The Guardian reports on a series of recent studies showing that feeding vitamin and Omega 3 fatty acid supplements may decrease violence among repeat offenders by as much as 37%. These results are leading researchers, and some psychiatrists, to conclude that at least some violent outbursts and other mental disorders are the result of vitamin and essential fatty acid deficiency.
For decades nutritionists discounted the notion that the type of oil one consumes has any impact on health. That is, until cardiologists discovered a strong causative link between high cholesterol blood serum levels and heart disease. For years heart patients were encouraged to reduce fat intake in order lower cholesterol levels, until further research untangled the distinction between High Density Lipoprotein and Low Density Lipoprotein, showing that not all cholesterol acts alike in affecting human health.

Cholesterol is just one of many lipids (fats) that act as an essential cellular building block. Like a brick forming only part of a wall, these fats form portions of the cell membrane – that division between the inside and outside of a cell that must both allow essential nutrients in, while blocking dangerous particles out. Thus, the story between cholesterol and heart disease is not one of a dangerous oil invading our bodies to make us sick, but instead one of a critical life-sustaining cellular building-block, that, in some circumstances, can lead to a blood serum lipid imbalance that then, over the long term, is believed to cause atherosclerosis and finally general cardiovascular disease (heart disease).

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So what does this have to do with Omega 3 fatty acids? Well, one might reasonably argue that the state of research into Omega 3s is at about where the research into cholesterol was in the 1970s: Like the discovery that rickets is caused by either a vitamin D or a calcium deficiency, so researchers are discovering tantalizing links between Omega 3 dietary consumption and mental health. For example, results from the Oxford-Durham study indicate that Omega 3 supplementation helps young children with dyslexia and attention-deficit disorder:

Conclusions: Fatty acid supplementation may offer a safe efficacious treatment option for educational and behavioral problems among children with DCD. Additional work is needed to investigate whether our inability to detect any improvement in motor skills reflects the measures used and to assess the durability of treatment effects on behavior and academic progress.

Further, in a recent randomized trial of severely uni-polar depressed patients that supplementing with Omega 3 fatty acids generated “… significant benefits …” for those who received the supplement and not a placebo.

RESULTS: Highly significant benefits of the addition of the omega-3 fatty acid compared with placebo were found by week 3 of treatment.

Though they do note that since the patients were also taking Lithium, it is impossible to determine whether the benefit from supplementing Omega 3 fatty acids acted alone, or in conjunction, with the drug.

Pubmed has an abstract of the study referred to in the Guardian article, which says:

Mechanisms by which aggressive and depressive disorders may be exacerbated by nutritional deficiencies in omega-3 fatty acids are considered. Early developmental deficiencies in docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) and eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) may lower serotonin levels at critical periods of neurodevelopment and may result in a cascade of suboptimal development of neurotransmitter systems limiting regulation of the limbic system by the frontal cortex. Residual developmental deficits may be manifest as dysregulation of sympathetic responses to stress including decreased heart rate variability and hypertension, which in turn have been linked to behavioral dysregulation. Little direct data are available to disentangle residual neurodevelopmental effects from reversible adult pathologies. Ensuring optimal intakes of omega-3 fatty acids during early development and adulthood shows considerable promise in preventing aggression and hostility.

So, given recent recent findings of a psychiatric benefit for some in consuming Omega 3s, it should not come as a surprise that there may also be a link to other, more violent, behavior disorders. And this is exactly what this recent research would appear to indicate.

The Guardian article describes a study conducted at UK prison trial at Aylesbury jail showing that violent offenders “…fed multivitamins, minerals and essential fatty acids, the number of violent offences they committed in the prison fell by 37%.”  This is an astonishing number. As the article states that these findings:

… [call] into question the very basis of criminal justice and the notion of culpability. It suggests that individuals may not always be responsible for their aggression. Taken together with [this] study in a high-security prison for young offenders in the UK, it shows that violent behaviour may be attributable at least in part to nutritional deficiencies.

The article is careful to note that not all violence is caused by nutritional deficiencies; this is not a panacea that will rid the world of violence. But in understanding how nutritional deficiencies can cause certain mental disorders, the psychiatric community may soon be better able to tailor combinations of drug and nutritional supplements to better treat patients.

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But what is the underlying causative action? That is, why do Omega 3s impact mental health just as other forms of cholesterol affect heart health? Scientists are currently only able to offer an educated guess. However, there are some facts that lead these guesses to be considered good speculation.

To understand their thinking, one must also understand the differences between various lipids and their relationship to how the body processes them. Omega 3 is a polyunsaturated fat, or a  fat with two or more structural points able to support hydrogen bonds that are currently unconnected. This leaves the carbon bond chains weak with respect to trans-saturated fats like animal fat, and is one reason why monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats tend to remain liquid at lower temperatures than trans-saturated fats. Thus, Omega 3 is one of many polyunsaturated fat (the type of fats most physicians recommend patients consume for heart health).

However, Omega 3 is not the whole story. Like how cholesterol lipids are separated into High Density and Low Density Lipoproteins, so are the essential Omega 3 fatty acids broken down into three sets called: alpha-linolenic acid (ALA), eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA), and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA). As the Wikipedia article states, what makes these lipids Omega 3, as opposed to Omega 6 or Omega 9 fatty acids is that:

… omega-3 (aka “n-3”, “ω-3”) signifies that the first double bond exists as the third carbon-carbon bond from the terminal methyl end (ω) of the carbon chain.

And speculates that the carbon ordering may explain certain relationships to cell membrane health:

Structurally, omega-3 fatty acids are helically twisted, because every cis- double bond, separated by a methylene group, changes the carbon chain’s direction. This configuration may explain a host of biological phenomena observed in structures that are rich in polyunsaturated fatty acids, especially the lipid bilayer of the cell membrane.

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It is without a doubt that these lipids are essential to proper metabolic functioning. But that doesn’t explain why these studies are showing nutritional deficiencies in the industrialized world. Rickets is rarely found outside of the poorest of the developing nations, so why are researchers finding that Omega 3 deficiencies are a common occurrence even in the western world? Current speculation revolves around the radical change in human diet throughout the western world over the last one hundred years.

The three Omega 3 fatty acids (ALA, EPA, and DHA) are called essential because the human liver cannot synthesize these lipids on its own, they must be consumed directly. Currently, the best source of Omega 3s comes from certain types of cold water fish, such as salmon, herring, or mackerel. Oil from some plant seeds, such as flax, chia, and hemp offer ALA, one of the three Omega 3s. It is believed that ALA may then be processed by the liver into EPA and DHA, however, this assertion is debated by others. For example, some claim that the conversion rate efficiency is so poor as to make consumption of only flax seed unable to meet the body’s need for the two other essential lipids. Which leaves fish as the only other primary source of Omega 3s.

Yet, according to the United Nations, worldwide fish stocks are at an all time low due to rampant overfishing.

According to a Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) estimate, over 70% of the world’s fish species are either fully exploited or depleted. The dramatic increase of destructive fishing techniques worldwide destroys marine mammals and entire ecosystems. FAO reports that illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing worldwide appears to be increasing as fishermen seek to avoid stricter rules in many places in response to shrinking catches and declining fish stocks.

So, assuming that these studies are correct, just as we discover a serious mental health impact due to a widespread dietary deficiency, the very fish species needed to treat this nutritional deficiency are also depleted throughout oceans worldwide. Which brings up the question: If there are not enough fish to supply a proper nutritional balance of Omega 3 throughout the world, who will be the ones to receive the benefit of this research? While one can’t say for sure, it is reasonable to conclude: it won’t be the poor:

The consequences [of current trends] could be dire, depending on whether supply gains are feasible,” says Mahfuzuddin Ahmed, a co-author of the study, which was done by the Penang-based WorldFish Center and the Washington, D.C.-based International Food Policy Research Institute. But a continuation of those gains–which have produced a sixfold rise in total fish catch since the 1950s–is doubtful, says his boss, center director Meryl Williams, because three-quarters of the current catch comes from fish stocks that are already overfished, if not depleted. “Those [who study] the population dynamics of fisheries would probably be pessimistic” about supplies, she says.

As one of the researchers quoted in the Guardian article concludes:

Gesch believes we should be rethinking the whole notion of culpability. The overall rate of violent crime in the UK has risen since the 1950s, with huge rises since the 1970s. “Such large changes are hard to explain in terms of genetics or simply changes of reporting or recording crime. One plausible candidate to explain some of the rapid rise in crime could be changes in the brain’s environment. What would the future have held for those 231 young men if they had grown up with better nourishment?” Gesch says.

If the poor can’t afford the necessary nutrition to stave off certain mental health problems that can lead to violent outbursts, are these criminals due for a proper prison sentencing or patients in need of a proper diet?

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Text Copyright ©2006 J. Maynard Gelinas.  
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