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...
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:
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."
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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."
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.
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...