Nutrition

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – Taking fish oil may help prevent full-blown psychotic illness in at-risk adolescents and young adults, a study released today hints.

These at-risk individuals may have weak or transient psychotic symptoms, and already show schizophrenia-like brain changes, Dr. G. Paul Amminger of The University of Melbourne in Australia, a researcher on the study, told Reuters Health. But while psychiatrists now know how to identify these individuals, he added, they don't know what to do with them. "At the moment there's no state-of-the-art guideline (on) how to treat those people."

Prescribing antipsychotic medications may be helpful, Amminger added, but these medications have serious side effects, and can also be stigmatizing. "For young people they don't want to commit themselves to a treatment which they might need to take for the next five to ten years," he said. Furthermore, only about a third of people at high risk for psychotic disorders will go on to develop full-fledged mental illness in a given year.

Read the complete story at Reuters.

Many health experts and researchers believe that omega 3 fish oil is beneficial for patients with heart disease. Strengthening earlier research done in the area, a new study has uncovered the reasons fish oil is good for us.

The findings confirmed that fatty acids found in sea food such as salmon, mackerel or sardines protect against heart disease as they slow biological aging.

The study has been published in the Jan. 20 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA).

Patients consuming fatty acids have longer telomeres Explaining why fish oil is good for heart patients, the researchers stated that fatty acids help protect the protective layer within the cells, which determine how long the cells will live.

Read the complete story at The Money Times.

RE “FISHING for facts’’ (g, Dec. 14): Contrary to what you suggest, mercury in fish sold in the United States has not “been directly implicated in severe neurological problems.’’ The entire medical literature doesn’t contain a single documented such case.

The same is true for developing fetuses: There are no cases of fetal mercury toxicity on record in the United States.

In a report issued this month, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention noted: “Finding a measurable amount of mercury in blood or urine does not mean that levels of mercury cause an adverse health effect.’’

The only cases of neurological problems ever linked to mercury in commercial fish were in Japan more than 40 years ago, in a case involving a massive industrial chemical spill. Today’s Japanese eat more than eight times as much fish as Americans, and they suffer no ill effects.

Read the complete story at The Boston Boston.

Laura Porter is a careful consumer. She buys organic food whenever possible, steering clear of unwanted pesticides on grapes or antibiotics in meat. She studies labels to be sure foods are as free of added chemicals as they purport to be. She shops at farmers markets near her Central Massachusetts home to support local, environmentally friendly agriculture.

But when she stands at the fish counter, the picture isn’t so clear. She chooses wild salmon over farm-raised, concerned about contaminants. Canned tuna is no longer a staple, due to mercury scares. She doesn’t know much about fish in terms of sustainability, and is unsure about what questions to ask.

“When we go out to eat fish, I never ask where it’s from,’’ she said. “I will not go near sushi – there are so many different reasons it could be bad.’’

Fish presents a quandary for even the savviest of shoppers or diners, buffeted by conflicting reports on health benefits and environmental impact, not to mention food-borne illnesses. Porter is not alone in choosing wild salmon over farmed, but the answers aren’t black and white, according to public health, nutrition, and conservation specialists. Some worry that fear-mongering gives fish – wild or farmed – a bad rap, denying people a good source of protein. Others contend that some species are so contaminated – like some kinds of tuna used in sushi – they should almost never be eaten.

Read the complete story at The Boston Globe.

Even in a city like New Bedford, where commercial fishing boats line the harbor, most people buy seafood from a middleman.

By the time seafood reaches consumers, it has already been bought and sold — and its price marked up — at least once.

Starting Friday, local residents will have another option: Fleet Fisheries, a longtime seafood wholesale operation, will open a fish market at its South End facility that will sell seafood directly to consumers at near wholesale prices.

"We’re trying to cut the middleman out, and we’re trying to create jobs for the area," said Virginia Vinjerud, who owns Fleet Fisheries with her husband.

Read the complete story at The South Coast Today.

The golden chunks of fried, frozen fish speeding off conveyor belts at Good Harbor Fillet’s Gloucester plant are the company’s bet on bringing seafood back to school cafeterias.

After a year of lobbying by Good Harbor, the U.S. Department of Agriculture this week announced that it will start buying frozen Alaska pollock in a commodity program that puts discounted food in school kitchens across the country.

For Good Harbor, if mingling fish with pizza gets children to eat seafood that is healthier than hamburgers and fried chicken, these unconventional steps are worth it.

"We are trying to get kids to eat good pieces of whole-muscle fish," said Suzanne Tucci, who has been working on the school program for Good Harbor. "In the long run, the goal is to have them learn to appreciate good seafood."

All of the technology and processing that goes in to Good Harbor’s fish is not cheap, which has made getting them within the budgets of cash-strapped school systems difficult. But the subsidy of the commodity program could change that.

Under the program, the federal government will buy bulk pollock and offer it to states interested in using it for their school lunch programs.

Because local school systems aren’t equipped to break down frozen 30-pound blocks of raw fish, processors like Good Harbor are in a perfect position to sign deals with the states to process their pollock and deliver it in a form that can go straight to students.

Read the complete story at The Gloucester Daily Times.

Imagine the evolution of a relationship, when the delight in discovering a new lover is followed by the discovery of his or her issues, which eventually leads to the relationship being reassessed, however painful this might be.

I speak here about seafood, discovered by many only in the last few years. It’s a fresh new food that widely expanded the choices previously available. It is tasty yet light, and widely known as good for one’s heart and brain.

But then, the novelty of seafood gradually decreased as it turned out to have health issues, legal issues and ethical issues.

You may have read about the health issues, which are quickly summarized here: while the benefits of fish-derived omega-3s, widely touted as good for the heart, are dubious and in many cases not markedly superior to those of nuts, flax seeds or leafy greens, the role of fish as a source of mercury, dioxin and other pollutants is well established, and can reach very high levels of concentration in some species, notably tuna and farmed salmon.

Read the complete story at The Huffington Post.

A campaign to persuade consumers, chefs and food distributors to choose seafood that is healthy for people and beleagured ocean fish stocks was launched Tuesday, Oct 20, by the Monterey Bay Aquarium.

The latest version of the aquarium’s popular "Seafood Watch" recommendations on which fish and shellfish to eat and which to avoid were announced with some optimism by Executive Director Julie Packard.

"The state of our oceans and global seafood is in crisis but the tide is turning," Packard said in an interview at the California Science Center, where the aquarium will have a role in a future exhibit.

Read the complete story at The Boston Globe.

"This is a way for people to connect to the local food system," Stoll said. "And by encouraging them to support their local fisheries, there also are environmental benefits in the long run."

The community-supported fishery is modeled on agricultural programs that supply participants with locally raised meats and seasonal vegetables from nearby farms and gardens. Not only does Walking Fish give landlubbers in Durham and Chapel Hill a fresh taste each week of seafood they are unlikely to find in local grocery stores — mullet, spot, triggerfish, some varieties of sea trout. It also aims to give North Carolina fishermen and the local fish houses they supply an infusion of cash that could help sustain them in turbulent economic times when stringent environmental regulations governing catch limits and fishing methods make community-based fishing a more and more difficult way of life.

Read the complete story at News Observer.

Food has always been a major component of the Working Waterfront Festival, and I don’t just mean the delectable seafood that festival-goers can consume on the grounds.

Demonstrations of how to prepare seafood have been key to the festival through the years, and with this year’s theme of "surf and turf," playing off the locavore movement, the volume is turned up a notch. After watching the 45-minute demonstrations, visitors will be able to browse for the ingredients they need at a farmers’ market on State Pier, along with a seafood market set up by The Big Fish Company.

Read the complete story at The South Coast Today.