Some years ago, I learned an interesting fact: there are now multiple peer-reviewed studies which indicate that Omega-3 fatty acids often significantly improve cogitation and substantially reduce other symptoms of schizophrenia and schizo-affective disorder. And, if you check in your DSM-IV, you'll find that both disorders are sometimes misdiagnosed as some form of bipolar disorder.
There is more than one study on this, although a surprising number of psychiatrists are unaware of it. I've lost most of my references, but here's one from Pubmed, and here's another site I found from a group of researchers at Sheffield University reporting on some of their findings.
Yes, the studies are double-blinded and placebo-controlled and peer-reviewed, and show genuinely remarkable results in some patients.
These types of fats are found in high quantities mostly of fish, but for a turbo-charged boost of the stuff, a tablespoon of fresh, cold-pressed flax seed oil, which can be bought at any decent health food store contains a massive amount of Omega-3. The stuff goes rancid (as in, oxidizes) fairly quickly, so pills are a bad idea, and if you buy it by the bottle, you really want to make sure it's fresh, cold-pressed, and refrigerated.
Check with your doctor, but as it's merely dietary fat that can be found in numerous common foods, especially seafoods, it should not interfere with most medications.
If you know any psychiatrists, you might want to mention it to them.
No surprise. The voices in my head tell me to eat fish on a more or less regular basis.
And, if you check in your DSM-IV, you'll find that both disorders are sometimes misdiagnosed as some form of bipolar disorder.
Heh heh. My DSM-IV. Riiiiiiight. Heh.
Dean,
I couldn't stop laughing when I read the headline...don't know; just something about "know any schizophrenics?" makes you instantly go "yes, I do; no, I don't...but maybe I do".
You mean you don't read the DSM-IV for fun? It's such a good read;)
I also read dictionaries and things like the Statistical Abstract of the United States and the FBI Uniform Crime Report for fun. I know, I'm weird. %-)
Here is a good DSM-IV overview of what schizophenia actually looks like. Joking aside, you'll find that it actually has little or nothing to do with multiple personalities. That's just a popular misunderstanding.
Comparing it to, for example, a DSM-IV abastract on bipolar-II, you can see how a misdiagnosis is fairly easy, because the two can look a lot alike.
I know at least one person who I believe to be a schizophrenic misdiagnosed as bipolar II because she masks her hallucinations and her delusions when she's around authority figures, considers all doctors authority figures, and won't let me talk to her doctor.
Chances are if you meet a homeless person in the street who seems not to be drunk, but is talking to himself, ranting, babbling things that make no sense at all, it's an untreated schizophrenic you're encountering.
By the way, if you saw "A Beautiful Mind," you have a not-bad look at what actual schizophrenia is really like. Although he was highly functional, and his delusions a little more profound, that's really not a bad description of what it's like.
What's most disturbing, again, is that sometimes a person with the condition can go for long periods of time and seem relatively functional, then go off the deep end--and sometimes, they merely seem moody when what's going on in their heads is a terrifying storm.
It'll help prevent heart disease, too. The omega-3 fatty acids, that is.
Many people in the mental health field objected to "A Beautiful Mind," because John Nash refused treatment, preferring to control his environment and use his formidable powers of reasoning to talk himself out of the hallucinations and distortions. He is an extraordinary man with a ot of social support other schizophrenics don't have. Psychiatrists didn't want schizophrenics everywhere stopping their medicine.
It took almost his entire life, but he did get back to normal eventually.
It really makes you wonder- we truly know very little about the mind. Fascinating, fascinating stuff.
They also work wonders for asthma control. when I'm being good and taking them everyday, my inhaler is rarely used. I take 4 grams of evening primrose and 4 of flax seed .
There was some thought in 2002 that low levels of Vitamin D during pregnancy might be a factor, since the number of people who become schizonhrenic tend to be born in the spring in both the northern and southern hemispheres. Report
However, subsequent investigation in 2003 of stored samples of sera taken from pregnant women didn't seem to confirm it, nor did other studies.
But they are making progress on the genetic front.
Maybe I didn't read it right but your first link said there was NO difference betwen the drug and the placebo. That said I'll now go read the second link.
The second link disagrees with the first. I went back and read the first link again and it definitly said the fish oil had no more effect than the placebo.
More studies are needed.
You're quite right. I linked the wrong abstract. I meant to link the overview which reviewed this and three other studies. Two found a link and two did not. The ones that do show a link show a strong one in some patients, very little in others. You can hypothesize as to why, but the ones showing positive results show it well outside the margin of error.
Offhand, my guess would be that it involves the quality of the oils; EPAs oxidize very quickly if not pressed, shipped, and stored cold and in fairly airtight, lightproof containers. Which is one of several reasons why I don't trust those pills you can buy. But that's just a guess.
Anyway, I've updated the link. Thanks for pointing out my error.
By the way, happy "leap year". I didn't give mine a chance to ask me first, I asked her on our third date, she said yes! Thirty one years married this year. I still get chills up my spine.
It looks good, but a lot of study still needs to be done. Thats the beauty of science, communicate your work, your results and the method you used. Others can duplicate your work, many others. They then report their results and how, if any, their methods of study were different than yours.
You talk, you discuss ideas, you formulate other experiments to test ideas whose results, based on past experimental outcomes, were predicted. If you were wrong, you learned something. If you were right, you learned something. You do further experiments and you learn more.
Contrary to popular fiction, no experiment is ever a failure. It may not have proved what you wanted it to prove, but it was successful in proving you need to look at your info and check your methods.
The universe will tell you the truth if you ask all the right questions.
I'd read (in, I think, U.C. Berkeley Wellness Letter) that flax seed oil did not have equivalent fatty acids to fish. Anyone have a link for or against that concept?
I'm supposed to be taking supplements for Sjogren's Syndrome... nice to know it'll lower my possibility of a schizophrenic break while it's at it...