Mild Alzheimer Patients Improve Cognition with Omega-3s
As people live longer, the chance that their mental faculties will decline increases greatly. People who exhibit mild cognitive impairment, particularly involving memory and language, are nearly 3 times more likely to develop Alzheimer disease, the primary neurodegenerative disease of aging. At present, there are few strategies to deter this scourge, but an emerging potential preventive is the consumption of long-chain omega-3 fatty acids found in fatty fish and fish oils. Those with higher intakes of these fatty acids and weekly fish consumption were reported to have a significantly lower chance of developing Alzheimer disease. Patients who died with Alzheimer disease have less docosahexaenoic acid in their brains than those free of this affliction.
A study in France reported that frequent consumption of fish was associated with a lower risk of dementia and Alzheimer disease in people who did not have the ApoEε genotype. In a 6-month randomized controlled trial in older patients with mild or moderate Alzheimer disease, consumption of a DHA-rich supplement containing 2.3 grams of omega-3 was associated with significantly retarded disease progression in those with mild symptoms. In a Dutch study, older men with the highest intakes of omega-3 experienced a significantly slower loss of cognitive function compared with men with low omega-3 intakes. Other investigators have observed only modest results with omega-3s in patients with early Alzheimer disease. However, one small study of mild cognitive impairment and Alzheimer conditions conducted at the Taipei City Psychiatric Center showed consumption of 1.8 g/day of omega-3 for 6 months was associated with progressive improvements in cognitive scores.
SOURCE: Prog Neuropsychopharmacol Biol Psychiatry. 2008 Aug 1;32(6):1538-44.