Can Fish Oil Help in Burning Belly Fat?

A new study conducted by Kyoto University researchers support the fact that fish is a healthy option over other foods. Fish oil, particularly, has been the hottest topic of debate for health experts and scientists. Fish oil refers to the oil that is extracted from the tissue of fatty fish like cod, salmon, mackerel, tuna and others. It is available in liquid form and even as supplements in the form of pills.

Fish oil is a great source of Omega-3 fatty acids which your body cannot produce on its own. Omega-3 is known to improve heart health and insulin sensitivity. The team of Japanese researchers have found that fish oil may also burn fat faster and lead to efficient weight loss in overweight or obese people in their 30s and 40s.

It is known that fish oil may help with weight loss since it regulates insulin that converts glucose from food into energy and also increases our metabolism. But in addition to this, scientists have now found that fish oil activates receptors in the digestive tract, fires the sympathetic nervous system and induces storage cells to metabolise fat.

This has been clearly explained in their study through the discovery of a new class of cells. Fat tissues do not all store fat.“White” cells store fat in order to maintain energy supply while “Brown” cells metabolise fat to maintain a stable body temperature. Brown cells are abundant in babies but decrease in number with maturity into adulthood. A third type of fat cell called the "Beige" cells have recently been found in humans and mice, and have shown to function much like brown cells.

Beige cells also reduce in number as people approach middle age and without these metabolizing cells, fat continues accumulating for decades without ever being used. “We knew from previous research that fish oil has tremendous health benefits, including the prevention of fat accumulation. We tested whether fish oil and an increase in beige cells could be related,” said senior author Teruo Kawada.

The team fed a group of mice fatty food, and other groups fatty food with fish oil additives. The mice that ate food with fish oil, they found, gained five-10 percent less weight and 15-25 percent less fat compared to those that did not consume the oil. The team also found that beige cells formed from white fat cells when the sympathetic nervous system was activated, meaning that certain fat storage cells acquired the ability to metabolize.

“People have long said that food from Japan and the Mediterranean contribute to longevity, but why these cuisines are beneficial was up for debate. Now we have better insight into why that may be,” explained Kawada in a paper which appeared in the journal Scientific Reports.

According to Dr. Rupali Datta, Chief Clinical Nutritionist at Fortis-Escorts Hospital, "Fish meat taken along with a balanced diet of fruits and vegetables can be effective in losing weight as it has less saturated fats as compared to other meats. But this study cannot be taken as final proof of fish oil affecting obesity. More research is required to see that if there is any direct impact of fish oil on obesity. Omega-3 fatty acids derived from fish oil are definitely beneficial. Vegetarians can add more almonds in their diet to derive these essentials fats."

Dr. Shikha Sharma, Wellness Expert and Founder of NutriHealth, agrees, "Fish oil in the form of pills may not be as beneficial as when you consume oily fish. Supplements may not be able to replace the nutritional value. It is better to include more oily fish in your diet to reap the benefits of Omega-3 fatty acids."

Daily Glass of Red Wine Can Improve Heart Health in Diabetics

A glass of red wine every night may help people with Type-2 diabetes manage their cholesterol and cardiac health, suggests new research.People with diabetes are more susceptible to developing cardiovascular diseases than the general population and have lower levels of "good" cholesterol, the study said.

"Initiating moderate wine intake, especially red wine, among well-controlled diabetics, as part of a healthy diet, is apparently safe, and modestly decreases cardio-metabolic risk," the study said.Additionally, both red and white wine can improve sugar control, depending on alcohol metabolism genetic profile, the findings showed.While slow alcohol-metabolisers who drank wine achieved an improvement in blood sugar control, fast alcohol-metabolisers (with much faster blood alcohol clearance) did not benefit from the ethanol's glucose control effect.The study led by researchers at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (BGU) in Beersheba, Israel aimed to assess the effects and safety of initiating moderate alcohol consumption in diabetics, and sought to determine whether the type of wine matters.The two-year trial was performed on 224 controlled diabetes patients (aged 45 to 75), who generally abstained from alcohol.They gradually initiated moderate wine consumption, as part of a healthy diet platform, and not before driving.

(Red Wine Benefits: Will a Glass of Vino a Day, Actually Keep The Doctor Away?)"Red wine was found to be superior in improving overall metabolic profiles, mainly by modestly improving the lipid profile, by increasing good (high-density lipoprotein or HDL) cholesterol, while decreasing the ratio between total cholesterol and HDL cholesterol," the study said."The differences found between red and white wine were opposed to our original hypothesis that the beneficial effects of wine are mediated predominantly by the alcohol," principal investigator Iris Shai said."Approximately 150 ml of the dry red or white tested wines contained approximately 17 g ethanol and approximately 120 kilo calorie, but the red wine had seven-fold higher levels of total phenols and four to 13-fold higher levels of the specific resveratrol group compounds than the white wine," Shai pointed out, underlining the effects of non-alcoholic constituents of red wines.The study was published in the journal Annals of Internal Medicine.