Association of fish oil supplementation with risk of incident dementia: A prospective study of 215,083 older adults, 2022, Xiaohui Liu et al

Abstract

Background & aims: Evidence linking the use of omega-3 PUFA supplements with incident dementia is scarce. We aim to assess the relationship between fish oil supplementation and incident dementia risk among older adults with different apolipoprotein E (APOE) genotypes in a large population-based cohort.

Methods: We included 215,083 participants (average age: 64.1 ± 2.9 y) without dementia at baseline from UK Biobank study. Fish oil use was assessed by a touch screen questionnaire at baseline. Dietary intake was assessed by a food frequency questionnaire. The APOE genotypes were determined by allele variations on rs429358 and rs7412 from genome-wide genotyping of blood samples. Dementia was diagnosed using the International Classification of Diseases (ICD-9 and ICD-10). Cox proportional hazards regression models were used to calculate the associations of fish oil supplement use with dementia risk.

Results: During an average 7.92 years of follow-up, 2054 participants were diagnosed with dementia. After multivariable adjustment for major risk factors, the use of fish oil supplements was significantly associated with a lower risk of all-cause dementia (p for trend = 0.004). Compared with non-users, the multivariable-adjusted hazard ratio (95% confidence interval) of dementia was 0.87 (0.79-0.96) for fish oil users. A marginal interaction was found between fish oil supplementation and APOE gene variants on the risk of dementia (p for interaction = 0.057). However, fish oil supplementation was not associated with the risk of any subtype of dementia, including Alzheimer's disease (AD), vascular dementia (VD), and frontotemporal dementia (FTD).

Conclusions: Intake of fish oil supplements was associated with lower risk of all-cause dementia among 60-73 y elders. Our findings provide new population-based evidence for linking fish oil supplement use with dementia prevention.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35124466/

 

thought it was going to be other direction of association from the title.

has helped with blepharitis, mood. can't have salmon due to esophagus issues.

 

Second author affiliation is with: Department of Food Science and Nutrition, Zhejiang Key Laboratory for Agro-Food Processing, Fuli Institute of Food Science, College of Biosystems Engineering and Food Science, Zhejiang

which leads me to doubt--could there be some political tainting of the study as China has huge industrial fishing vessels (sometimes illegal). Or am I just a paranoid American?

 

All those poor anchovies, tons of them, plus other sentient beings. There will be a better way (research leading to a pharmaceutical) to deal with Alzheimers without decimating further the fish population.

 

Thing is...humans, in fact all life, don't like aquatic life existing.

First we spent millions of years to get out if the oceans, into what was largely desert, when at the time we couldn't actual breathe out of water. More than a mild dislike of other aquatic life. Must have been some row.

Then, a bit later, we invested huge amounts of time and resources trying to exterminate the largest forms of aquatic life.

We had laws which made it illegal not to consume aquatic life at least twice a week.

We then proceeded to deliberately over fish to try and exterminate increasingly smaller varieties of aquatic life, and when that wasn't wiping them out fast enough we deliberately dumped as much toxic water into the oceans as we could produce.

When even that hadn't wiped out all aquatic life, we then upped our game and started intensive farming, other both livestock and crops, to increase the amount of dangerous chemicals, many specifically known to be deadly to aquatic life, and effluents from billions of pigs, chickens, and cattle, all of which over time ends up in the oceans.

Humanity hates aquatic life and is on a crusade to destroy all of it, using any means possible.

If that means killing an entire fish to get a few grammes of oil then so be it.

Or so it seems to me.

 

You don't need fish to get omega-3s. It costs a bit more, but I get my DHA and EPA supplement from Healthspan: Veg-Omega 3 1,000mg (healthspan.co.uk)

"Fish obtain their DHA and EPA from consuming microalgae. Good news… we can get these fatty acids not only from eating fish but straight from the source too. Veg-Omega 3 contains a proprietary and ground-breaking ingredient derived from natural algae which is rich in vegetarian and vegan omega 3 fatty acids DHA and EPA."

(It should read "...are rich..." - "algae" is a plural word!)

 

My own experience is that I did need fish oil based EPA and DHA to increase omega 3, but I've never tried natural algae so don't know if that would have been beneficial for me. I took plant based fatty acids for years but my omega 3 remained depleted.

My cognitive function years ago when my omega 3's were depleted was atrocious, quite different from my cognitive dysfunction that I experience now.

 

I remember in Basant Puri’s book he explained how non-fish sources of Omega-3 wouldn’t work as well as they need to be converted to a more active form and there may be a problem in the conversion process. However, algae wasn’t mentioned so don’t know where they fit.

 

The conversion from ALA to EPA and DHA is often limited, perhaps because of lacking enzymes, so many people are able to benefit more from EPA and DHA when these fatty acids come directly from the diet- mainly from oily fish or fish oil supplements. Fish oils were recommended to me by a biochemist who reviewed all my test results.