Research on omega-3 status and healthy aging

Aleix Sala-Vila, PhD is an associate scientist at the Fatty Acid Research Institute (FARI) and research fellow at Hospital del Mar Research Institute–cardiovascular risk and nutrition group, Barcelona, Spain.

In this interview, Sala-Vila explains research on a diet supplemented with walnuts on leukocyte telomere length, a biomarker of aging.

For an in-depth examination of more of Sala-Vila’s research, read more on a longitudinal study linking omega-3 levels and risk of early-onset dementia.

Transcript

Erin McEvoy: What has your research found on the relationship between objective omega-3 status and longevity?

Aleix Sala-Vila: I do like work with biomarkers, because, I think that it's much better than doing research based on self-reported data. However, I also have papers using self-reported data. So in some cases, we don't have this type of samples, or we don't have samples, or what, this happens. So when possible, as you know, working with biomarkers is a much better option.

So in terms of longevity, I haven't done that much, except for data on leukocyte telomere length, which, as you know, is a biomarker of, I would say, healthy aging, or biomarker of aging. So I don't have real data on longevity, but I have some data on changing telomere length. I used data and samples from the WAHA, which is the Walnuts and Healthy Aging study. It was mostly people from 63 to 79 years randomized to follow a walnut-free diet or supplementation of walnuts every day for two years. So the main outcome was changes in cognition, changes in eye health. But also we took the advantage of having plenty of samples and all this kind of material that is extremely valuable. So in terms of leukocytes, we observed that high levels of arachidonic acid, not DHA, not EPA, not ALA, but arachidonic acid showed high, well, showed a direct, sorry, an inverse association with telomere length at baseline. This was a perceptional analysis. And in addition, we observed that participants following this diet, supplemented with walnuts, were the ones with lower attrition in telomere length as compared to control participants, so participants following the regular diet without walnuts for three years.