Omega-3s May Slow Aging in Heart Patients

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Omega-3s May Slow Aging in Heart Patients

Heart Disease Patients With High Omega-3 Fatty Acids Age More Slowly on Cellular Level
By Kathleen Doheny | WebMD Health News

Jan. 19, 2010 -- Heart disease patients with the highest blood levels of omega-3 fatty acids appear to age more slowly than those with the lowest blood levels, according to a new study.

Previous studies have shown that heart disease patients with a high intake of omega-3 fatty acids -- found in fish and in dietary supplements -- have higher survival rates.

The new study may help explain why. ''We've shown an entirely new effect of omega-3 fatty acids, which may be to slow down the biological aging process in patients with coronary heart disease," says lead author Ramin Farzaneh-Far, MD, an assistant professor of medicine at the University of California San Francisco.

Farzaneh-Far and his colleagues looked at a marker of biological age -- the rate of shortening of telomeres, structures at the end of a chromosome involved in its replication and stability. As the telomeres shorten over time, the eventual result is cell death, scientists believe.

In previous research, Farzaneh-Far says, his team looked at the same group of heart disease patients and found that telomere length was ''a powerful predictor of death and bad outcomes [from heart disease]. In that [study], we found the shorter your telomeres, the greater your risk of death."

In the new study, the higher the blood levels of omega-3 fatty acids in the patients evaluated, the slower the rate of telomere shortening.

"We looked at the biological effects of higher blood levels," Farzaneh-Far tells WebMD, "not supplement intake."

The study is published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

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