By now those of you who have read any number of my emails know that I love to
find out "why" things work.
Lately there have been several requests to flesh out why and how my Fish Oil
results in better moods and less depression.
Before we begin on that journey whoever, here are a couple of facts to bring up.
Recall that the brain is made up of 25% essential fatty acids, the most important
of which is DHA, one of the 2 main fatty acids in Fish Oil.
Remember that in the past 2 months there has been a significant hew and cry about
the negative effects of the very popular Prozac class of drugs, the SSRI's.
These side effects have included increased suicides especially among teens and a
severe withdrawal syndrome which actually worsens the underlying depression.
Also remember way back to this past winter and you will recall my explanation of
how emotional and physical stresses raise cortisol levels and lead to a
pro-inflammatory state in the body.
Sorry folks, Cortislim tm doesn't prevent this!
It is also worth mentioning at this point that obesity is also a pro-inflammatory
state which predisposes to depression, cancer and heart disease.
Now all of us know heavy people who are happy and thin people who are depressed
so it is never that simple!
As a matter of fact, as we'll see the issue of depression and mood is very
complex and multi-factorial.
We've already hinted at why the search for effective anti-depressants continues;
side effects.
In addition to some of the side effects listed above for the Prozac tm class,
another big one is decreased sex drive. This is a very wide spread problem in
many people taking these drugs.
There are other classes of drugs available.
MAO inhibitors increase the critical chemical dopamine in certain areas of the
brain where it becomes low with depression.
They also require a very special diet or they can have deadly consequences like
pushing your blood pressure high enough to figuratively blow your brain out of
your skull!
Another class, the tricylcic antidepressants can cause heart problems renal
failure and drowsiness to name a few.
Each of these classes of drugs was designed to address a different chemical
abnormality in the brain. Each of them shows an almost immediate increase in
those chemicals.
But none of them works immediately underlining the complexity of depression.
A few more facts about depression and then we'll get into how fish oil may
benefit in many, many ways.
#1) The incidence of both major and minor depression is on the rise in Western
countries as shown by population data over the past 100 years.
#2) Improvements in diagnosis are not enough to explain this rise. In other words
we may have better ways to pick up his illness, but there is still more of it
than is accounted for by better diagnosis.
#3) Countries that have high consumption of Omega 3 Fatty Acids (fish oil) have
lower than expected depression and suicide rates as well.
#4) There has been a definite drop in Omega 3 fatty acids levels in the diet over
the past 100 years and a definite rise in Omega 6 levels leading to the Omega 6
to Omega 3 levels of greater than 20:1.
That should lay the foundation for tomorrow's email which actually gets into some
fascinating findings about fish oil supplementation and the brain including how
fish oil might help with the generation of new nerve tissue, something that no
one ever dreamed possible 10 years ago.
Best,
Dave Woynarowski, M.D., CPT
The Nation's #1 Anti-Aging Physician
P.S. For the worlds best anti-aging supplements including Dr Dave's Best
Pharmaceutical Grade Fish Oil go here and order now.
Don't delay; you are not getting any younger, YET!
