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Health News Archive 279 - Inflammation
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Omega-3 Fish Oil Decreases, Omega-6 Corn Oil Increases Inflammation

A low-calorie diet, rich in Omega-3 rich fish oil could reduce the markers of inflammation by as much as 90 per cent, according to the results of an animal study. The new study, published in the journal Life Sciences, looked at the effects of fish oil and/or a calorie-restricted diet on various markers of inflammation for old and young female mice.

Chronic inflammation, brought about by an over-expression or lack of control of the normal protective mechanism, can lead to a range of inflammatory related disease, particularly cardiovascular disease.

The diets were adopted when the mice were two months old and formulated to contain either corn oil (5 per cent) or fish oil (5 per cent containing DHA, EPA, palmitic acid), and the calorie-restriction diets (60 per cent) were fed the same levels of fish or corn oil as the controls.  At the end of the study the researchers measured various markers of inflammation, such as levels of lipid oxidation, and concentrations of reactive superoxide species, prostaglandins, and leukotriene B4, for both the young mice (four months old) and old mice (nine months old).

Mice eating the corn oil diet had superoxides levels about 18 per cent higher than corn oil fed young mice. Young mice receiving the fish oil-containing diet had superoxides levels almost 60 per cent lower. Calorie-restricted young mice had a 35 per cent level of superoxides, while young mice consuming the calorie-restricted fish oil diet had levels 90 per cent lower than the young controls.  The effect of calorie-restriction and fish oil on superoxide concentrations was also significant in the older mice. Both dietary interventions reduced levels of reactive superoxide by 94 per cent.  Similar reductions were observed for both prostaglandin production levels and the age-related production of leukotriene B4.

“The major findings of our present study are that dietary fish oil and/or a 40 per cent reduced food intake, ie. calorie-restriction, effectively suppressed age-related inflammatory process,” wrote the authors, led by Hae Young Chung from Pusan National University, Korea.  “One other interesting finding is that fish oil feeding seems more effective than calorie-restriction in its antioxidative and anti-inflammatory effects,” they said.

The researchers also measured the expression of pro-inflammatory COX-2 and iNOS on gene expression. Both were suppressed compared to the corn oil, normal diet control mice.  The suppression of both COX-2 and iNOS reduced the expression of the pro-inflammatory prostaglandin and leukotriene, both of which are established mediators of inflammation.

The results of the study are inline with previous research looking at either calorie-restriction or omega-3 fatty acids on markers of inflammation.

Abstract
Inflammation, inflammatory mediators, cyclooxygenase (COX)-2, and inducible nitric oxide (iNOS) are all influenced by age-related oxidative status. To investigate the effect of dietary fish oil (FO) and calorie restriction (CR) on oxidative stress-related inflammatory status with age, (NZB/NZW) F1 (B/W) mice were fed for 4 and 9 months either ad libitum or calorie-restricted (60% of ad libitum intake) diets containing 5% corn oil or 5% FO. We measured several key oxidative and inflammatory markers: TBARS, xanthine oxidase (XOD)-derived superoxide generation, and PGE2 and LTB4 production. Expressions of renal COX-1, COX-2, and iNOS mRNA were analyzed by RT-PCR; additionally, COX-2 protein was estimated by Western-blot method. Results show that FO intake and CR individually and together suppressed age-related increases in lipid peroxidation and superoxide generation. The inhibitory effects of dietary FO and CR were also found for iNOS expression, COX-2 expression, which subsequently led to the suppression of PGE2 and LTB4. We conclude that the beneficial effects of FO feeding and CR are synergistic in ameliorating the age-related nephritis of B/W mice by suppressing COX-2 and iNOS, reactive species generation, and pro-inflammatory mediators.

Source: You Jung Kim, Hyon Jeen Kim, Jae Kyung No, Hae Young Chung and Gabriel Fernandes. Anti-inflammatory action of dietary fish oil and calorie restriction; Life Sciences Vol. 78; 18 Apr 2006; pp. 2523-2532