Mental Health And Omega 3

Recent studies suggest that increasing the intake of omega 3 fatty acids, as found in cold water fish, walnuts, flaxseed oil and other nutrients, may improve the symptoms of certain psychiatric illnesses, such as depression, bipolar disorder, and schizophrenia.

The diet of western civilization has changed significantly over the last 50 - 100 years, which lead to a significant increase of omega 6 fatty acids (from fast food and highly processed foods) and decrease of healthy omega 3's. This could be one of the causes for the increased rate of depression and other chronic diseases.

This conclusion is also supported by the fact that in countries with a high fish consumption, like Taiwan and Japan, depression rates are much lower.

Another reason that supports the hypothesis that depression is related to our intake of omega-3s is to look at differences in depression across time, especially in the past century. Depression has significantly increased over the past century depending.

If you were born before 1914, your likelihood of being depressed by the age of 35 is about 100-times lower than as if you were born after 1945. 100 years ago, the world was still a much more rural community and our diet was much closer to our paleolithic diet, which means, omega 3 consumption was considerably higher and omega 6 intake was much lower than today.

The two most important forms of omega 3 fatty acids are eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA), and decosahexaenoic acid (DHA). Especially DHA is highly concentrated in the brain and cell membranes.

The richest source of omega 3 fatty acids is cold water fish, such as salmon, mackerel and herring. Because of the numerous health benefits of omega 3's, fish should be an essential part of your diet - the AHA recommends eating fish 2 - 3 times a week.

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