Gone fishing?

People go fishing for compliments more often than they dish up fish: In the U.S., fully 50% of people rarely or never have fish. In contrast, the average U.S. adult eats more than a pound of beef a week. That’s a shame, because fish like salmon and anchovies protect your heart health and cognition and reduce inflammation, cutting your risk for arthritis, cancer, stroke, dementia, depression and diabetes.

If you’re worried about toxins like mercury in fish, the Food and Drug Administration says don’t eat king mackerel, marlin, orange roughy, shark, swordfish, tilefish from the Gulf of Mexico or bigeye tuna. This applies especially to kids and pregnant or breastfeeding women. If you’re dining on fish caught in inland waters, consult local advisories about how much is safe to eat. If no advice is available, stick to 6 ounces or less of that local fish weekly -- and eat no other fish during that week.

As for enjoying salmon and other swimmers that are loaded with DHA omega-3s, the risks are small and the benefits enormous. An analysis in the Journal of the American Medical Association calculated that if 100,000 people ate farmed salmon twice a week for 70 years, the extra polychlorinated biphenyls intake could potentially cause 24 extra deaths from cancer -- but would prevent at least 7,000 deaths from heart disease. Also, the levels of chemicals such as PCBS in fish are similar to levels in heart-damaging foods many folks eat all the time -- meats, dairy products, and eggs. So enjoy fish -- it’ll complement your health!