Can You Lower Blood Pressure With Fish Oil?
The health benefits to your heart from increasing your intake of omega 3 essential fatty acids found in fish oil are well established and the American Heart Association now recommends a minimum intake of Omega3 fats for everyone for these reasons. These health benefits apply to such risks as cardiovascular disease, but today let's examine whether there is a fish oil blood pressure link, or whether increasing your intake of omega 3 essential fatty acids can lower high blood pressure.
Hypertension is the technical name for high blood pressure. Hypertension affects many of us, particularly those who are overweight, and many people rely on anti-hypertensive drugs for many years. Therefore it is possible to reduce high blood pressure with fish oil this is good news.
And the good news is that there are studies showing a clear link between increasing fish oil intake and lowering blood pressure. A study of 120 people split this group into 5 subgroups and supplemented each subgroup with a combination of fish, fish oil supplements or a placebo. The conclusion was that supplementation with omega 3 essential fatty acids found in fish oil helps lower blood pressure.
There are 2 primary omega 3 fats and they are called DHA (docosahexaenoic acid) and EPA (eicosapentaenoic acid). Another study examining the role of these 2 fats found that it was primarily the DHA that was responsible for the reduction in blood pressure.
Overweight people have higher risks of hypertension as well as coronary heart disease and a third study examined the role of omega 3 in lowering blood pressure in overweight people. This study also concluded that fish oil could help lower blood pressure for overweight people and, when combined with an appropriate weight loss regime, would help "substantially" in lowering reliance on antihypertensive drugs for those already reliant on those drugs.
There is a wide range of health benefits from increasing your intake of omega 3 and these benefits now extend to lowering hyperension. However there are sufficient heart and health benefits from increasing your intake of omega 3 fatty acids that even those with no incidence of hypertension have a wide range of health benefits available to them from increasing fish oil intake. This includes reducing the risk of cardiovascular disease as well as increasing mental acuity and memory and reducing the risk of a range of age related diseases, and more.
There is now clear scientific evidence about the heart benefits of Omega3 fats and the American Heart Association is taking this on board and recommends a minimum intake of these fats for everyone. And as over 90 percent of the US population are deficient in Omega3 intake we should take notice, particularly anyone with hypertension.
So it seems there is a clear blood pressure fish oil link. If you increase your intake of Omega3 fats you will help lower high blood pressure and may also reduce any reliance on antihypertensive drugs.
But how do you effectively increase your intake of Omega3 fats? There are problems with eating fish because fish is expensive and is generally contaminated with mercury and for this reason the FDA tells us not to eat too much fish.
But it is perfectly adequate and indeed preferable, and very cost effective to take daily omega 3 supplements, and the best ones are contamination free, though there is a wide variation in the quality of the different brands.
To find out which Omega 3 capsules I choose to take and to give to my family visit my website.
Want to know more about Fish Oil? Or more about the Fish Oil Blood pressure link? Visit Peter's Website Healthy Omega 3 Fish Oil.