Research & Development In Brief
This article was originally published in The Tan Sheet
Executive Summary
Omega-3s slow cellular aging in heart patients: Omega-3 fatty acids may slow cellular aging in patients with coronary heart disease, according to a study of 608 patients with stable heart disease. Researchers led by Ramin Farzaneh-Far compared omega-3 fatty acid blood levels with telomere length - a DNA sequence that is an emerging marker of biological age - in an effort to explain why a high intake of omega-3 fatty acids is linked to higher coronary heart disease survival rates. According to the study in the Journal of the American Medical Association, the researchers found the telomere length of participants with the lowest omega-3 fatty acid levels shortened significantly faster than those with the highest omega-3 fatty acid levels after five years at an average telomere-to-single-copy gene ratio of 0.13 compared to 0.05. One explanation for the association between omega-3 fatty acids and slower telomere attrition "may lie in the paradigm of oxidative stress," the researchers say. They explain omega-3s are associated with lower systemic oxidative stress and higher antioxidant enzyme catalase. "Increased activity of the enzyme telomerase" is another possible explanation, they say, noting "such properties would be highly desirable in the development of treatments targeting telomeric aging." One of the study's researchers received grants from firms interested in omega-3 fatty acids and recently founded a company offering blood omega-3 fatty acid testing