There's Nothing Fishy About Colon Cancer

Two buddies are out on a lake fishing. One just got a job as a fish and game warden and they were celebrating with this outing. After a couple of hours of nothing caught, barely even a nibble, one friend opens his tackle box, pulls out a stick of dynamite, lights it, and tosses it into the lake. KABOOM! Quite a number of fish float to the top and are gathered up. The newly minted warden says "you can't do that, it's illegal!" His friend pulls out anther stick of dynamite, lights it, and hands it to his warden friend and says, "Are you gonna yap or fish?"

Sorry, I couldn't resist.  If anything, it seemed apropos this being Friday and all.  What am I yapping about?  In this month's issue of the American Journal of Medicine, authors evaluated 22 prospective cohort studies and 19 case-control studies in their meta-analysis on the effect of fish consumption on colorectal cancer.  Their conclusion: any fish consumption decreases risk of colorectal cancer by as much as 12%.  Unfortunately, due to the way the study was published, I was unable to determine more useful, applicable information like the age & ethnicity of the participants, and more importantly, how much fish was eaten for what period of time.  

However, to address the question of fluke vs trend, I should point out that as far back as July 1999 in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, authors concluded that just 1 serving of fish each week is enough to decrease risk of various gastrointestinal tract cancers compared to those who consumed less than 1 serving each week.  So where does this leave us?  Well, these studies are observational in nature and thus only useful for developing hypotheses which can then be (dis)proven by randomized controlled studies.  In the meantime, baked or broiled fish consumption has also been linked to lower risk of heart failure in postmenopausal women (while fried fish has not).  Therefore, while we wait for the definitive answer, perhaps we can lower our risk for both colorectal cancer and heart disease by consuming more fish.

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