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Brookings,
Tufts researchers say transgenic salmon could save lives
March 11,
2003
WALTHAM, MA
– Fast-growing transgenic salmon could make the high omega
3 (n-3) content of farmed salmon more affordable to consumers,
leading to improved diets and the prevention of hundreds of heart
attacks each year, according to researchers from Tufts University
and the AEI-Brookings Joint Center for Regulatory Studies.
But, say JCRS
economist Randall Lutter and Tufts nutrition professor Kathrine
Tucker, the benefits of better nutrition are ignored in a regulatory
system focused on identifying remote risks and potential adverse
effects.
“The
case of GM salmon illustrates both the potential magnitude of
the health benefits from indirect nutritional improvements and
the problem with the regulators’ generally one-sided approach,”
the researchers said in a study published this week in the on-line
journal AgBioForum. “We estimate that GM salmon would prevent
between 600 and 2600 deaths in the US annually, with a best estimate
of rougly 1400.”
Calling salmon
“the richest source of n-3 fatty acids” in the American
diet, the researchers took issue with recent claims that farmed
salmon produce lower levels of n-3s than wild salmon. “Alaska
chums, the most important salmon species for US consumers after
Atlantic salmon, have lower levels of n-3 than farmed Atlantic
salmon, either raw or cooked with dry heat. Sockeye, chinook,
and pink salmon, either raw or cooked with dry heat, also have
lower levels of n-3 in 100-g servings than farmed Atlantic salmon.
In addition, both raw wild Atlantic salmon and wild coho cooked
with dry heat have lower n-3 levels in 100-g servings than raw
farmed Atlantic salmon and farmed coho cooked with dry heat respectively.”
The researchers
found that a one percent increase in n-3 consumption lowers the
risk of a fatal heart attack by 0.29 percent. They said they did
not quantify other health benefits associated with n-3s, including
protection against rheumatoid arthritis, asthma, epileptic seizure,
endometrial cancer, age-related macular degeneration, prostate
cancer and premature birth.
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