by Ioannis Zabetakis
First published in International Aquafeed, March-April 2016
There are an increasing number of papers and reports suggesting that the nutritional value of whole fish is higher than the one of fish oil extracts. This is a rather interesting area for aquaculture and pharmaceutical industries, since many neutraceutical and pharmaceutical products, claiming that they are good sources of Omega-3 and Omega-6 fatty acids, are in fact extracts. Are these products really efficient in protecting us against the onset of cardiovascular diseases (CVDs)?
Given that “theory guides, experiment decides”, we decided to compare head to head a whole fish to an oil extract. We chose sardines and cod liver oil. So the aim of our study was to compare the biological activities of polar lipids of sardine fillets and cod liver oil against atherogenesis.
The total polar lipids of these two sources were extracted and fractionated by TLC and these fractions were assessed for their ability to inhibit the platelet-activating-factor (PAF)-induced platelet aggregation (PAF-antagonists) or to induce platelet aggregation (PAF-agonists), since PAF plays a crucial role in the initiation and development of atherosclerosis.
We chose to focus on the polar lipids since previous studies have underlined that the antithrombotic properties of foodstuffs are mainly attributed to polar lipid micro-constituents.
We found that sardine fillet polar lipids induced platelet aggregation, while the polar lipids of cod liver oil had a bimodal effect on platelets. Overall, sardine polar lipid fractions showed stronger in vitro antithrombotic activities than the cod liver oil ones. It could be thus suggested that for the prevention of CVDs, the nutritional value of whole sardines is rather higher than the one of cod liver oil.
First published in International Aquafeed, March-April 2016
There are an increasing number of papers and reports suggesting that the nutritional value of whole fish is higher than the one of fish oil extracts. This is a rather interesting area for aquaculture and pharmaceutical industries, since many neutraceutical and pharmaceutical products, claiming that they are good sources of Omega-3 and Omega-6 fatty acids, are in fact extracts. Are these products really efficient in protecting us against the onset of cardiovascular diseases (CVDs)?
 |
| Image: Gloria Cabada-Leman |
The total polar lipids of these two sources were extracted and fractionated by TLC and these fractions were assessed for their ability to inhibit the platelet-activating-factor (PAF)-induced platelet aggregation (PAF-antagonists) or to induce platelet aggregation (PAF-agonists), since PAF plays a crucial role in the initiation and development of atherosclerosis.
We chose to focus on the polar lipids since previous studies have underlined that the antithrombotic properties of foodstuffs are mainly attributed to polar lipid micro-constituents.
We found that sardine fillet polar lipids induced platelet aggregation, while the polar lipids of cod liver oil had a bimodal effect on platelets. Overall, sardine polar lipid fractions showed stronger in vitro antithrombotic activities than the cod liver oil ones. It could be thus suggested that for the prevention of CVDs, the nutritional value of whole sardines is rather higher than the one of cod liver oil.
 |
| Image: Neil Tackaberry |
We would suggest that the extraction and purification industrial processes should be re-evaluated with the view to obtain a final extract richer in polar lipids.
ioannis.zabetakis@ul.ie
@yanzabet
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