Fatty fish may help cut heart failure risk

BOSTON, April 22 (UPI) -- Eating salmon or other fatty fish once a week may help reduce men's risk of heart failure, but eating it more frequently wasn't helpful, U.S. researchers found.

Researchers at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center said heart failure is usually caused by existing cardiac conditions, including high blood pressure and coronary artery disease.

First author Emily Levitan and colleagues tracked 39,367 Swedish men ages 45-79 from 1998 to 2004. During the study period, 597 men developed heart failure and 34 men died.

The study, published in the European Heart Journal, found men who ate fatty fish -- herring, mackerel, salmon, whitefish and char -- once a week were 12 percent less likely to develop heart failure, compared with men who ate no fatty fish.

The researchers divided the men into five groups based on their intake of fatty fish. They found that while the middle group, who ate one serving per week, had a 12 percent reduced risk of heart failure, the next two groups, who ate either two servings a week or three or more servings a week, had nearly the same heart failure risk as the men who ate no fish at all.

The men who ate more fish may already be in poor health, and may be trying to improve their health through fish consumption, Levitan said.