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The research, reported at the conference, suggests that daily doses of oils containing omega 3 fatty acids can help overweight people lose weight, as long as they also do some regular exercise such as walking.
The Australian trial lasted 12 weeks and involved 68 overweight adults half of whom were given fish oil and half sunflower oil which does not contain omega 3.
The groups were then split into exercise and non-exercise groups with the exercise groups having to walk or run for 45 minutes three times a week. At the end of the 3 month period the fish oil + exercise group lost an average of 4.5lbs but neither of the sunflower groups nor the fish oil group that did not exercise lost any weight.
Another presentation highlighted a South African study which tracked the development of 355 children aged 6-9 years old. Half of the children were given 25g of an omega 3 enriched spread daily. The spread was flavoured with chicken, curry or tomato sauce and spread onto two slices of bread.
Results showed that children given the spread showed improvements in verbal learning, memory and spelling ability.
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