Omega-3s: Part of the Solution to Reducing Suicide Risk & Brain Damage?

Military Study: Repairing Faulty Brains with…Fat?!
If you have a brick wall that gets damaged, what would you use to repair it? Bricks, right? It's a pretty logical question, but it's one that sparked an amazing inquiry into how the human brain responds to being repaired with the same stuff it's made of – omega-3 fatty acids.
Michael Lewis, MD, a retired colonel in the U.S. Army and Founder of the Brain Health Education and Research Institute recently gave a lecture in which he laid out the motivation behind his inquiry.
As a veteran who still works out at a military gym near Washington, D.C., Lewis is constantly surrounded by veterans who have undergone intense brain trauma and/or suffer from depression, PTSD, and other mental health disorders.
Lewis explained that the current aftercare for mental health issues and brain traumas alike is sadly minimal, especially when it comes to nutrition. He had a hunch that we haven't been tapping the right building blocks for recovery. Dr. Lewis wanted to see what he could glean from studying the omega-3 blood levels of military personnel.
Fast Facts: For optimal brain health, at least 50% of the fatty acid content in the blood should be composed of omega-3s, but 70% is the real number to shoot for.

Military Personnel Fall Extremely Short of Healthy Omega-3 Levels
22 veterans commit suicide every day. 1 active duty member commits suicide each day. Research has linked high omega-3 fatty acid consumption to healthy moods and brain function (among a list of other benefits).
U.S. military active duty personnel, on average, fall around 17%. That's because our modern American diet is much too high in omega-6 fatty acids (found in vegetable oils and animal feed) and much too low in omega-3 fatty acids (found in nuts, seeds, olive oil, and fish).

Military Suicides Highly Correlated with Low Omega-3 Levels
Lewis and his team looked at blood samples taken from 1,600 military individuals and measured their blood levels for omega-3 fatty acids. The samples were drawn 3-6 months before half of those individuals committed suicide.
What they discovered was shocking: 95% of the 800 samples from soldiers who later committed suicide had DHA levels below 2%! That represents a 62% increased risk of suicide in those with dramatically low blood levels of omega-3s.

Your Neurons Can't Communicate Without Omega-3s
Though his fellow veterans' struggled with mental health sparked Dr. Lewis' research, he says omega-3s have proven beneficial across the board in anecdotal cases for restoring brain function after traumas like concussions or car crashes, and all forms of age-related neurodegeneration.
Omega-3 fatty acids are essential for neurons to form synapses. Just look at the photo below – when the body is deficient in omega-3 fatty acids, synapse formation is weak and nearly detached.


Intravenous Omega-3s Reduce Damage After Spinal Cord Injury in Rats
Several animal model studies have shown that administering high-dose omega-3s immediately following a traumatic brain injury may provide neuroprotection and prevent further damage to the brain.
In one study, researchers surgically cut the spines of rats to stimulate a traumatic spinal cord injury. One hour after the injury, they administered high-dose omega-3 fatty acids through an IV. The photo below says it all: the DHA group not only exhibited less of an anatomic defect, but also scored higher in locomotive outcome measures.

Note: The group on the right was given inflammatory omega-6 fatty acids. As you can see, the outcome was profoundly worse, with more secondary damage than even the control group.


Optimal Omega-3 Levels Before Strokes Equate to Minimal Damage
We've been talking a lot about neuroprotection after a brain injury, but what if our blood levels of omega-3s are already at that optimal level when the trauma occurs?
One animal model study discovered that when subjects were given omega-3 fatty acids before an induced stroke, the damage was minimal compared to subjects who got no prior omega-3s. The image to the right shows the difference between the two groups. Dramatic, and impressive for a low-cost, low-risk option, don't you think?!


Dr. Lewis' Omega-3s Protocol for Head Injury & Prevention – Timing is Everything!
When it comes to treating traumatic brain injuries, the key is timing: the sooner intravenous omega-3 fatty acids are administered, the better.
Dr. Lewis also suggests that the dosing needs to be quite high in the event of a major brain trauma – about 15 ml twice a day. That's the equivalent of about 20,000mg EPA/DHA per day.
As for minimizing the effects of a minor trauma like a concussion or simply boosting blood levels to a healthy state, Dr. Lewis recommends 3,000mg of EPA/DHA fish oil three times daily for the first week, twice daily for the second week, and then once daily indefinitely to maintain healthy levels.
Supplementing the diet with omega-3s makes this type of nutritional intervention very attractive as a low-cost and highly-sustainanle maintenance plan for recovering from and also preventing brain-related injuries and mental health issues.
Note: Supplementation is likely to be safer than trying to get all of your omega-3 fatty acids by eating fish, since heavy metals get concentrated in fish flesh rather than fish oil
http://www.cellnutritionals.com/omega-3-suicide-brain-trauma/

WASHINGTON, DC — Diet impacts far more than waistlines and the risk of obesity.
In fact, the military has been paying close attention to not only the role of nutrition in maintaining physical health, but also how it relates to psychological health issues such as suicide and even TBI.
An IoM report released in April suggested that a high energy, high-protein diet received immediately after a severe TBI injury and through the first two weeks of treatment may benefit patients with these injuries. The findings were part of an IoM review of the potential role of nutrition in protecting against or treating the immediate and near-term effects of TBI. The report was done at the request of DoD, which asked the IoM to review the potential role that nutrition could play in providing resilience or treating TBI.
Now, in another recent study adding to the literature on nutrition, researchers found that low levels of highly unsaturated omega-3 essential fatty acids, in particular docosahexaenoic acid (DHA), may be associated with increased risk of suicide in servicemembers.
The retrospective study, conducted by researchers from the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences and the National Institute of Alcoholism and Alcohol Abuse in Bethesda, MD, sought to determine whether low levels of neuroactive, highly unsaturated omega-3 essential fatty acids (n-3 HUFAs), in particular DHA, were associated with increased risk of suicide death among active-duty U.S. military.
Suicide and Omega-3 fatty acids
For this study, researchers compared levels of omega-3 fatty acids of 800 troops who committed suicide with those of 800 randomly selected troops who were matched by age, sex and rank. While the researchers discovered that all of the troops had low omega-3 fatty acid levels, suicide risk was greatest among individuals with the lowest levels of DHA, the major omega-3 fatty acid concentrated in the brain.
“We were surprised at just how low the omega-3 [fatty acid] levels were in the blood of all 1,600 samples we checked,” said lead study author Army Col. Michael Lewis, MD, who conducted the study with the researchers while he was director of the Division of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, and assistant professor at the Uniformed Services University.
Lewis is currently at the Defense and Veterans Brain Injury Center (DVBIC), where he is the principal investigator for the congressionally-mandated Longitudinal Study on Traumatic Brain Injury in Iraq and Afghanistan veterans. In addition, he has been developing a research program focused on the use of nutritional therapy, omega-3 fatty acids, in particular, for the prevention and treatment of head and psychological trauma with the U.S. Army Military Research and Materiel Command, NIH and industry partners.
In the study when the population was stratified by levels, those with lower levels of omega-3s had a 62% increased risk for a documented suicide.
Still, Lewis said that, while the study shows a strong association between low omega-3 blood levels, in particular DHA, and active-duty military suicides, it does not prove causality. To understand if there is a true causal relationship, further research is needed, he said.
“Omega-3s are a potential tool for suicide prevention, not a cure,” he told U.S. Medicine. “Suicides are complex and multi-factoral.”
The study researchers concluded that evaluating “the efficacy of these levels of n-3 HUFAs in the primary prevention of suicide attempts, or as treatment following suicidal behaviors, merits consideration within the U.S. military.”
Low n-3 HUFA status is very likely due to a combination of several factors including “excess omega-6 linoleic-acid consumption and deficits in seafood consumption from the foods consumed at U.S. military dining facilities, available restaurants and choices made at home,” according to the study.
It is a diet deficiency that can be easily reversed, researchers said, suggesting ”low-cost dietary interventions that are likely to have multiple beneficial health effects. The American Psychiatric Association already recommends consumption of at least 1 gram per day of n-3 HUFAs for all patients with psychiatric disorders.”
How nutrition impacts mental health
Joseph R. Hibbeln, M.D., acting chief, Section of Nutritional Neurosciences, NIAAA who was an author on the study, pointed out in a written statement that the findings of the study add to the research on the role of DHA and other omega-3 fatty acids in protecting against mental health problems and suicide risk.
“For example, a previous placebo-controlled trial demonstrated that 2 grams of omega-3 fatty acids per day reduced suicidal thinking by 45% as well as depression and anxiety scores among individuals with recurrent self-harm. In a prior study, we found that low blood levels of DHA correlated with hyperactivity of brain regions in a pattern that closely resembles the pathology of major depression and suicide risk,” he wrote.
The military has taken steps to better understand what constitutes an optimal diet for troops.
“Fitness cannot be separated completely from nutrition,” then chairman of the joint chiefs of staff Adm. Mike Mullen, wrote in the August 2010 Supplement to Military Medicine, which was devoted to Total Force Fitness.
That issue of Military Medicine cited nutrition as one of the eight domains of Total Force Fitness identified by a group of scientists, health, community and social leaders who met in 2009 to determine how to evaluate and measure what is necessary to keep troops resilient.
An article in that issue also suggested that Omega-3s seem to be related to suicide based on research, and that “achieving psychological fitness will require attention to nutrition.” Additionally, a conference sponsored by NIAAA, DARPA and the Samueli Institute in 2009, “Nutritional Armor for the Warfighter: Can Omega-3 Fatty Acids Enhance Stress Resilience, Wellness, and Military Performance” also looked at how the latest research on Omega-3 fatty acids may benefit troops.
http://videocast.nih.gov/Summary.asp?File=15352
http://www.nih.gov/news/health/aug2011/niaaa-23.htm

http://www.usmedicine.com/agencies/...ociation-between-dha-levels-and-suicide-risk/