Comprehensive Brain Health

I take omega-3 fatty acids as a dietary supplement and have for close to 30 years. I know that many of you take omega-3 fatty acids as well. When I read research and comments as I referred to in Tuesday’s Memo, it makes me wonder about the real purpose of the comments — I mean, the research results are the research results. Moving past the results sometimes exceeds what the study truly indicated. I think that’s the case with this study, and here are my reasons why.

The Problems with This Study

This study suffered significant subject losses. Due to the rolling start of this study, subjects were recruited just prior to the COVID outbreak and were lost in the follow-up due to pandemic restrictions. The characteristics of those subjects were: they were less educated, had lower scores on cognitive testing, and had lower initial omega-3 DHA levels. There’s only so much that can be done to adjust statistically when over a third of the subjects are lost in the follow-up.

The most significant problem as I see it was that there was no cognitive training of any type included in the study. They just gave people a supplement and waited to see if there were any changes in a period of two years in their memory, learning, and brain size. I don’t know why they expected an improvement in cognitive function when there was no attempt to impact the learning process by some form of training program.

What really caught my attention was a comment by the head researcher; in reflecting on the purpose of his research, he did a nice job of suggesting that brain health is not dependent on any single variable. Diet, exercise, sleep, and a whole host of other factors impact brain health, as many other studies have demonstrated.

What he then said was that his research group would work on developing medications to help the body use nutrients more effectively. Why does the body need medications to do something that it should be able to do naturally? Maybe I’m being a little too sensitive, but it would seem the work should focus on developing better programming in all phases of health to help people keep their cognitive function as they age, not on developing medications.

The Bottom Line

What this research demonstrated was that a single nutrient is not the complete solution for delaying age-associated cognitive function by itself; it needs to be part of a total package. I’m going to continue to take my omega-3 fish oil supplements as well as continue to train my brain, exercise regularly, and do all those other things that contribute to brain health. That seems like a more natural way to do things.

What are you prepared to do today?

        Dr. Chet

Reference: https://doi.org/10. 1016/j.ebiom.2026. 106316