Omega-3 fatty acids, from fish like salmon and other sources, have for years been shown to help lower levels of heart disease and cardiac death.

New research suggests the fatty acids may possess an even more fundamental benefit: Heart patients with high omega-3 intake had relatively longer "telomeres," which are stretches of DNA whose length correlates with longevity.

Cardiologists from the University of California, San Francisco, and other hospitals measured telomere length over five years in 608 patients who had coronary-artery blockage and previous heart attacks. Researchers found that people with high levels of omega-3 fatty acids in their white blood cells experienced significantly less shortening of telomeres over five years, as compared with patients with lower omega-3 levels.

"What we're demonstrating is a potentially new link between omega-3 fatty acids and the aging process," said Ramin Farzaneh-Far, a clinical cardiologist and assistant medical professor at UCSF and San Francisco General Hospital who is the lead author of the research.

Published in this week's Journal of the American Medical Association, the study focused only on "marine" omega-3 found in fish, not the type found in vegetable sources like flaxseed, walnuts, canola oil or soybean oil.

 

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