Re: Fish oil lengthens telomeres

[Guest guest]

Hi folks:

Ooops. Sorry. That was a different paper by the same authors on another aspect

of the same experiments.

The full text of the fish oil paper is not available free, but here is the

abstract of it:

" Association of Marine Omega-3 Fatty Acid Levels With Telomeric Aging in

Patients With Coronary Heart Disease.

" Ramin Farzaneh-Far, MD; Jue Lin, PhD; Elissa S. Epel, PhD; S. ,

PhD; H. Blackburn, PhD; A. Whooley, MD

" JAMA. 2010;303(3):250-257.

" Context: Increased dietary intake of marine omega-3 fatty acids is associated

with prolonged survival in patients with coronary heart disease. However, the

mechanisms underlying this protective effect are poorly understood.

" Objective: To investigate the association of omega-3 fatty acid blood levels

with temporal changes in telomere length, an emerging marker of biological age.

" Design, Setting, and Participants: Prospective cohort study of 608 ambulatory

outpatients in California with stable coronary artery disease recruited from the

Heart and Soul Study between September 2000 and December 2002 and followed up to

January 2009 (median, 6.0 years; range, 5.0-8.1 years).

" Main Outcome Measures: We measured leukocyte telomere length at baseline and

again after 5 years of follow-up. Multivariable linear and logistic regression

models were used to investigate the association of baseline levels of omega-3

fatty acids (docosahexaenoic acid [DHA] and eicosapentaenoic acid [EPA]) with

subsequent change in telomere length.

" Results: Individuals in the lowest quartile of DHA+EPA experienced the fastest

rate of telomere shortening (0.13 telomere-to-single-copy gene ratio [T/S] units

over 5 years; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.09-0.17), whereas those in the

highest quartile experienced the slowest rate of telomere shortening (0.05 T/S

units over 5 years; 95% CI, 0.02-0.08; P < .001 for linear trend across

quartiles). Levels of DHA+EPA were associated with less telomere shortening

before (unadjusted â coefficient x 10–3 = 0.06; 95% CI, 0.02-0.10) and after

(adjusted â coefficient x 10–3 = 0.05; 95% CI, 0.01-0.08) sequential adjustment

for established risk factors and potential confounders. Each 1-SD increase in

DHA+EPA levels was associated with a 32% reduction in the odds of telomere

shortening (adjusted odds ratio, 0.68; 95% CI, 0.47-0.98).

" Conclusion: Among this cohort of patients with coronary artery disease, there

was an inverse relationship between baseline blood levels of marine omega-3

fatty acids and the rate of telomere shortening over 5 years.

" Author Affiliations: Division of Cardiology, San Francisco General Hospital (Dr

Farzaneh-Far), Departments of Medicine (Drs Farzaneh-Far and Whooley),

Biochemistry and Biophysics (Drs Lin and Blackburn), Psychiatry (Dr Epel), and

Epidemiology and Biostatistics (Dr Whooley), University of California, San

Francisco, and Veterans Affairs Medical Center (Dr Whooley), San Francisco; and

Sanford Research/USD and Sanford School of Medicine, University of South Dakota,

Sioux Falls (Dr ). "

========================

If anyone is able to locate a copy of the full text, I would very much like to

see it. TIA.

Rodney.

> >

> >

> > Telomere length could explain effects of fish oil in CHD

> > JANUARY 19, 2010 | Nainggolan

> >

> > San Francisco, CA - A new study in patients with coronary artery disease

> > (CAD) has uncovered an inverse association between baseline blood levels of

> > fish oil and the rate of telomere shortening over five years, suggesting a

> > possible explanation for the protective effects of omega-3 fatty acids [1].

> >

> > Telomeres are the extreme ends of chromosomal DNA that shorten with age.

> > Telomere shortening is seen as an indicator of biological aging, and

> > telomere length has been shown to independently predict morbidity and

> > mortality in patients with cardiovascular diseases, Dr Ramin Farzaneh-Far

> > (San Francisco General Hospital, CA) and colleagues explain in their paper

> > published in the January 20, 2010 issue of the Journal of the American

> > Medical Association.

> >

> > This is yet another reason for cardiologists to try to convince their

> > patients to take either a fish-oil supplement or eat regular fatty-fish

> > meals.

> > " This suggests the existence of a novel mechanism for why omega-3 fatty

> > acids are effective in this patient population‹an area that has not been

> > well worked out previously; it suggests they could be acting through

> > telomeres, " Farzaneh-Far told heartwire. " It's also the first study that

> > shows that a dietary factor may be able to slow down telomere shortening, "

> > he observes.

> >

> > However he stresses that this was, " at its heart, an observational study "

> > and that a randomized trial will be needed to prove causality. But in the

> > meantime, the results " underscore and reinforce the American Heart

> > Association guidelines that patients with CAD should be taking 1 g a day of

> > omega-3 fatty acids for secondary prevention, " he says. " This is yet another

> > reason for cardiologists to try to convince their patients to take either a

> > fish-oil supplement or eat regular fatty-fish meals. "

> >

> > Those with lowest levels of fatty acids had fastest rate of telomere

> > shortening

> >

> > The researchers recruited 608 outpatients with stable CAD taking part in the

> > Heart and Soul Study between 2000 and 2002 and measured telomere length at

> > baseline in the blood and again after five years of follow-up, using a

> > standard telomere-length assay. They also assessed baseline blood levels of

> > the marine omega-3 fatty acids docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) and

> > eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA), expressed as a percentage of total fatty-acid

> > methyl esters, " a relatively new blood test, " Farzaneh-Far explains.

> >

> > Patients were divided into quartiles on the basis of their marine omega-3

> > fatty-acid levels, with means of 2.3%, 3.3%, 4.3%, and 7.3% in the four

> > groups, respectively. Farzaneh-Far says an important point to note is that

> > omega-3 fatty acids " can be obtained only from the diet; there is no

> > endogenous production. " The optimal level of omega-3 fatty acids is not

> > firmly established but is thought to be around 7% to 8%, " with most people

> > on Western diets likely having levels way below what is optimal, " he says.

> >

> > Those in the lowest quartile of DHA+EPA experienced the fastest rate of

> > telomere shortening, 0.13 telomere-to-single-copy-gene ratio [T/S] units

> > over five years, whereas those in the highest quartile experienced the

> > slowest rate, 0.05 T/S units over five years (p<0.001 for linear trend

> > across the quartiles).

> >

> > Farzaneh-Far says the research is " one of the few . . . that has two

> > measurements of telomere length, so we were able to measure the actual rate

> > of change, which gives us a sense of the rate at which biological aging is

> > taking place. From a scientific point of view, that is one of the novel

> > elements of this study. "

> >

> > Also, " from the telomere point of view, this is the first study to show an

> > effect of a dietary factor, that this may be able to slow down telomere

> > shortening, " he notes.

> >

> > Even after extensive statistical adjustments for confounding factors, " we

> > found a dose-dependent decrease in the rate of telomere shortening according

> > to the level of baseline omega-3 fatty acids, " he reiterates, " suggesting

> > that the association is causal. "

> >

> > However, he acknowledges, " To prove this, you would need a randomized trial.

> > This would entail taking patients and measuring their telomere length at

> > baseline, then randomizing half to omega-3 fatty acids and half to placebo

> > and measuring the telomere length again to see whether the treatment group

> > had less shortening of their telomeres: that would be the gold-standard way

> > to prove causality. "

> >

> >

> > Could omega-3 fatty acids be a risk factor for CHD?

> >

> > Farzaneh-Far says the research also highlights a possible new concept: that

> > omega-3 fatty acids could be used as a marker for coronary artery disease,

> > in much the same way as cholesterol, for example.

> >

> > " The idea is that the omega-3 index, the percentage of fatty acids in the

> > blood, could be measured and that low levels would predict worse outcomes.

> > So the omega-3 index might be useful for risk stratification in the future. "

> >

>