Fish Oil may prevent severe mental illness | Hacker News Reader

Fish Oil may prevent severe mental illness

online.wsj.com

57 pointscwan27 comments

This is completely subjective from my own experience, but it seems whenever I've tried taking fish oil supplements before, on more than one occasion I've felt kind of depressed and lethargic after a few days of taking them so I stop, then everything's back to normal. It's happened enough to suspect a pattern.

I'll stick with natural sources for these oils. Eggs, walnuts, etc. no problem, I eat lots of foods with omega-3s. Maybe there is something unnatural about swallowing a big concentrated dose of the stuff?

I don't really care to repeat the experiment to find out...

"according to a preliminary study of 81 patients in Austria."

Keep in mind that it is not rare that findings made at the preliminary stage don't hold up when more rigorous studies are undertaken.

There was a total of 81 patients in this trial. What is the statistical significance of the finding?

If you have a statistics background, it's pretty easy to tell that it's significant given the numbers (2 of 41 in the fish oil group and 11 of 40 in the placebo).

The exact p-value is in the paper (0.007), or very significant. It's often difficult to get those kind of p-values in real world settings:

http://archpsyc.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/abstract/67/2/146?l...

Wow. That's almost unbelievably significant for a study of a damn nutritional supplement. If this is replicable, let's hope this leads to new, more effective treatments for mental illness.

Thank you for that. I don't have a statistics background, so I was a bit unsure of how seriously I should take the findings given that it was described as "preliminary."

Good question, but statistical significance is not the only issue to look at in a research study, as Peter Norvig of Google reminds us.

http://norvig.com/experiment-design.html

Disclaimer: I am already convinced about fish oil (in the first instance for cardiovascular preventive use) and take it daily.

Here's a well-cited overview of the role n-3s (EPA & DHA) in brain development, among other things: http://www.lef.org/LEFCMS/aspx/PrintVersionMagic.aspx?CmsID=...

Overwhelming evidence for the benefits of DHA comes from a recent review of some 50 studies, which concluded that higher DHA in babies’ diets translates into better brain function, especially for cognitive and visual function.23 Further evidence that DHA may promote healthy nervous system development comes from a recent study in which researchers divided 53 normal, healthy infants into those exclusively breast-fed and those exclusively bottle-fed with a formula containing no DHA. Using assessments of visual, auditory, and sensory perception, they found definite abnormalities in all three tests in the bottle-fed babies at one year of age.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/16/opinion/16greenberg.html

tl;dr: menhaden is an awesome fish the ecosystem depends on and it's about to go extinct because of stupid studies about fish oil.

Flaxseed oil is not necessarily an alternative.

Fish oil contains EPA and DHA type omega-3 acids and flaxseed (and walnuts and hemp seed) contain ALA, which the body converts to EPA and DHA, but inefficiently.

Source: http://www.supplementquality.com/efficacy/fishoil_flaxoil.ht...

What the hell. Even if there isn't a viable alternative you shouldn't support fish oil if it's at the cost of the environment.

Everything humans do will somehow take a toll on the environment. So unless we all go kill ourselves, we're going to affect our environment one way or another. We can instead be responsible and make sure we don't strain a specific resource, and be educated consumers (it might just happen). So a solution would be to find alternative fishes and balance it out, cut out other fish oil uses.

That being said the article stated that fish oil is only one of the many things contributing to this. I think we could cut out lipstick before we cut out treating mental illnesses.

But there are plant sources of DHA and (some) EPA. Fish do not make it out of thin air, they get it from eating algae.

Fish oil is also recommended for ADHD, though I can't get myself to take them regularly yet so I can't testify to its effectiveness.

I heard this too and I've seen it 'working' in a few children before. However, I know of those children, getting them to take a pill daily and following a routine without outside intervention from a parent was 90% of the battle anyway. So from observation, I can't really say what worked more, the pill or getting the child to take it.

... as long as you're not taking the kind that has mercury in it.

Walnuts and flax seed are another source of omega3.

True, but it's not in the form that is easily digested by the body.

Here is a list of the companies that are at least self-reported to meet various safety standards:

http://www.edf.org/page.cfm?tagID=16536

Almost all of the fish oil you can buy actually comes from 1 company and have been tested for mercury (by ConsumerLab.com and Consumer Reports):

http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2004-12-15-fish-oil-usat...

None of the major brands had significant amounts of mercury.

I'd just get the cheapest kind, given that it's likely from the same company.

This was already posted, but it bears repeating (so sayeth me): that one company is singlehandedly destroying an entire ecosystem on the Atlantic seaboard: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/16/opinion/16greenberg.html

I don't care what the benefits are, there is no excuse for such behavior in this day and age.

My fish oil is Costco brand and it says it contains anchovy, bonito, and sardines. It also says it's made from wild deep sea fish. I think I've also tried liquid cod liver oil and supposedly these were cheaper than the pills. In fact I haven't even seen a brand of fish oil with menhaden.

If you haven't already, check and make sure it's not also full of hydrogenated oils as filler. I once saw such a fish oil supplement at Costco advertised as "full of heart healthy omega 3s."

The Costco (Kirkland) brand that I have lists Fish Oil Concentrate, Gelatin, Glycerin, Glycerol, d-Sorbitol, and Natural Tocopherols as ingredients.

These are the Costco store brand.

FYI: For a very expensive, but pristine fish oil (actually from green lipped mussels in New Zealand): http://moxxor.com/

(I'm an investor)

I know the Moxxor guys - Noel Turner is an incredible entrepreneur story - recently started taking the product how have you found it vs. fish oil?

Indeed. I didn't notice much change myself, but I already get a healthful portion of omega3s and antioxidants from my food. My parents had reduced joint pain/inflammation.

"Business Opportunity through MLM Home Based Company"

Wow, kudos there for managing to instantly lose my trust just reading the title of the page ..

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