Long chain polyunsaturated fatty acids (LC-PUFAs) can help improve intestinal damage and inflammation caused by ulcerative colitis, a chronic disease affecting the large intestine and rectum.
Writing in the January Journal of Nutrition, researchers from the University of Granada, Spain, said they had given rats with experimental ulcerative colitis a diet of either monounsaturated or LC-PUFAs in the form of olive oil, fish oil or animal-based phospholipids.
The two-week study showed that rats fed with fish oil showed significantly less macroscopic and microscopic colonic damage compared to the olive oil and phospholipid groups. These results suggest that a balanced diet containing omega-3 LC-PUFAs could reduce the inflammation and mucosal damage of ulcerative colitis, the authors said.