EATING fish but not meat offers key health benefits, a new study led by Scottish-based researchers has found.

Compared with meat eaters, fish eaters have a lower risk of several types of heart diseases, including stroke, according to the study led by researchers from the University of Glasgow and published today in the European Heart Journal.

The findings, which were part of new research looking at the diets and risk of developing or dying from heart diseases of more than 420,000 people in the UK also concluded that vegetarianism was associated with a lower risk of developing heart disease.

The study suggests a pescatarian diet should be promoted and encouraged as a healthy option.

The aim was to find out whether vegetarians, fish, poultry or meat eaters had a higher risk of developing or dying from heart diseases, using data from the UK Biobank to link diets with health in the British population.

Researchers found that meat eaters, who made up 94.7% of the cohort, were more likely to be obese than other diet groups. After a median follow-up of 8.5 years, fish eaters, compared with meat eaters, had lower risks of cardiovascular outcomes such as stroke, heart disease and heart failure.

Vegetarians had a lower risk of developing heart diseases. However, the

researchers noted that, as a group, vegetarians consumed more unhealthy foods, such as crisps, than meat eaters and that vegetarians should therefore not be considered a homogeneous group.

They concluded that the avoidance of meat does not appear sufficient to reduce health risks if a person’s overall diet is not healthy.

Overall, meat eaters consumed the least fibre, polyunsaturated fat, water, and fruit and vegetables. However, vegetarians reported consuming more crisps, pizza and smoothie drinks than meat eaters.

Fish eaters were more likely to drink more sugary drinks and ready meals compared with the other groups, but also reported eating the least amount of takeaways. Fish and poultry eaters were more likely to eat home-cooked meals, followed by vegetarians.

In comparison to meat eaters, vegetarian, fish, and fish and poultry eaters were younger, more likely to be women, south Asian and to have a lower body weight. Meat eaters were more likely to have more than one multimorbidity, and to be smokers.

Glasgow University’s Professor Jill Pell, senior author of the study, said: “Our findings showed that people who follow a pescatarian diet are less likely to suffer from heart disease, stroke, and heart failure, than people who eat meat.

“Reducing consumption of meat, especially red and processed meat, could improve health as well as being more environmentally sustainable.”

Her colleague Fanny Petermann Rocha, the lead author, added: “It is likely fish eaters have a higher intake of cardio-protective nutrients such as polyunsaturated fats and, which could explain the lower risk association between fish eaters and heart diseases in our study.

“In particular, the polyunsaturated fat N-3 has been shown to be cardio-protective, and oily fish is one of its rich sources.”

Dr Carlos Celis said: “Cardiovascular diseases remains one of the top 10 causes of death worldwide. Although there are several behavioural risk factors, a poor diet accounts for around 11 million of these deaths worldwide.

“Of these, 3.8 million deaths have been attributable to a diet low in fruit and vegetables, 1.4 million to a diet low in seafood intake and 150,000 to high red and processed meat intake.”