Editorial: No need to panic

Friday, Oct. 20, 2006 | 8 a.m.

A ccording to several recently released studies, the good news is that, despite fears of potential mercury contamination, fish is still good for you and helps lower the risk of heart disease.

The bad news, however, is that for fish to be beneficial you have to eat it twice a week .

According to a recent story by The Washington Post, the Journal of the American Medical Association says that heart disease death rates among adults who consume fish at least twice a week were 36 percent lower than that of adults who ate little or no fish. A Harvard School of Public Health study found that overall death rates were 17 percent lower among those who consume fish.

And a federal Institute of Medicine report says that the overall benefits of eating fish outweighed any potential health risks and that infants also can benefit from the omega-3 fatty acids found in seafood, the Post reports.

The federal report still recommended that women who are pregnant or nursing and that children 12 or younger avoid eating shark, swordfish, king mackerel and tilefish and limit to 6 ounces weekly the amount of white tuna they eat because of possible mercury contamination. But they can eat up to 12 ounces of other seafood weekly.

We are up to our gills in research about what we eat. At least for now, it seems, nothing is fishy about our seafood.

So eat up.