Research

Mixed

Increasing fish consumption to at least 2 servings per week in mid- or later life reduces the risk of coronary heart disease in women but has no significant effect in men.

If you are a woman, aiming for 2 or more servings of fish per week starting in midlife may help lower your risk of heart disease. If you are a man, this specific dietary change did not show a significant reduction in heart disease risk in this study, so you should focus on other proven heart-healthy strategies rather than relying on fish alone.

GoodQualifiesHIGH confidence
Our results suggest that increasing fish consumption to at least 2 servings per week in mid- or later life may lower CHD risk in women but not in men.
Martin Lajous et al. · American Journal of Epidemiology · 2013

Why this rating

Large prospective cohorts (n > 79,000) with long follow-up (18-22 years) and rigorous causal inference methods (parametric g-formula), though still observational.

Source

Changes in Fish Consumption in Midlife and the Risk of Coronary Heart Disease in Men and Women

Martin Lajous et al. · American Journal of Epidemiology · 2013

DOI 10.1093/aje/kws478

cohort · n=79569Cited 75×
Read the paper
DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10

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