Prevent Cognitive Decline With Omega-3s
All week, I’ve been posting on various physical health benefits of Omega-3 fatty acids, an important EFA (Essential Fatty Acid). Now let’s talk about some mental benefits… after all, the brain is just another organ in your body and needs nutrients just like every other part of you.
One of my favorite tidbits about Omega-3s is: of the two major Omega-3s, EPA and DHA, your brain is 22% DHA by weight.
Wow. So, obviously DHA is important to keeping your noggin healthy. In fact, most research on Omega-3s and brain health is centered around DHA.
What kind of research? Well, there’s a couple of studies showing that people with low-fat diets tend to have decreased reaction times. More interestingly, another study shows ability to focus is improved with the addition of a 400mg supplement of DHA.
Other studies show that diets high in Omega-6 (the opposite of Omega-3) tend to be associated with cognitive decline over time. Unfortunately, the Western diet is stuffed full of Omega-6 and desperately low in Omega-3. The accepted healthy ratio of a 1:1 balance of Omega-3 to Omega-6 is skewed way out of proportion to more like 30:1 in favor of Omega-6.
In case you’re wondering, that’s considered a diet high in Omega-6. What we’re not sure of is, exactly why this cognitive decline occurs. It could be that a lack of DHA leads to a slow loss of integrity in the cell membranes of neurons (DHA is a big part of that).
Maybe it has more to do with the imbalanced ratio leading to too much arachidonic acid (AA), which is bad for the brain. That arachidonic acid stuff is made from Omega-6s, and if you eating all Omega-6, all the time, guess what you’re going to end up with a lot of? That brain-busting AA. On the other hand, if your diet is lower in Omega-6 and balanced with Omega-3, you’ll end up with less AA and less damage.
There’s another way Omega-3s like fish oil can help. Scientists have shown that DHA can protect against the damage caused by strokes. Now, we’re talking about the kind of stroke involved when there’s a loss of blood flow to the brain- there’s another kind of stroke where blood hemorrhages into the brain and causes damage. I mean the other kind, where blood flow is choked off for some reason.
There’s a lot of talk that degenerative diseases of the brain like Alzheimer’s may be due to a succession of tiny mini-strokes, which are what they sound like: little tiny strokes that don’t cause any noticeable symptoms, but add up over time to chip away at the brain little by little. Think of somebody stealing a dollar from your bank account from time to time. You might not notice it, but given enough time, there will be enough missing that you’re going to wonder how you’re going to pay the rent.
In any case, this study (done with rats) showed that if you supplement ahead of time with DHA, the damage caused by a sudden loss of blood to a part of the brain is reduced. That’s pretty cool. In fact, it’s one of the reasons why I advise anyone with elderly parents to get them on fish oils ASAP.
You see, you can’t just give someone fish oils right after they have a stroke… that’s too late. You need to be taking them for a while ahead of time beforethe stroke. But since fish oils or similar Omega-3 supplements are super-healthy and fantastic for you in all kinds of other ways, there’s no reason you (or your parents) shouldn’t be taking them already… and then hopefully they could (in theory, of course) act as a preventative therapy in the unfortunate event of a stroke, or mini-stroke.
Again, we’re speculating a bit here, since the study was done on rats and not people, but it is an encouraging finding. Given how devastating diseases of cognitive decline are, I’m definitely making sure my parents take their fish oils.
Based on what you’ve just read, would you tell your parents to take fish oils? Comment below!
Oh yeah, and in this week’s newsletter… one more article on Omega-3s and ADHD, some info about a supplement called MSM and its use for skin problems, and a tasty fajita recipe that’s also good for you! If you haven’t signed up for the newsletter, go to the top right sidebar and fill in your name and email address to get it… it’s free!