Eating fish could lower heart attack risk in type 2 diabetes, study suggests

There's positive news for fish eaters, as research shows that regularly having fish may lower the risk of heart attack in people with type 2 diabetes. The findings back up the NHS's recommendation to aim for at least two portions of fish per week. In the study, researchers from the Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm, Sweden, reviewed data from 2,225 men and women with type 2 diabetes. The data was gathered from the Swedish Mammography Cohort and the Cohort of Swedish Men between 1998 and 2012 and fish intake was gathered from food frequency questionnaires. Each participant was monitored over a mean average of 13.2 years. Within the group of people, there were 333 incidents of 333 incidents of heart attack (myocardial infarction), 321 of stroke and 771 deaths. The researchers divided participants by how many servings of fish they had per week or per month. The results showed that people who ate more than three portions of fish per week had a 40 per cent lower risk of suffering a heart attack than people who ate three or less portions of fish per month. The data also showed lower mortality rates for regular fish eaters, however, no clear difference appeared in terms of stroke risk. Whilst the research suggests that fish may have a protective effect against heart attacks, the study cannot rule out the fact that other factors could be that fish eaters may have more healthy lifestyles in general. The study is published online of the Clinical Nutrition Journal.

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