A team from the Department of Neurology at the University of California has found a new way to reduce the frequency of epileptic seizures in patients who no longer respond to drug treatments: ingesting a small dose of omega 3 daily.
Found in fatty fish and vegetable oils, as well as in the form of a food supplement, omega 3s could indeed reduce the number of seizures in people with this disease.
The frequency of seizures reduced by more than 30%
For their study, the scientists called on 24 participants with epilepsy, on whom the drug treatments no longer had an effect.
Each patient was given three types of food supplements, each of which was to be taken for 10 consecutive weeks, and spaced 6 weeks apart.
The experiment included a supplement containing a low dose ofomega 3 (3 times a day, or 1.08 mg / day), a high-dose omega 3 supplement (six times a day, or 2.16 mg / day), and a supplement containing only placebo.
The study then showed that the smallest number of attacks (12 per month) was observed when patients took the low-dose omega 3 supplement. Taking the high-dose omega 3 supplement resulted in 17 attacks. per month, while placebo was synonymous with 18 seizures per month.
Thus, taking the supplement containing a low dose of omega 3 resulted in a 33.6% decrease in the number of epileptic seizures.
On the other hand, two of the 24 patients had no seizures when taking this same low dose.
An explanation of the researchers would lie in the fact that omega 3 have a positive effect on blood pressure and therefore on the cardiovascular risk, very high and synonymous with seizures in people with epilepsy.
“While our study requires confirmation by other work, the magnitude of the effect of low doses of omega 3 on the frequency of epileptic seizures is the same as medical antiepileptic treatments. »Rejoice the researchers.
Source:
Omega-3 fish oil ‘could reduce seizure frequency for epilepsy patients’, Medical News Today.
