Fish for the colon

Nutrition Action Healthletter, July-August, 2008

Is fish good for the gut?

Researchers tracked more than 22,000 men in the Physicians' Health Study for 22 years. Those who reported eating seafood of any kind at least five times a week had a 40 percent lower risk of colon cancer than those who said they ate seafood less than once a week.

While the scientists checked to make sure the link wasn't due to "confounders" like age, smoking, weight, multivitamin use, diabetes, exercise, alcohol, or red meat, it's always possible that unknown confounders accounted for the lower risk.

What to do: It's worth eating more seafood to lower your risk of heart disease. If seafood also protects against colon cancer, that's an added bonus.

Cancer Epidemiol, Biomarkers Prev. 17:1136, 2008.