A critical review on the health benefits of fish consumption and its bioactive constituents

• Published in: Food chemistry 2022-02, Vol.369, p.130874-130874, Article 130874
• Main Authors: Chen, Jiali, Jayachandran, Muthukumaran, Bai, Weibin, Xu, Baojun
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Anti-inflammation; Antioxidant; Cardioprotection; Fish; Neuroprotective; Nuclear factor kappa B pathway
• ISSN: 0308-8146; 1873-7072
• DOI: 10.1016/j.foodchem.2021.130874

•Fish consumption exhibits numerous health benefits.•Fish oil, peptide, and hydrolysates contribute to the health benefits of fish consumption.•Fish oils protects blood vessels from atherosclerotic lesions.•The intake of fish protects liver from acute hepatitis, chronic hepatitis, and cholestasis.•Essential vitamins and various fatty acids make fish the right nutrition for better health. As one of food sources, fish provides sufficient nutrition to human. Diverse nutrients in fish make fish an important nutrient source available easily across the globe. Fish is proven to possess several health benefits, such as anti-oxidation, anti-inflammation, wound healing, neuroprotection, cardioprotection, and hepatoprotection properties. Fish proteins, such as immunoglobins, act as defense agents against viral and bacterial infections and prevent protein-calorie malnutrition. Besides, fish oil constituents, such as polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs), regulate various signaling pathways, such as nuclear factor kappa B pathway, Toll-like receptor pathway, transforming growth factor-β (TGF-β) pathway, and peroxisome proliferators activated receptor (PPAR) pathways. In this review, the literature about health benefits of fish consumption are accumulated from PubMed, Google Scholar, Scopus, and the mechanistic action of health benefits are summarized. Fish consumption at least twice per week as part of a healthy diet is beneficial for a healthy heart. More advances in this field could pose fish as a major nutrients source of foods.