Omega 3: Good for Mood

Having sardines for lunch or salmon for dinner is not only good for your heart. It also puts you in a better mood.

That’s the conclusion of Dr. Sarah M. Conklin and her team of researchers at the University of Pittsburgh. They found omega 3 fatty acids, which are primarily found in fatty fish, affect the area of the brain associated with emotion. They recently presented their findings at the American Psychosomatic Society’s annual meeting in Budapest, Hungary.

This is not the first time scientists have found a relationship between omega 3 fish oil DHA (docosahexaenoic acid) and EPA (eicosapentaenoic acid) fatty acids and proper brain function.  To begin with, these long chain polyunsaturated fatty acids, which are only found in salmon and other fatty fish, are the main building blocks of the human brain. That’s what makes fish “brain food.”

Fish oil DHA and EPA have been proven to make you mentally and emotionally healthy. Deficiencies of DHA fatty acid, for example, have been linked to ADD, ADHD, PMS, depression, bi-polar disorder, schizophrenia, suicide, violence, age-related memory loss and Alzheimer’s disease. Think about that!

In a previous study, Dr. Conklin’s team found people with lower blood levels of omega-3 fatty acids tended to be more negative and impulsive. On the other hand, people with higher levels of omega-3 seemed to be more agreeable and less moody.

So they decided to see if eating more fish had any actual affect on the amount of gray matter in the part of the brain associated with mood. Using MRI brain scans, that’s exactly what they found. People who ate the most fish also had larger volumes of gray matter in the area of the brain linked to the regulation of emotion.

Maybe that’s why so many of your neighbors are grumpy and disagreeable. Most Americans are seriously deficient in omega-3 fatty acids. Surveys show that nearly 20% eat so very little fish test methods are unable to detect any DHA and EPA in their blood.

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