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Fatty fish, marine ω-3 fatty acids and incidence of heart failure

European Journal of Clinical Nutrition volume 64, pages 587–594 (2010)Cite this article

Subjects

Abstract

Background/Objectives:

Marine ω-3 fatty acids have beneficial effects on cardiovascular risk factors. Consumption of fatty fish and marine ω-3 has been associated with lower rates of cardiovascular diseases. We examined the association of fatty fish and marine ω-3 with heart failure (HF) in a population of middle-aged and older women.

Subjects/Methods:

Participants in the Swedish Mammography Cohort aged 48–83 years completed 96-item food-frequency questionnaires. Women without any history of HF, myocardial infarction or diabetes at baseline (n=36 234) were followed from 1 January 1998 until 31 December 2006 for HF hospitalization or mortality through Swedish inpatient and cause-of-death registers; 651 women experienced HF events. Cox proportional hazards models accounting for age and other confounders were used to calculate incidence rate ratios (RR) and 95% confidence intervals (CI).

Results:

Compared with women who did not eat fatty fish, RR were 0.86 (95% CI: 0.67, 1.10) for <1 serving per week, 0.80 (95% CI: 0.63, 1.01) for 1 serving per week, 0.70 (95% CI: 0.53, 0.94) for 2 servings per week and 0.91 (95% CI: 0.59, 1.40) for ⩾3 servings per week (Ptrend=0.049). RR across quintiles of marine ω-3 fatty acids were 1 (reference), 0.85 (95% CI: 0.67, 1.07), 0.79 (95% CI: 0.61, 1.02), 0.83 (95% CI 0.65, 1.06) and 0.75 (95% CI: 0.58, 0.96) (Ptrend=0.04).

Conclusion:

Moderate consumption of fatty fish (1–2 servings per week) and marine ω-3 fatty acids were associated with a lower rate of first HF hospitalization or death in this population.

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Acknowledgements

The authors’ responsibilities were as follows—EBL: designed the study, performed statistical analysis, interpreted the data and wrote the manuscript; AW: designed the study, collected data, interpreted the data and revised the manuscript; and MAM: designed the study, interpreted the data and revised the manuscript. This study was supported by the Swedish Research Council/Committee for Infrastructure and Committee for Medicine, the Swedish Foundation for International Cooperation in Research and Higher Education (STINT) and a grant (F32 HL091683) from the US National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (to EBL).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Epidemiology, University of Alabama at Birmingham School of Public Health, Birmingham, AL, USA

    E B Levitan

  2. Cardiovascular Epidemiology Research Unit, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA

    E B Levitan & M A Mittleman

  3. Division of Nutritional Epidemiology, Institute of Environmental Medicine, Karolinska Institute, Stockholm, Sweden

    A Wolk

  4. Department of Epidemiology, Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, MA, USA

    M A Mittleman

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Correspondence to E B Levitan.

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Levitan, E., Wolk, A. & Mittleman, M. Fatty fish, marine ω-3 fatty acids and incidence of heart failure. Eur J Clin Nutr 64, 587–594 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1038/ejcn.2010.50

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