Can fish oil help curb the epidemic of military suicides? That’s the startling finding in a new study just published in the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry. It links suicides by military personnel to low level of docosahexaenoic acid — found in fish oil — and finds that troops with higher levels of DHA in their blood were less likely to take their own lives.
Men with depressed DHA levels were 62% more likely to have committed suicide than those with the highest levels. The DHA found in fish oil seems to provide psychiatric benefits. DHA supplements boost the impact of antidepressant medications and reduce attention deficit disorder. They’re just preliminary findings, but they could lead to new ways to shield troops from the mental ravages of war.
