Zurich, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – A group of researchers from Australia, Austria and Switzerland have published results of clinical trials which show that fish oil may be a safe and useful preventive treatment for “a range of psychotic conditions, including schizophrenia.”
A far lower proportion of those who took fish oil went on to have psychotic episodes than in the placebo group.
The study was carried out on 81 patients aged 13 to 25 in the psychosis detection unit at a large public hospital in Vienna, Austria. They were “at ultra-high risk”, with”sub-threshold” psychotic states.
The results of the three-year trials, from 2004 to 2007, indicate that long-chain {omega}-3 (omega-3) polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs), already known to help keep hearts healthy, provide an alternative to anti-psychotic medications, which often have significant side effects.
Their work is published in the February issue of the Archives of General Psychiatry.
Dr Gregor Berger of the Schloessli Clinic, Oetwil am See, southeast of Zurich, participated in the study, which was led by Dr Paul Amminger at the University of Melbourne in Australia.
This work by genevalunch.com is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported.
News story, GenevaLunch, 2 February 2010.
Filed under: Health
Tags: Archives of General Psychiatry, fish oil, Gregor Berger, Omega 3, psychotic state, research, schizophrenia, Schloessli Clinic, Zurich