Fish oil linked to helping depression
Depression, it is widely believed, looks set to become the second biggest burden on the health service by the year 2020, but scientists claim high quality fish oils might just be the natural answer to treating even the severest cases.
The key to the treatment is elcosapentaenoic acid (EPA), an Omega-3 fatty acid. Brain scans reveal that this helps regenerate the brain, and it is also thought to stimulate stem cells into producing new nerve cells.
Dr Basant Puri, a consultant psychiatrist and senior lecturer at London’s Imperial College MRI unit, firmly believes that EPA can help transform everyone’s lives because, whether people are depressed or not, it greatly improves overall brain performance and also helps reduce people’s risk of heart attacks, strokes and deep vein thrombosis.
This amazing discovery is the result of a body of research compiled by an international group of medical scientists over the last two years. The research suggests that a lack of EPA in our daily diet may actually be a significant cause of depression.
Dr Puri prescribes high quality EPA supplements to depressed patients at his Hammersmith Hospital Clinic in London, and all, it appears, are responding well.
“Studies show that this nutrient, found in high quality fish oil, can clear the symptoms of depression within three or four weeks, and then the patient can ward off any further attacks just by taking a daily supplement,” he says.
Dr Puri initially discovered EPA when he was studying nutrition as part of his medical course. He began to wonder why nature caused us to have EPA and exactly what its function was in life.
Later, as a psychiatrist and brain imager, he was able to see first hand the benefits of EPA supplementation and began to challenge current thinking about the brain’s biochemistry.
“In man’s early days when our brains were still developing there was a lot more fish in our diet,” the doctor explains.
“The trouble today is that many things we eat, along with stress and nicotine, inhibit the body’s own ability to produce it.”
Dr Puri first used EPA to treat a 21-year-old man who had been suffering from depression for some seven years. Just nine months after taking the supplement the young man had recovered his old demeanour. He was planning to study in the US and had actually set up his own business.
Comparing the young man’s brain scan with one taken prior to his treatment, Dr Puri was amazed to find indications that there had been regrowth of the brain.
Brain imaging shows low levels of electrical activity in a depressed person’s brain and a reduction in grey matter - the cerebral cortex.
The young man’s later scan showed that not only had his nerve cells regenerated, his grey matter had also started to thicken.
“This led me to believe that EPA can stimulate stem cells in the brain to produce new nerve cells, which offers hope for a wide variety of conditions,” says Dr Puri.
The richest source of Omega-3 fatty acid is oily fish - fresh salmon, tuna, mackerel, pilchards and sardines. But for the quantities of EPA needed to treat depression patients must take supplements. And it is perfectly safe to take EPA supplements alongside anti-depressants. But because of its blood-thinning properties, people taking warfarin or having heparin injections should consult their GP first.
“I don’t advise people to come off anti-depressants immediately - if they stop taking them suddenly they may suffer severe side effects,” says Dr Puri.
Of the high quality EPA supplements available, Dr Puri favours VegEPA because it contains a higher ratio of EPA to DHA, another Omega-3 fatty acid, and it has been found that a higher DHA content does not produce as effective a result.
For mild to moderate depression he advises a dose of two 280mg capsules twice a day with food. Patients with severe depression need to consult a specialist and take a much higher dose, together with folic acid, zinc and selenium for at least three months.
When the symptoms have disappeared, he advises patients to stay on a maintenance dose of at least two capsules a day.
“There are so many other benefits too,” adds Dr Puri.
“Your skin starts to look younger, the condition of your hair improves, and your nails get stronger too.”
And Dr Puri certainly practises what he preaches. He takes four capsules a day himself, saying: “Maybe I am just over cautious.”
SOURCE: Yahoo! HealthÂ