokers' endothelial function.

Story filed: 21:02 Monday 6th January 2003

[Little Bill]

I don't know what I am going to do. I hate fish, ate it once, three years old, never ate it again, the smell of fish makes me want to barf.

I can do shrimp, shell fish, and crab, but not lobster, do I have a problem?

[SamAdams76]

I don't know how anybody can not like fish. It is so good and I never get tired of eating it. In fact, I have a can of sardines for breakfast every morning packed in olive oil, olives, garlic and peppers.

Other than the sardines, I eat fish or shellfish about two or three times a week. Being a New Englander, I have the advantage of getting it fresh including lots of lobster, scallops and shrimp. I've had all types of fish and also shark, octopus and squid. I don't think there is anything from the sea that I won't eat. I'll even eat seaweed (if prepared properly).

[billhilly]

Apparantly you do. Try fresh fish. It has little smell, and is among the best of foods.

[blam]

You ought to live a long time. I eat fish at least four times a week....beware of the mercury worry though. (I'll see if I can find the article on that.)

[billhilly]

Sam, we all have the opportunity of getting it fresh. Airplanes fly fast.

I live near the Chesapeake Bay, and love blue crabs, but I can have Alaskan crabs the day they are caught.

[Fiddlstix]

I don't know what I am going to do. I hate fish, ate it once, three years old, never ate it again, the smell of fish makes me want to barf.

I can do shrimp, shell fish, and crab, but not lobster, do I have a problem?

Nope. LOL
I'll eat your share for you.
(Always glad to help) J

[Bluntpoint]

Is that why lesbians often chain smoke without the attending health problems?

[sushiman]

Try to find some FRESH tuna and marinate it as you would your favorite steak . DEElicious .

[SamAdams76]

I've heard about the mercury problem so I guess everything has its downside. But I do feel pretty healthy and my cholesterol is sitting around 185 despite the fact that I eat a lot of steak and other high-cholesterol foods in between. High cholesterol, blood pressure and heart disease runs in my family and my non-fish eating father has a cholesterol close to 300. I'm pretty sure that the fish is making the difference.

[Hillary's Lovely Legs]

I am the same as you, no fish, never. I do eat lobster, shrimp, crab, scallops.

Wouldn't stopping smoking help smoker's health more than smoking and eating fish? I have never understood the allure of sucking in burning leaves.

[AppyPappy]

In fact, I have a can of sardines for breakfast every morning packed in olive oil, olives, garlic and peppers.

I've been looking for them ever since you mentioned them. I have yet to find them.

[bert]

....do I have a problem...

Perhaps not.

Do you smoke?

[Jeff Chandler]

I'm with you. As a matter of fact, just this afternoon I fried up and ate a trout my brother-in-law caught yesterday.

Have you ever eaten abalone? WOW! Incredible flavor.

[Little Bill]

olive oil, olives, garlic and peppers

I live in NE also, you can have the fish, the other stuff is the start of a pasta sauce.

[Jeff Chandler]

I have a can of sardines for breakfast every morning

I like the kind that are packed in mustard. I eat them in sandwiches with thin-sliced onion.

[SamAdams76]

This is what the package looks like. I see them in most supermarkets I have been in. They usually go for about $1.50 a tin.

[Little Bill]

I work a half a mile from some of the best seafood places in Boston, the stuff is vile.

[BfloGuy]

Well, along with the news that drinking red wine is good for the heart, this eating fish thing sounds even better.

I realize that I'll be a social outcast for taking red wine with fish, but I'm already a pariah for smoking so who cares.

[SamAdams76]

When I am in a gourmet kind of snacking mood, I'll take two tins of these sardines, a hunk of Swiss cheese and a hunk of Genoa salami and have it on some crackers. With a couple bottles of smoked beer (Rauchbier) from Germany.