These omega-3 fatty acids that make for strong hearts could show up in a wide array of foods soon

The Food and Drug Administration in October allowed the following "qualified" health claim for certain foods containing fish oils: "Supportive but not conclusive research shows that consumption of EPA and DHA omega-3 fatty acids may reduce the risk of coronary heart disease."

Or, as Madison Avenue might prefer to put it: "Fish oils! They’re healthy! And they’re not just about fish anymore!" Or they won’t be for long if food companies have their way.

As studies pile up linking omega-3 fish oils to healthy hearts, food businesses — cognizant of the fact that fish is not universally adored — are busy figuring out how to get omega-3s into juice, yogurt, bread, salad dressings, margarine, meat, milk, you name it.

Consumers who have weathered flash-in-the-pan nutrient crazes may be forgiven for rolling their eyes. The two fatty acids in question — eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) — are purported to help your heart, your immune system, your mood, your aging brain and your dimming eyes. They’ve even been touted to possibly help ward off cancer.

The list seems optimistically long. Perhaps it’s just a matter of time before this latest-miracle-food-on-the-block fizzles.

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Or maybe it won’t.

Omega-3 fatty acids found in fish have long been known to reduce heart disease, says Medford dietitian Christy Morrell.

"It’s been long thought that omega-3 lowers LDL or bad cholesterol, lowers blood pressure and decreases inflammation in the body, which means it lowers the risk factors for heart disease," says Morrell.

The American Heart Association recommends that healthy adults consume two servings of preferably oily fish per week and that people who already have heart disease or elevated blood levels of triglycerides aim for even higher levels of omega-3 fatty acids in their diets. In August, a panel of scientists helping update the Dietary Guidelines for Americans recommended that Americans raise their fish intake to two 4-ounce servings per week; Americans, on average, consume less than 3 ounces of fish per week and what they do eat tends to be of the nonfatty variety.

The FDA action marks the second time the agency has allowed a qualified health claim for a conventional food product; earlier, the agency granted a claim linking walnuts and certain other nuts to a reduction in heart-disease risk.

"I know we got burned with vitamin E, and fiber was another one, and I think that soy protein was another, but this seems to be more constant," says Alice Lichtenstein, a professor at the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University in Boston. "All the results seem to be going in about the same direction. ... (The link is) very consistent and strong."

In fact, some scientists suspect that, when it comes to oils, Americans’ diet these days is plain out of balance. Compared with what people ate in the past, levels of omega-3s have steadily declined, nudged out by other types of oils.

The link between fish oil and heart health dates from the late 1970s, forged by Danish investigators studying the indigenous peoples of Greenland. The scientists noted that although the Inuit had diets loaded with fat, their death rate from heart attacks was significantly lower than that of the Danes.

Perhaps, reasoned the investigators, this might have something to do with the type of fats being eaten — a lot of oils from seal and fish for the people of Greenland compared with an abundance of saturated fats from milk, cheese and meat enjoyed by the Danes.

Other population studies and animal studies fueled this hypothesis. For instance, when monkeys and dogs were fed fish-oil-rich diets, their hearts were less likely to go into spasms known as arrhythmias after heart attacks. Such arrhythmias prevent the heart from pumping blood.

Clinical trials support the anti-arrhythmia link.

Scientists now believe that fish oils act by taking up residence in the membranes of heart cells and alter the cells’ electrical properties, making it harder for the dangerous spasms to start.

"If you have a heart attack — heaven forbid — the fatty acids are already in the heart ... and prevent arrhythmia," says Dr. Alexander Leaf, emeritus professor of clinical medicine at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital.

The link to arrhythmias is the most substantiated, but fish oils may also have other heart-friendly effects, such as lowering the levels of triglycerides in the blood, reducing inflammation, slowing coronary artery thickening and reducing the tendency of blood to clot.

And the oils’ reach may turn out to stretch beyond the heart. For instance, population studies in the Netherlands and the United States have reported that people who said they ate fish once weekly or more were 60 percent less likely to develop Alzheimer’s disease in subsequent years. Greg Cole, associate director of the University of California-Los Angeles’ Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center, says this could be because DHA is crucial for the proper working of brain cells and is destroyed during the course of Alzheimer’s disease.

Mood, too, has been linked to levels of fish-oil consumption — maybe again because a lack of omega-3s in the brain contributes to some abnormalities. In 1998, Dr. Joseph Hibbeln of the National Institutes of Health published a survey revealing that countries with the highest rates of depression ate the least fish, while those with the lowest ate the most.

Several small clinical trials have reported that fish oils helped improve psychiatric symptoms. One found that bipolar patients given fish oils had their symptoms improve, another that supplements of EPA were more effective than placebos at improving the mood of depressed patients.

There are also data suggesting omega-3s may be helpful for a raft of other ills such as aggression, attention-deficit disorder, macular degeneration, autoimmune diseases and breast cancer.

"You’ll hear all sorts of things," says Penny Kris-Etherton, distinguished professor of nutrition at Pennsylvania State University in University Park, who co-wrote the American Heart Association’s recommendations and reviewed omega-3s for the next version of America’s dietary guidelines. "I think this definitely is an emerging area."

Ultimately, even if omega-3s are proved only to reduce the risk of deadly arrhythmias after a heart attack, that’s ample reason to pay attention. According to the National Institutes of Health, more than 1 million people in the United States have a heart attack and 515,000 die each year, usually from arrhythmias.

Still, Americans with a red meat and poultry habit will need encouragement to work fish into their diet, says Teresa Snyder, a dietitian with Providence Medford Medical Center.

That may be easier as scientists iron out a few creases, including how to develop additives to make fish oils’ taste pleasant to the average palate, Snyder says. Companies hoping to put more omega-3 products on grocery store shelves also are working on how to keep the oils stable so they don’t develop "off" tastes.

"Any food that has oils ... could have this stuff in them — you could put them in salad dressings, margarine, bread, ice creams," says William Harris, professor of medicine at the University of Missouri in Kansas City. "Food-tech folks can do all kinds of stuff."

Not all health professionals are thrilled by the news of omega-3 being arbitrarily dumped into the food chain while Americans’ eating habits remain questionable.

"It’s a step in the right direction, the government recognizing the benefits of omega-3 acids and it’s good they want to supplement foods with omega-3," says Dr. Cameron McCoin of Ashland, "but when manufacturers of overprocessed or synthetic foods pass their product off as ‘healthy,’ just because they add omega-3, I would disagree."

What makes a diet healthy, McCoin notes, is organic, whole food. Some additives, she says, such as iodine in salt, may help prevent specific diseases, but it takes a foundation of good food to stay healthy.

Morrell agrees, noting, "There is no better way to get the nutrients we need than through good food. Supplements can’t fulfill that role because we simply don’t know all the components present in food, that make the whole process work, and we keep finding new ones."

Free-lance writer John Darling of Ashland contributed to this story. E-mail him at jdarling@jeffnet.org.

Sources of omega-3 fatty acids

Fish contain EPA and DHA, omega-3 fatty acids that have health benefits for the heart.

Each 3-ounce portion (about the size of a fist) contains the following amounts of EPA and DHA, in grams. The protective effects of the fish oils occur at intakes of half a gram.

TUNA

Light, canned in water — 0.26

White, canned in water — 0.73

SALMON

Chum — 0.68

Sockeye — 0.68

Pink — 1.09

Chinook — 1.48

Atlantic, farmed — 1.09-1.83

Atlantic, wild — 0.9-1.56

SARDINES

Any — 0.98-1.7

MACKEREL

Any — 0.34-1.57

HERRING

Any — 1.81

RAINBOW TROUT

Farmed — 0.98

Wild — 0.84

PACIFIC OYSTERS

Any — 1.17

ALASKAN KING CRAB

Any — 0.35

SHRIMP

Mixed species — 0.27

FISH-OIL SUPPLEMENTS

Grams of EPA and DHA, combined, per pill — 0.20 to 0.50

NUTS AND SEEDS (per ounce)

Walnuts — 2.60

Flax seeds — 1.80

Pecans (dry-roasted) — 0.03

OILS (per tablespoon)

Flax seed oil — 6.90

Walnut oil — 1.40

Canola oil — 1.30

Olive oil — 0.10

Sources: American Heart Association, Consumer Reports, Los Angeles Times staff writers