Is Tilapia Actually Beneficial For Your Heart?

Contrary to popular belief, Tilapia, the hugely famous farm-raised fish, might not be helping your heart. Rather, it contains undesirable levels of unhealthy omega-6 fatty acids instead of omega-3 fatty acids.

Tilapia is more harmful, in particular, for patients already having a history of heart disease, arthritis, asthma and other diseases involving overactive inflammatory responses.

These findings, published in the July issue of the Journal of the American Dietetic Association, are an outcome of research conducted at Wake Forest Center for Botanical Lipids, in Winston Salem, NC.

Senior study author Dr. Floyd H. Chilton, director of the Wake Forest Center, said that eating the right type of fish or taking dietary fish oil was very important to cure heart disease.

Katherine Tallmadge, a national spokeswoman for the American Dietetic Association suggested that industry needed to improve ways of farming fish. Feeding the fish with low grade inexpensive food should be done away with as it was adversely affecting the nutritional quality of fish.

The technique of gas chromatography was utilised in this study to analyse the fatty acid composition of 30 commonly consumed farmed and wild fish. The analysis showed that farm-raised Tilapia and Catfish had relatively poor concentrations of “good” omega-3 fatty acids compared to the “bad” omega-6 fatty acids.

The situation thus demands a shift in focus towards wild fish and cold-water fish such as Salmon, Rainbow Trout, Tuna and Sardines, which besides being fairly economical have healthy fatty acids too.