Eating more fatty fish increases the amount of large particles of HDL cholesterol (also known as good cholesterol) in your blood. That was the main findings of a paper published in the journal PLOS and reported on the news website AlphaGalileo this morning.
The study, carried out at the University of Eastern Finland, looked into not only good and bad cholesterol levels, but were able to measure a range of lipoprotein particles. This is for a number of reasons, we know that increasing fish consumption is beneficial for health but the mechanisms of the interactions with the human body are not fully understood. Large HDL particles can benefit health by “sweeping extra cholesterol off artery walls” but smaller particles can have opposite effects.
The people who ate at least 3-4 portions of fish per week showed the highest increase in large particle HDL cholesterol levels (the overall amount did not change). The study only dealt with fatty fish but an earlier study at the university had shown that leaner fish has health benefits such as lowering blood pressure.
The results of this study are published in the journal PLOS.