Good to know, thanks. Years ago my friend who worked at a nationally renowned holistic health clinic shared an article that said schizophrenia was gut-related… backed by supporting data of course. Will have to dig into my archives to see if I can find that one.
So I’m not surprised to learn about the importance of Omega-3 / fatty acids… and delighted to see progress of any kind when it comes to early detection as well. If only it were that simple post-diagnosis.
She also sent articles/studies that indicated that mental illness could also be the result of trauma during childhood. It could also be the air we breathe… it could be so many things… who knows for sure?
My son developed sz in his late teens. There is a genetic family link, but he and his friend both became ill similar time and were both top sports men, at county/national level and did way too many sports. I think maybe the immune system was compromised, not enough of the right foods( eg omegas). Just an instinctive feeling.
For what it’s worth, this is just my very unscientific observation of people I know who also have mild forms of schizophrenia (they are all high functioning schizophrenics)-- we all eat salmon on a regular basis. I don’t personally believe the fish oil pills do much. I think it needs to be in the form of real fish for it to do much good. It should also be noted that we were all in families which regularly ate fish before being diagnosed, so my guess is that it helped to reduce the amount of damage the disease did to our brains. I have no idea if it would help much for people who have already had significant damage from the disease.
Quote from the above research: "The probability model developed by Dr Clark and colleagues takes into account the critical role of fatty acids as well as mental health assessments.
“Fatty acids such as omega-3 and nervonic acid are critical for the normal functioning of the brain, and low levels have been associated with the development of psychosis in high-risk groups,” Dr Clark says.
“In our model, fatty acid levels provided improved accuracy of prediction when patients were at intermediate risk following clinical assessment.”