Overview
- Medical University of South Carolina researchers report in Cell Reports that EPA, an omega-3 in fish oil, slowed blood-vessel repair and hurt maze performance in mice after repeated mild head injuries.
- DHA, the other major omega-3, did not show these harms in the mouse tests and in some human-cell assays looked more favorable than EPA.
- The team saw EPA levels drop in brains after injury, and added EPA then aligned with more perivascular tau, a protein linked to degenerative brain disease.
- Experiments using human brain cells and analyses of post-mortem tissue from people with chronic traumatic encephalopathy showed patterns consistent with EPA-related impairment.
- The authors stress the data come from animals and lab models and say people should wait for targeted human studies before changing how they use fish oil supplements.