Dietary oily fish intake reduces the risk of all-cause mortality in frequent fish consumers of Amerindian ancestry living in coastal Ecuador: the Atahualpa project

Abstract

Purpose: To assess the relationship between dietary oily fish intake and all-cause mortality in a population of frequent fish consumers of Amerindian ancestry living in rural Ecuador.

Methods: Individuals aged ≥ 40 years enrolled in the prospective population-based Atahualpa Project cohort received annual questionnaires to estimate their dietary oily fish intake. Only fish served broiled or cooked in the soup were included for analysis. Poisson regression and Cox-proportional hazards models adjusted for demographics, education level and cardiovascular risk factors were obtained to estimate mortality risk according to the amount of oily fish intake stratified in tertiles.

Results: Analysis included 909 individuals (mean age: 55.1 ± 12.8 years) followed by a median of 7.5 ± 3 years. Mean oily fish intake was 9.4 ± 5.7 servings per week. A total of 142 (16%) individuals died during the follow-up. The mortality rate for individuals in the first tertile de oily fish intake (0.0-6.29 servings) was 2.87 per 100 person-years, which decreased to 1.78 for those in the third tertile (10.59-35.0 servings). An adjusted Cox-proportional hazards model showed that individuals allocated to the second (HR 0.61; 95% CI 0.41-0.92) and third (HR 0.60; 95% CI 0.40-0.91) tertiles of dietary oily fish intake had significantly lower mortality risk than those in the first tertile.

Conclusion: Sustained oily fish intake of more than six servings per week reduces mortality risk in middle-aged and older adults of Amerindian ancestry.

Keywords: Amerindians; Dietary oily fish intake; Mortality; Omega-3 PUFAs; Population-based longitudinal cohort.