Definition: "An ergogenic aid is any substance or phenomenon that enhances performance "
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09.10.2015 |
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Fish oil protects for up to seven years against psychoses
Fish oil offers protection against psychoses, concluded psychiatrists at the Medical University of Vienna a couple of years ago after doing a small study in which they gave young people at risk fish-oil capsules for 12 weeks. In a follow-up study the researchers contacted their subjects after seven years – and discovered that the protective effect of the fish oil they'd given them was still present.
Study
Half of the subjects were given a placebo for a period of 12 weeks; the other half took 700 mg EPA and 480 mg DHA daily. The composition of fish oil supplements varies, but the dose the researchers used is approximately equivalent to 4 capsules containing 1 g fish oil per day.
Results
The curves in the figure below show how many of the subjects had remained free of psychotic episodes during the period after they had taken the supplements.
![]() The researchers used standardised questionnaires before and after they gave the subjects supplements: the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale questionnaire [PANSS] and the Montgomery-Asberg Depression Rating Scale questionnaire [MADRS] to assess the subjects' mental health. The lower the scores, the better your mental health.
The figure below shows that the subjects that had taken fish oil supplements still scored better than the subjects that had been given a placebo years after the supplementation had taken place.
In addition the researchers used the Global Assessment of Functioning questionnaire to assess how well the subjects functioned in everyday life. The higher the score, the better you're doing. As you can see in the figure above, the fish-oil group scored better than the placebo group even after years.
Mechanism
"Adolescent rats with an omega-3 PUFA-deficient diet had high levels of tyrosine hydroxylase, the enzyme responsible for catalysing the synthesis of dopamine in the dorsal striatum, essentially resembling the pattern of high dopamine activity", the researchers wrote.
"Individuals at ultrahigh risk for psychosis have high dorsal striatal dopamine levels, which correlate positively with transition to psychotic disorders. Omega-3 PUFAs may therefore reduce conversion in subjects at risk for psychosis by preventing the pathophysiological changes associated with the increase in striatal dopamine. This finding also implies that omega-3 PUFA supplementation may be specifically effective during adolescence."
Conclusion
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