With over half of all Europeans and nearly two-thirds of Americans now officially classified as overweight, reactions to this disease of privilege have been generated from the preventative health communities to public health authorities down to the food industry itself.
Some of the proposed solutions have been based on increasing the nutrient density of food, thereby increasing satiety and subsequently decreasing appetite and caloric intake. This has already been successfully tested in clinical trials with multivitamins/minerals (See: In the News; Nov. 20, 2007), and a new European study looked for a similar effect with another class of nutrients, namely omega-3 essential fatty acids (EFAs).
Researchers from the University of Navarra (Spain), the University of Iceland and University College Cork (Ireland) recruited 232 overweight and obese volunteers (average age of 31) and assigned them to a calorie-reduced but balanced diet. This diet was supplemented with either low (260 mg per day) or high doses (1300 mg per day) of omega-3 EFAs for eight weeks, with appetite measurements being taken during the last two weeks of the study.
The high-dose omega-3 supplementation led to fewer reported hunger sensations associated with the calorie-restricted diet, both in the immediate post-prandial examinations and in the ones taken two hours later. The researchers concluded that higher omega-3 plasma levels and improved omega-3 to omega-6 ratios were associated with higher satiety.
Source: Dolores Parra, A. Ramel, N. Bandarra, M. Kiely, J.A. Martinez, I. Thorsdottir. "A diet rich in long chain omega 3 fatty acids modulates satiety in overweight and obese volunteers during weight loss". Appetite (Published online ahead of print 14 June 2008).
For more information see Omega Cardio or OMEGA EPA
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