Pouring Oil On Troubled Minds
The Age
Saturday October 8, 2005
Some blame the modern world for the condition known as ADHD. The finger is pointed at anything from packaged snacks to computer games, but the truth may well be, in many cases, a simple dietary deficiency that can be remedied by a fish-oil supplement, judging from the research being done by Natalie Sinn from the University of South Australia and CSIRO Nutrition.
Natalie, who is in the third year of her PhD, became interested in ADHD as a research topic after completing her Honours year in Psychology. "The first few months of my PhD was a huge learning curve in learning about the biochemistry of omega-3 fatty acids," she says, "Looking at neurological neuropsychology is also a component of studying psychology; looking at neurotransmitters and the brain and how they influence learning and behaviour.It was then just another step to look at the effect of nutrition on that."The research process, Natalie says, "is very varied. A lot of it is sitting on the computer doing literature reviews, writing and doing the statistics. The research itself, last year, involved getting parents to bring their children into the CSIRO." The project was prompted by research that showed up deficiencies of the omega-3 fatty acids in Western diets generally but particulaly in the case of people with mental problems like schizophrenia, depression, ADHD and learning problems."The theory is that 60 per cent of the brain is composed of fat, and very concentrated in the brain are the omega-3 fatty acids that are in the fish oil," explains Natalie. "In my study I found about 70 to 80 per cent of the children showed some improvement, which could be one point or more, a minor improvement, but the ones that showed one standard deviation improvement which is quite substantial were 30 to 40 per cent in the first 15 weeks, and then over the whole 30 weeks 40 to 50 per cent showed a substantial improvement.Some people may have trouble metabolising the omega-3 fatty acids, and that's why they might need supplementation over and above what we get in a normal diet."Cost is always a problem for postgraduate researchers, "I couldn't have done the study without funding. I got a scholarship from the university to do the PhD but I got the top-up scholarship from the CSIRO and with that came quite a bit of funding for the study, and the people in the U.K. who supplied the supplements for the trial suppied them free of charge. Without all that it would have been impossible to do."Natalie's is looking forward to the next phase, "I've got some post-doc opportunities coming up, to continue doing research in a general area of nutrition and cognition and behaviour, in Adelaide, I am really excited that I am able to continue research in this area."
© 2005 The Age