A brand new study, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, found that the long-term use of marine omega-3 fatty acid (more popularly known as “fish oil”) didn’t prevent or improve symptoms of depression for adults, older than 50, compared to the placebo group.
Unfortunately.
And, in another bummer of a finding, researchers found that taking the pills was actually associated with a slightly higher risk of depression. The increase was small, but still statistically significant.
You can read the study here, and WebMd’s breakdown here, but the upshot is this — in the largest study yet, taken over the longest time period to date, fish oil pills didn’t help prevent depression or improve mood in adults over 50 years old.
Of course, this is just one study.
But last year, Harvard Health noted that “fish oil for mood disorders” has a mixed record in academic studies.
Omega-3’s have delivered “promising results” in post-partum depression and perhaps the depressed phase of bipolar disorder.
But research is so limited and inconclusive that it’s impossible to recommend fish oil for those conditions.
Similarly, an influential study of studies in the Journal of Integrative Neuroscience (2017) found that fish oil was associated with an improvement in symptoms of depression in some studies, but usually, when combined with SSRI’s.
As to the mechanism, the researchers suggested that fish oil might help via its “1) anti-inflammatory action 2) direct membrane modification and 3) indirect membrane modification via direct modification of signaling proteins.”
So that’s all good and well, but the research is hardly conclusive, and the contexts and dosing are so different from study-to-study that it’s hard to draw any conclusions, and now of course, this brand new study from JAMA in adults over 50 puts another dent in the idea that you’ll feel better if you just take a fish oil pill.
That being said, fish oil “might” help in certain contexts, and research shows it might be effective for a range of various other medical conditions. In fact, the evidence is stronger on that score than on the mood disorder score.
There are, of course, risks to fish oil supplementation, as well, so always talk to your doctor about anything you take.
[Painting: The Fog Warning, Homer. See, he’s got a fish in there.]
