Omega-3 enhanced pork – it's good eating
UniSA
researchers have been developing novel omega-3 rich pork products to
help Australian consumers meet the newly introduced target dietary
intakes for the omega-3 fatty acids known as EPA and DHA.
The results of this exciting research into new “functional foods”, which has been supported by an Australian Research Council Linkage grant in partnership with Bartlett Grain Pty Ltd and Australian Pork Ltd, were presented at a special symposium in Adelaide this month.
Project leader and Director of UniSA’s Nutritional Physiology Research Centre, Professor Peter Howe, says the findings represent a new milestone in functional food research.
“While public awareness of the potential health benefits of omega-3 has rapidly increased, there is still a poor understanding of how much and what sources of omega-3 are needed to deliver specific health benefits,” Professor Howe said.
“Many people are aware that fish is the primary food source of omega-3 fatty acids, particularly DHA, but Australian fish typically have relatively low levels, so people wanting to increase their omega-3 intake tend to supplement their diet with fish oil, which is usually higher in EPA than DHA.”
Professor Howe has been working with the food industry for more than a decade to develop alternative food sources of omega-3. Together with Bartlett Grain, he has shown that pork, poultry and eggs can be readily enriched with DHA by adding a specially prepared fishmeal component to livestock feeds.
For the first time, the Centre’s research team has demonstrated that these enriched products have the capacity to improve health outcomes.
Research student at the Centre, Stelios Sioutis, has conducted sensory evaluations and dietary trials with volunteers eating omega-3 enriched pork products regularly for up to three months, and has found a high level of acceptance of the new foods.
“What’s more, regular consumption resulted in an incorporation of the beneficial omega-3 fatty acids, particularly DHA, into red blood cells and an improvement in blood fat levels,” Sioutis reported.
The relationship between DHA in red blood cells and health outcomes is being closely examined by Dr Alison Coates, who has conducted human dietary trials with varying doses of DHA-rich tuna fish oil to determine how much DHA is needed to improve blood fats and then relate that amount to the increased incorporation of DHA in red blood cells.
“This will give us a DHA Index that can be used as a simple means of gauging the likely health benefit of consuming omega-3 enriched pork or other food sources of omega-3,” Dr Coates said.
Their research confirms that consuming DHA at the target omega-3 intake level recommended by the NHMRC can lower blood triglycerides (a bad fat) without raising cholesterol.
This is associated with a substantial increase the DHA Index. However, even small increases in the DHA Index, as seen with consumption of the enriched pork, were associated with reductions of triglycerides, confirming the potential usefulness of the DHA Index as a simple biomarker of health status.
The UniSA team is now extending its investigation to relate the DHA Index to a wider range of cardiovascular and anti-inflammatory health benefits.