At the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in St. Louis, Mo., Michael Morrissey, director of Oregon State University's Seafood Lab, said many Americans have distorted the "good fish" and "bad fish" controversy, elevating in their minds the risk of contamination from such things as mercury, PCBs and dioxins.

Morrissey and other nutritionists note that numerous studies provide overwhelming evidence that consuming oily fish improves cardiovascular and mental health.

Whats more, Dr. Philip Davidson, a pediatrics and environmental expert at the University of Rochesters Medical School in Rochester, N.Y., recently published results from a long-term study that showed that children who consumed plenty of fish are also getting high levels of mercury, but 16 years later, he still hasnt seen any adverse reactions.

"It was a shock, he said. We didn't believe it. The kids are almost 16 and we still have yet to see a problem. If we find no adverse effects in a large group of pregnant women who consume much more fish than we do in the U.S., we ought to be cautious about promoting a public health policy that limits exposure.

Davidson concluded that other nutrients in fish, such as omega-3 fatty acids, are beneficial. His findings are based on a study of pregnant women living on islands in the western Indian Ocean who consume 10 times more fish than Americans do.

Davidson, however, cautioned that while lower levels of mercury appeared to have no impact on child development, people should not eat fish where local authorities have confirmed excessive levels of contaminants in the fish. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration advises women to limit consumption of oily fish during pregnancy to reduce exposure of the fetus to mercury and other toxins.

Dropping out of the sky

Scientists note that mercury drops out of the atmosphere into lakes, streams, rivers and oceans, but 85 percent of the mercury pollution comes from power plants that burn coal and incinerators that burn trash. So far, barring any future studies, both sides are irrevocably split over whether consuming fish is bad for a person's health, especially considering the mercury contamination's effect, if any, on pregnant women and their unborn fetuses.

Despite the FDA warning, the Australian Heart Foundation recommends eating at least two fish meals per week to reduce cardiovascular disease. Fish consumption is also linked to lower rates of breast, colon and prostate cancers, as well as mental disorders, including Alzheimer's disease.

In a long-term study involving 14,000 British children, researchers suggested the amount of omega-3 fatty acid in a pregnant womans diet helped determine a childs intelligence, motor skills and behavior. In January, researchers with the U.S. National Institutes of Health said their analysis showed children of pregnant women whose diets had the least amount of omega-3 acids had verbal IQs six points lower than average.

One fish-related study unveiled at the St. Louis meeting went back millions of years ago. Dr. Stephen Cunnane said that a rich shore-based diet provided the essential nutrients for human brains to develop into what they are today.

Anthropologists and evolutionary biologists usually point to things like the rise of language and tool making to explain the massive expansion of early hominid brains, said Cunnane, a metabolic physiologist at the University of Sherbrooke in Quebec, Canada. But this is a Catch-22. Something had to start the process of brain expansion, and I think it was early humans eating clams, frogs, bird eggs and fish from shoreline environments. This is what created the necessary physiological conditions for explosive brain growth.

Unlike the prehistoric savannahs or forests, ancient shoreline environments provided a year-round, accessible and rich food supply, said Cunnane, author of the book Survival of the Fattest in 2005. Such an environment was found in the wetlands and river and lake shorelines that dominated east Africa's prehistoric Rift Valley in which early humans evolved. Excavations along the shores of eastern Africa have turned up fossils of table scraps, such as chewed fish bones, he said.

Moreover, Cunnane said, aquatic foods are also rich in iodine, a key brain nutrient, which is found in much lower amounts in mammals and plants. Iodine deficiency affects more than 1.5 billion people, mostly in inland areas, and causes sub-optimal brain function. Iodine is legally required to be added to salt in more than 100 countries.

Source: Nubella News
Posted by: Steve Smith
Website: www.nubella.com

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