In the 1970s, a team of Danish researchers published a study claiming that the Innuit population living on the coast of Greenland had lower levels of heart disease and diabetes than residents of Denmark. The duo attributed these better health outcomes to an Indigenous diet heavy on fish.
Decades later, hundreds of studies sparked by this initial paper have largely concluded something similar: Fish is good for you. The findings explain, in part, why the current U.S. dietary guidelines suggest adults consume two servings of seafood a week. But as the average American falls short of the suggested 8 ounces of fish every week, fish oil pills have taken over their own corner of the supplement market — a replacement that science doesn’t necessarily support. The upside of eating fish, evidence suggests, has more to do with the entire meal than it does with some miracle ingredient appearing on your plate.
