My grandmother always said: “fish is brain food.” I’m puzzled where that idea came from. She never went to high school; where did that ‘old wives tale’ (tall fish tale) come from? I worry that you may think that I’ve been lured, hook, line and sinker by my grandmother’s concept, but it appears all these years later that her grandmotherly maxim is backed by science.

Because I’ve written quite a bit about fish, you already know that eating fish is healthy for your heart and probably for your brain too. But the science keeps getting better and better. An increasing number of studies elaborate on what a good food fish is. Tufts University reports that at a meeting of the Radiological Society of North America, research was reported showing that older adults who ate fish at least once a week had a greater volume of gray matter in the brain in areas important in Alzheimer’s disease. In addition, fish consumption was also associated with sharply lower rates of developing milder forms of cognitive impairment or dementia.

Dr. Cyrus Raji, MD, PhD, of the University of Pittsburgh, conducted a study that used MRI scans to measure the subjects’ brains. The MRI scans of the people eating broiled or baked (but not fried), fish, on a weekly basis, had greater volumes of gray matter in the brain’s frontal and temporal lobes, and also in the hippocampus. These are the areas “responsible for memory and learning, which are severely affected in Alzheimer’s disease."

Based on the results of cognitive testing, Raji and his colleagues found that those with the highest fish intake had the greatest preservation of gray matter and only 3.2% of them were found to have developed mild cognitive impairment or dementia. It was just about a ten-fold contrast with non-fish eaters. Among them, 30.8% suffered cognitive decline. Raji concluded: “Consuming baked or broiled fish promotes stronger neurons in the brain’s gray matter by making them larger and healthier. This simple lifestyle choice increases the brain’s resistance to Alzheimer’s disease and lowers risk for the disorder.”

Please note that Raji is trying to point to how easy it may be to lower our risk of Alzheimer’s and other dementias – a simple lifestyle choice – eating fish. This is so BIG – not a tall fish tale!!  If you’re anything like Vic (the catch of my life) and me, you want to avoid cognitive impairment, if at all possible. It’s fairly thrilling to be able to say that just making a fairly easy-to-make lifestyle change, we may be able to impact our brain health by almost 10 fold by our choice to eat a good quantity of baked or broiled fish.

As it turns out, fish consumption in the U.S. is extremely low. Judging from restaurant menus we have studied, even then, most options are fried, usually deep-fried. Even though the dietary guidelines have encouraged fish, it hasn’t really taken off as hoped. When we reported on the new dietary guidelines a little over a year ago, you may remember, that the guidelines were encouraging more seafood – targeting 8 ounces a week, replacing some of the red meat. This post is encouraging you to move some red meat off your MyPlate during the week and replace it with deliciously prepared fish.

It’s likely that it’s the omega-3 fatty acids found in fish are a large part of what is benefiting our health. [Note: It’s not just the brain; it’s been long known that depression; eye health (Protection against age-related macular degeneration (AMD), the leading cause of blindness in older Americans); and heart health are all positively impacted by fish consumption.] But to live by our own advice, I think we should not jump to omega-3 supplements or additives.  To do so, is jumping right into the arms of nutritionism. If the research is for eating more fish (read Raji statement above again – it says ‘fish’ not omega’s’), let’s find ways to increase our fish consumption.

When we replace full-fat dairy (e.g. hard cheese) and red and processed meats with fish, we not only get the omega-3s, we also reduce our saturated fat and total calorie intake. Fish are naturally low in saturated fat and calories. And that may actually turn out to be a large part of the benefits that are being found. Another part may be reducing the risky components of red meat. We are in the ‘learning’ phase – we are finding what is associated with health, but we don’t know all the mechanisms yet. Who knows; some studies are suggesting that the benefit may be due to the reduction of the heme iron that’s high in beef. Fish is definitely low in heme iron.

Don’t forget, if it is the omega-3s in fish that are bestowing the health benefits, it’s good news that omega-3s are not damaged or eliminated in the canning process. So, if you’re on a budget and fish seems like it costs more than your standard protein foods, consider using canned tuna and salmon. Also, think about old-fashioned fish recipes, like tuna noodle casserole. I posted a recipe for an up-dated healthy version in April 2011, using whole grain noodles, healthy oil and lots of veggies – the taste was quite wonderful. Salmon patties, using canned salmon, is another budget-friendly old-fashioned recipe. In addition, fresh or frozen tilapia is a very mild flavored fish; it has less omega3s than salmon, especially wild salmon, but salmon is fairly inexpensive and if you’re trying to move your family toward more frequent fish consumption, tilapia is a healthy and budget-conscious place to start.

If you’re concerned about fish safety, you may want to read specifically about mercury in our blog; but you can cover species-specific listings in the Monterey Bay listing below.

Also you may be interested in some of the websites provided by Tufts University for ecologically minded shoppers – the first listed below, Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch is my favorite for comprehensiveness and ease of use – I’ve downloaded the free app on my iPhone. Note that some have downloads for mobile apps.

• Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch: Recommendation, seafood search, printable pocket guides, mobile apps for iPhone and Android, http://www.montereybayaquarium.org/cr/seafoodwatch.aspx

Note: If a price on tilapia seems too good to be true, check where it came from. I recently saw tilapia advertized for $1.88 per pound, but then noticed that it was farmed in China. Seafood Watch recommends that Chinese tilapia is more likely than other options to be raised where it can come into contact with pollutants.

• Marine Stewardship Council: global product finder http://www.msc.org/where-to-buy/product-finder
• Blue Ocean Institute: iPhone app and FishPhone text-messaging service: http://www.blueocean.org/seafood/seafood-guide

Strive to include more fish in your menus. There’s nothing fishy about the research-based advice in this blog post.  There are endlessly wonderful and yummy ways to prepare fish, encouraging your meat-eaters to give up at least some plate-space during the week for this delicious and healthy replacement.