Fish-eaters 'healthier than vegetarians'

Fish-eaters may be healthier than vegetarians according to a new study, which provides further evidence of the benefits of a fish-rich diet.

A comparison of a lakeside community in Tanzania, whose inhabitants ate three to four meals of fish daily, with a farming community 50 miles away whose diet was primarily vegetarian, reveals clear differences in health indicators.

Italian scientists reporting in The Lancet say that the fish-eating villagers had significantly lower mean blood pressures than the vegetarians - just under 3 per cent had high-blood pressure compared with more than 16 per cent of the vegetarians. The blood cholesterol levels of the fish eaters also tended to be lower. Liz Hunt