Question:
If you disagree with the post, didn't you mean to say, 'why don't you *stop*
taking massive doses of Ex-Lax, so we don't have to read more of your
posts?' Though I dunno about omega-3 FAs. Any reason you're against them?
Answer:
Go to the health food store and buy a bottle of refrigerated unencapsulated
flax seed oil and take two table spoons full a day on an empty stomach. Also
buy a bottle of DHA and take 5 capsules a day. No need to take toxic
Depakote or Lithium or antidepressants when taking Omega 3 fatty acids.
Omega 3 fatty acids are what your starving brain is crying out for. Omega 3
is a nutritional requirement that is being denied in the Western diet
because cooking oils refine this important fat out because it spoils easily. Omega 3 fatty acids in bipolar disorder: a preliminary double-blind,
placebo-controlled trial.
Stoll AL, Severus WE, Freeman MP, Rueter S, Zboyan HA, Diamond E, Cress KK,
Marangell LB.
Brigham and Women's Hospital, Department of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical
School, Boston, Mass, USA. alst...@mclean.harvard.edu
BACKGROUND: Omega3 fatty acids may inhibit neuronal signal transduction
pathways in a manner similar to that of lithium carbonate and valproate, 2
effective treatments for bipolar disorder. The present study was performed
to examine whether omega3 fatty acids also exhibit mood-stabilizing
properties in bipolar disorder. METHODS: A 4-month, double-blind,
placebo-controlled study, comparing omega3 fatty acids (9.6 g/d) vs placebo
(olive oil), in addition to usual treatment, in 30 patients with bipolar
disorder. RESULTS: A Kaplan-Meier survival analysis of the cohort found that
the omega3 fatty acid patient group had a significantly longer period of
remission than the placebo group (P = .002; Mantel-Cox). In addition, for
nearly every other outcome measure, the omega3 fatty acid group performed
better than the placebo group. CONCLUSION: Omega3 fatty acids were well
tolerated and improved the short-term course of illness in this preliminary
study of patients with bipolar disorder. I think you're a good guy. Maybe a little letting down of your hair
would be good. I'll send SAS and Relic along to help. There's a large amount of circumstantial evidence linking omega-3 deficiency
in neuronal membranes and severity of the symptoms of mood disorders. Dr.
Stoll did a preliminary study (1999?) that gave excellent results for
omega-3 augmentation. A much larger, multi-center study is currently under
way. It took a while for him to obtain funding, since food doesn't often get
used as a treatment in conventional medicine. Gladly. The first is the Stoll study. I've seen the complete text on the
net, but I don't remember where. With the title, I'm sure it would be easy
enough to find. The others are just from a very quick search on the subject. Depression is associated with elevated rates of cardiovascular morbidity and
mortality. This elevation seems to be due to a significantly increased risk
of coronary artery disease and myocardial infarction and, once the ischemic
heart disease is established, sudden cardiac death. Recent data suggest that
the increased rates of cardiovascular disease in patients with depression
may be the result of one or more still-unrecognized underlying physiological
factors that predispose a patient to both depression and cardiovascular
disease. Two possibly related factors that may have a causal relation with
both depressive disorders and cardiovascular disease are an omega-3 fatty
acid deficiency and elevated homocysteine levels. We present the available
data connecting cardiovascular disease, depression, omega-3 fatty acids, and
homocysteine. In addition, we suggest research strategies and some
preliminary treatment recommendations that may reduce the increased risk of
cardiovascular mortality in patients with major depressive disorder.
