STUDY LINKS FISH OIL COMPOUND TO WORSE BRAIN INJURY RECOVERY IN MICE

A study has found that eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA), one of the omega-3 fatty acids found in fish oil supplements, may interfere with the brain's repair processes after injury. Researchers gave mice with mild traumatic head injuries diets containing EPA and found the animals performed worse on spatial memory and learning tasks than expected. The findings challenge previous research suggesting omega-3 fatty acids aid recovery from brain injury. According to the study, EPA appears to disrupt blood vessel repair by reprogramming their metabolic activity, rather than supporting healing as had been assumed. The research was carried out at the Medical University of South Carolina.

Neuroscientist Onder Albayram, from the Medical University of South Carolina, said fish oil supplements are widely used for a range of reasons, often without a clear understanding of their long-term effects, and said the study is the first of its kind in the field. The researchers described the effect as a "context-dependent metabolic vulnerability", in which cells shift how they use energy in ways that may divert focus from brain repair. Follow-up experiments using human-derived brain microvascular endothelial cells, which form the blood-brain barrier, found that a second omega-3 fatty acid, DHA (docosahexaenoic acid), did not interfere with repair processes in the same way. The study found EPA, rather than DHA, accumulated in the brains of mice fed the supplements, consistent with DHA being more readily incorporated into brain cell membranes.

The harmful effects were observed only in injured mouse brains actively undergoing repair, and the researchers said it remains unclear how the findings might apply to living human tissue. The study also found that EPA's destabilising effect on blood vessels was linked to a build-up of toxic tau proteins, which are associated with brain degeneration. The researchers said further work is needed to establish whether the brain has resilience or resistance to the supplement.