Eating tuna and other fatty fish may help prevent memory loss in addition to reducing the risk of stroke, Finnish researchers said yesterday.

People who ate baked or broiled - but not fried - fish high in omega-3 fatty acids have been found to be less likely to have "silent" brain lesions that can cause memory loss and dementia and are linked to a higher risk of stroke, said Jyrki Virtanen of the University of Kuopio in Finland.

"Previous findings have shown that fish and fish oil can help prevent stroke, but this is one of the only studies that looks at fish's effect on silent brain (lesions) in healthy, older people,", Virtanen, who led the study, said in a statement.