If you were to search this blog you would notice that I have written extensively about mood, depression, mental health and the brain.  This area of nutrition excites and intrigues me greatly and I have specifically researched it and kept up to date with it, for over eight years now.  A key factor for mental health appears to be omega 3 fatty acids, specifically the long chain forms EPA and DHA (eicosapentaenoic acid and docosahexaenoic acid) found in oily fish.

A professor that lectured me during my MSc (Nutritional Medicine) course back in 2001, Professor Basant Puri wrote a fabulous book that was published in 2005 entitled “The natural way to beat depression: the groundbreaking discovery of EPA to successfully conquer depression”  it details how the long chain omega 3 fatty acid, EPA can be used, in conjunction with other therapeutic techniques, to successfully treat depression.  At the time of publication Professor Puri had a 100% success rate of treating individuals with depression who had been unresponsive to other treatment.  An amazing statistic.  He has also written about the usefulness of omega 3 fats in the treatment of ADHD and chronic fatigue syndrome and was the first recorded person to use omega 3 fats to treat a depressive patient.

Today I wanted to look briefly at a few recent studies that have shown how useful long chain omega 3 fatty acids can be in the treatment of mood disorders.

Firstly (1) a study this year found that dietary intakes of fish and long-chain omega-3 fatty acids may be associated with a reduced risk of chronic depressive symptoms, especially in women.  The authors assessed the associations between fish consumption and dietary intakes of EPA and DHA with depressive symptoms in a population-based sample of 3317 men and women.  As a whole (in men and women together), the highest intakes of EPA, DHA, and EPA + DHA were associated with a lower risk of depressive symptoms after 10 years, with the observed associations being more pronounced in women.  This is an interesting association (but does not prove cause and effect) which adds to the building evidence base.

A review of 3 studies (2) found that omega-3 fatty acids were shown to be more effective than placebo for depression in both adults and children and in a study of bipolar depression. No significant side effects were reported in any of the studies.

Another study (3) looked specifically at psychological distress and depressive symptoms, which commonly occur in women during menopausal transition.  The authors of the study wanted to see whether treatment with EPA, compared to inactive placebo, was helpful to women with moderate to severe psychological distress.  This was the first study to look at omega 3 supplementation in the treatment of psychological distress in middle-aged women and it found that EPA was significantly more helpful than placebo to women with psychological distress symptoms (without major depressive episodes) after just 8 weeks of supplementation.

 

The evidence that depression is associated with abnormalities in fatty acid metabolism and deficiencies in omega 3 dietary fatty acid intake is accumulating and cannot be ignored.  The key important fatty acids are EPA and DHA, found in oily fish (e.g. salmon and mackerel).  If you do not regularly eat oily fish, such as salmon, trout, mackerel and sardines you may wish to seriously consider taking a daily fish oil supplement.  For vegetarians and vegans a flaxseed oil supplement could be considered. Also, there are now a couple of companies who make vegetarian and vegan EPA and DHA from algal sources, a very exciting development and well worth investigating if you wish to take an omega 3 supplement.

Some very interesting links concentrating on nutrition and mental health:

Mental health foundation, food and mental health campaign

Food and behaviour research

Food for the brain

(1)Colangelo LA et al.  2009.  Higher dietary intake of long-chain omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids is inversely associated with depressive symptoms in women. Nutrition. 25(10):1011-9.
(2)Osher Y, Belmaker RH.  2009.  Omega-3 fatty acids in depression: a review of three studies. CNS Neurosci Ther. Summer;15(2):128-33.
(3) Lucas M et al.  2009.  Ethyl-eicosapentaenoic acid for the treatment of psychological distress and depressive symptoms in middle-aged women: a double-blind, placebo-controlled, randomized clinical trial. Am J Clin Nutr. 89(2):641-51.
Written by Ani Kowal

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