By Steve Sternberg
USA TODAY

CHICAGO — People with heart disease can lower their risk of a fatal heart attack with a daily helping of salmon or another fatty fish or by taking a daily fish oil supplement, doctors recommend today.

The American Heart Association’s recommendations, released at its annual meeting here, represent the first time the group has backed the use of a food supplement to sustain the heart. Studies now suggest that components of fish oil, called omega-3 fatty acids, can save the lives of people with heart disease.

“We have evidence that, if heart patients consume about one gram a day, they have much better survival rates and fewer heart attacks,” says Penny Kris-Etherton of Pennsylvania State University and lead author of the AHA statement. “Some people can’t eat fish, won’t eat fish or live in places where they can’t get fish,” she says. “Those people should consider a supplement in consultation with a physician.”

The AHA also cited recent research indicating that even people with healthy hearts can benefit from a diet rich in such fish as salmon, bluefish, Arctic char, mackerel and swordfish. A study of 22,071 doctors, called the Physicians’ Health Study, suggests that fish can reduce a man’s risk of dying from a heart attack by 80 percent. A sister study, called the Nurses’ Health Study, found that omega-3 fatty acids can cut a woman’s risk of death by 33 percent.

Fatty fish can contain significant levels of mercury, which pose no risk to most adults who eat a balanced diet, but the government advises some women to take precautions. Women who are or may become pregnant should avoid eating more than six ounces of sport-caught fish a week. Pregnant or nursing women, and young children, should rid shark, swordfish, king mackerel and golden snapper from their diets.

“I hope people don’t become confused - those rules are mainly for protecting fetuses,” says Bill Harris, a professor of medicine at the University of Missouri in Kansas City. “I hope people don’t think we’re putting 60-year-old people at risk of mercury intoxication.”

In other findings at the meeting:

— Obesity doubles heart-disease risk in brothers and sisters of people with early heart disease, especially if they gained 20 pounds or more in less than a decade. The Johns Hopkins University study, out Monday, involved 539 siblings of people who suffered heart attacks or died of heart disease.

— Even the elderly can benefit from cholesterol-lowering drugs. A study of 6,000 people ages 70 to 82 found that treatment with the drug pravastatin cut heart disease deaths 25 percent, said Jim Shepard of the University of Glasgow.