Viviane Richter
24 August 2015

Omega-3 fatty acids could stop the onset of full-blown psychosis, according to an Australian clinical trial. Viviane Richter reports.

Could schizophrenia be nipped in the bud? Yes, according to a seven-year study by Paul Amminger and colleagues at the University of Melbourne. And the wonder drug to halt this terrifying disease? Fish oil. That remarkable conclusion was published in Nature Communications in August.

Psychiatrist Vaughan Carr, chief of Sydney’s Schizophrenia Research Institute, calls the work “extraordinary”. But adds, “I’d like to see someone independently replicate it”.

Schizophrenics may hear voices, fear their thoughts aren’t private and lose their drive and ability to experience joy. “It’s like a person loses their life,” says Amminger.

Around one in 100 people develop the disease, most often between the ages of 15 and 30. Antipsychotic medications can stop the hallucinations, but also have side-effects such as weight gain and drowsiness. But omega-3 fatty acids don’t have these disadvantages. They have been found at high concentrations in fish oil, and have been earmarked as a possible treatment since the 1990s when researchers suggested schizophrenia might be triggered by a deficit of phospholipids in nerve membranes. Fatty acids are precursors for phospholipids. Since then, research has also shown omega-3 is a precursor for molecules that protect neurons. And recently, it was found that schizophrenia patients have about half as much omega-3 in their red blood cell membranes as healthy individuals do.

Since schizophrenia often begins in the teen years with early warning symptoms such as paranoia, Amminger wondered if a course of fish oil could stop the disease from progressing. Between 2004 and 2007, his team put their theory to the test. They administered a 12-week course of 1.2 grams of omega-3 daily to 41 young people aged between 13 and 25 who had a family history of schizophrenia and had begun to experience mild symptoms. At the same time another group of 40, with the same family history and early symptoms, took a placebo.

A year after treatment, only two of the omega-3 supplemented group had developed full-blown psychosis, compared to 11 in the placebo group.