Take Omega 3 Oils for Depression? Probably yes….

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Today's post: Thursday, 4-5-2007

Take Omega 3 Oils for Depression? Probably yes….

In recent news I read that a study found some people taking omega 3 oils or omega 3 supplements was not as effective as other studies have found.

In some people, depression is caused by actual brain damage & in others by a temporary reaction to severe stress. So, for some such people, taking omega 3’s might well be less effective than other measures.

And, there are other cases of depression with causes that omega 3’s may not help.

There is evidence that regular exercise helps most people who are depressed & is often as effective as taking antidepressants. And, it is often effective in as little as one or two weeks. Antidepressant drugs often must be taken for several weeks to see if they work for a particular person. Then sometimes they work well. Sometimes they have bad side effects. And sometimes they don’t work at all. Plus they cost a good bit of money.

Cognitive therapy, which helps people shut down the thoughts that lead to depression & learn & practice the thoughts that make it very rare or turn it off can work very well.

(See the books Learned Optimism by Martin Seligman, PhD & The Adversity Quotient by Paul Stoltz, PhD for more information. Dr Seligman is the discoverer of the technique; & Dr Stoltz has improved it & easier to learn.)

So, unless the depression is quite severe or the person is already doing regular exercise for over three weeks without enough effect, it would seem prudent to me to try exercise & cognitive therapy first for depression.

Here’s why I also think adding omega 3 containing foods like sardines, wild caught salmon, & oysters AND supplements of DHA, Omega 3 supplements from purified fish oils or purified Cod Liver Oil also is probably a prudent & beneficial thing to do.:

Some people HAVE experienced improvements in their depression in a few days. So it certainly is worth trying. Only the best done cognitive therapy works that fast.

But more importantly, there is now abundant evidence with increasing coverage in many media, that the diet of most people in the U.S. is severely lacking in omega 3 oils & has quite excessive amounts of omega 6 oils. And, people who increase their intake of omega 3 oils often experience a multitude of health benefits.

(So also limiting consumption of grain fed beef & pork: & eating no refined grains; & a eating modest amount or less of whole grains might well also help depression. And, doing so has many other health benefits – including making it easier to lose excess bodyfat.)

So, even if adding omega 3’s & reducing omega 6’s fail to help your depression, or of another person who is depressed, & do it quickly, doing so will definitely improve health –
for you or for them.

And, in addition to that, adding omega 3’s & reducing omega 6’s may combat depression quite well in almost everyone if it’s continued long enough.

Here’s why.

People with adequate omega 3’s think better & may more easily grow new brain cells.

(Recent studies found children with adequate omega 3’s DID grow new brain cells & do much better in school than children who did not have adequate omega 3’s. And, we are increasingly finding that what works to improve young brains also works in adults – even elderly ones. So my bet is that adults with adequate omega 3 intake also grow new brain cells better or maybe at all compared with adults who don’t. And regular exercise has been recently shown to grow new brain cells – in adults.)

So doing regular exercise & getting adequate omega 3’s long enough confers a real brain power advantage over people who do not, particularly if it’s done long enough.

This may be why studies of populations of people who eat a lot of omega 3’s from fish tend to show far less depression. They do it for a lifetime. So the process has time to do the job.

The other reason I think it’s wise to get adequate omega 3’s & restrict omega 6 oils is that it seems to sharply improve the ability of people to tolerate stress without getting cranky, irritable, nasty, in a rage, & violent.

There’s been a lot of research on this. And the evidence is very strong from what I’ve read. It works on children, jail inmates, Alzheimers patients, & adults.

Here’s how that prevents depression & very forcefully so.

People who have happy marriages & who relate well to their families; have a lot of friends; & who have good social support otherwise; & who almost never get into pointless quarrels, have dramatically better health.

They have as many as 20 times less heart attacks or more as people who have anger management problems & little social support. They tend to never get high blood pressure & almost never have blood pressure high enough to justify taking drugs for it.

And, they are almost never depressed.

Since getting adequate omega 3’s seems to make having such human relationships easier to do by helping people avoid nasty & emotionally hurtful behavior around other people & to avoid bad moods of an irritable nature in themselves, I think anyone who is depressed would be well advised to get adequate omega 3’s for the rest of their lives.

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It should be noted that getting more than adequate omega 3’s, particularly if combined with a high alcohol intake or some anti clotting or “blood thinning” drugs can cause excessive bleeding enough to be dangerous. And, some fish that are high in omega 3’s like King mackerel & to a lesser extent some tuna, are high enough in mercury to be a problem.

So the prudent course seems to be to do moderate supplementation with DHA & omega 3’s using algae derived DHA & purified fish oils -- & to eat foods like sardines, wild caught salmon, & oysters from unpolluted waters two to four times a week since they have dramatically less mercury or none but to not increase your supplements or foods beyond that.