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Reduced anxiety in forensic inpatients – long-term intervention with Atlantic salmon

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wild-salmon
Wild salmon (picture used with permission: Vital Choice

Seafood is a great source of amino acids, omega-3 fatty acids, zinc, iodine, iron, calcium, selenium, and vitamins B12, A, and D, many of which are beneficial for mood disorders.

Fish in the diet has a positive impact on depression

A number of studies have found that including fish in the diet has a positive impact on depression, especially those that refer to traditional diets (the famous one is by Jacka and colleagues) and the Mediterranean diet (there are a number of studies by Sanchez-Villegas et al). A study from Finland found that the prevalence of depression was lower in countries where consumption of seafood is high.

When it comes to diet and nutrients there is much more research on depression than anxiety, so when my book The Antianxiety Food Solution was published in 2011, I wrote the following:

Given the link between anxiety and depression, it’s possible that seafood consumption could also help reduce the incidence of anxiety.

A study that now shows reduced anxiety with fish consumption

We have a study that now shows this: Reduced anxiety in forensic inpatients after a long-term intervention with Atlantic salmon

In the study, 95 male forensic patients were randomly assigned to one of two groups:

  • a Fish group where they consumed Atlantic salmon three times per week from September to February OR
  • a Control group where they consumed other protein sources such as chicken, pork, or beef three times per week, also from September to February

The paper lists the incidence of the following disorders amongst the study participants (all sexual offenders) who were in a secure forensic inpatient facility in the USA:

Personality disorders (antisocial personality disorder, borderline personality disorder or personality disorder with antisocial traits) were diagnosed among 76% of the participants. Moreover, about 31% of the participants were diagnosed with some kind of anxiety disorder (GAD, OCD, PD or post-traumatic stress disorder) and about 18% were diagnosed with depression (major depressive disorder or depressive disorder). About 31% of the participants had both a personality disorder and an anxiety or depressive disorder.

The study findings

The study participants consumed salmon for 6 months and the study findings suggest that

Atlantic salmon consumption may have an impact on mental health related variables such as underlying mechanisms playing a key role in emotion-regulation and state-anxiety

And that

The present results showed that fatty fish consumption caused changes in HRV [heart rate variability] which is regarded as an essential underlying biological mechanism involved in anxiety and emotion-regulation.

A few interesting factors about this study

  • The salmon was farmed and mercury and dioxin levels were measured. Despite this, mental health benefits and reduced anxiety was observed. I suspect even more favorable results would have been observed had wild salmon been used
  • The authors mention that a longer intervention as in this study i.e. 23 weeks/6 months is likely to lead to better results than a shorter intervention
  • The Fish group had a significant increase in both omega-3 fatty acids: EPA and DHA
  • The authors speculate about how improved vitamin D status in the Fish group may help regulate serotonin production and thereby help regulate heart rate variability and reduce anxiety
  • The study highlights nutritional benefits of fatty fish other than marine omega-3 fatty acids and vitamin D: selenium, iodine, vitamin B12 and high quality proteins. I’d like to add that it is a source of zinc and iron too, both of which are co-factors for making brain chemicals.
  • Although the study found a significant decrease in state-anxiety, it did not find any changes in trait-anxiety (here are the differences in state-anxiety and trait-anxiety). The authors suggest that trait-anxiety may be more difficult to change during a 6-month intervention study. I’d like to add that other concurrent nutritional and biochemical interventions would likely have provided additional mental health benefits. This could include: a gluten-free diet, targeted individual amino acids, addressing dysbiosis, addressing high or low histamine, pyroluria and zinc-copper imbalances and so on.

The authors mention a limitation of the study, in that this group of adult male forensic inpatients may make it difficult to generalize the results to other groups in the population and recommend further similar research in children and women.

I look forward to future research but I feel very comfortable about putting this limitation aside for now, especially with the positive results found with this group of patients with very severe symptoms.

I also feel very comfortable extrapolating these results from salmon to sardines and would expect similar beneficial results. I highly recommend selecting wild salmon or wild sardines rather than farmed.  

If you suffer from anxiety and stress, or any mood disorder, I hope this research is further motivation to eat wild fatty fish a few times a week. How much fatty fish do you eat each week and have you observed mood or other health improvements?

And if you’re a practitioner, I hope this research is a bigger incentive to continue to recommend fatty fish to your clients or patients.

If you’re looking for some great recipes check out this yummy summer salmon pate recipe and this delicious pomegranate olive mint salsa to serve on grilled salmon. Vital Choice, a wonderful source for great quality home delivery WILD fish, has great recipes on their site too.

The Anxiety Summit – Your hidden mercury burden: A likely root cause of the other root causes of anxiety – part 2

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Kris HommeQuote_Anxiety2

Kris Homme, MPH retired engineer turned science writer was interviewed by host of the Anxiety Summit, Trudy Scott, Food Mood Expert and Nutritionist, author of The Antianxiety Food Solution.

Your hidden mercury burden: A likely root cause of the other root causes of anxiety – part 2

  • how to get rid of your mercury burden: dental amalgams, mercury in fish
  • how a special diet can help
  • important supplements to include: antioxidants; essential fatty acids; minerals
  • foods and supplements to avoid
  • concerns around chelation
  • chronic mercury poisoning resources

Here is a snippet from our interview:

I’d really like to emphasize the toxicity of mercury and just how insidious it is and how important prevention is because, once you have toxicity, it can be pretty hard to get rid of. The first thing to do is address your exposures, and one big one is dental amalgams. If you are inclined to think you may have a mercury burden, then consider safe dental amalgam removal. It’s not an emergency, but put it into your five-year plan. You can read about this on IAOMT/ International Academy of Oral Medicine and Toxicology web site. They’re the pro-science dental association that has been working to fund and disseminate the science since 1983. They have developed a safe amalgam removal protocol. You can find a dentist who appreciates the toxicity of mercury and takes every precaution. Your old dentist may have an office full of mercury vapor, so you may want to find a new dentist and discuss the details of the procedure with the new dentist and decide for yourself whether the procedure is adequate. You got into trouble by trusting your old dentist to do what the old dentist thought was right, so it’s a good idea not to trust, but to figure out what you think is the right protocol for amalgam removal

Kris asked the following in the interview:

if you believe that your dental amalgams have affected your health, please report this to the FDA on the FDA MedWatch web site. They have a form to report adverse events, and dental amalgams are considered a medical device, so if you’ll use that form, it may help. In the last go-round against the FDA’s amalgam rule, the 2009 statement by the FDA said that they had received very few adverse event reports on amalgam, so let’s not let them say that again.

Here is the Environmental Working Group January 2014 report we mentioned: US Seafood Advice Flawed on Mercury, Omega-3s

Kris has some additional fish information here – Fish mercury: Some inconvenient truths

Here is short video of Kris talking about genetic susceptibility to mercury toxicity

This was a 2-part interview – here is the link to the blog for part 1

Here are links to the resources Kris shared:

Amalgam Illness by Andrew Cutler

Mercury Exposure

DAMS – Dental Amalgam Mercury Solutions

IAOMT/International Association of Oral Medicine and Toxicology

Kern 2012 article on brain pathology in mercury poisoning: Evidence of parallels between mercury intoxication and the brain pathology in autism

Kris’s website MercuryandMore

Kris’ paper published earlier this year: New science challenges old notion that mercury dental amalgam is safe

Here is a link to part 1 of this mercury discussion – chronic mercury poisoning effects at the molecular level, the cellular and organ level, effects on hormone imbalance and neurotransmitters and how to test.

If you are not already registered for the Anxiety Summit you can get live access to the speakers of the day here www.theAnxietySummit.com

The Anxiety Summit – seafood: the ultimate brain and mood food

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Trudy Scott, Food Mood Expert, is the host the Anxiety Summit, and author of The Antianxiety Food Solution and she interviews Randy Hartnell, fisherman, owner of Vital Choice. Our topic: “What you need to know about seafood—the ultimate brain and mood food”

  • Purity and contaminants such as mercury and radiation (Fukushima)
  • Research showing the health benefits: anxiety, depression
  • What if you are mercury-toxic and sensitive
  • Farmed vs wild salmon (and other species)
  • What about that fish-y smell
  • The health benefits of fish roe
  • Omega-3s and fish as ‘Brain Food”
  • Omega3-6 balance and testing fatty acid levels

Here you have Randy talking about why fish is the ultimate brain and mood food

Here is one of the Ralston selenium studies: Dietary selenium’s protective effects against methylmercury toxicity. 

This is the 2013 PLoS One study we discussed: Dietary patterns, n-3 fatty acids intake from seafood and high levels of anxiety symptoms during pregnancy: findings from the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children

The present study provides evidence of a relationship between dietary patterns, fish intake or n-3 PUFA intake from seafood and symptoms of anxiety in pregnancy, and suggests that dietary interventions could be used to reduce high anxiety symptoms during pregnancy.

This 2013 paper in the British Journal of Nutrition called Dietary intake of fish and PUFA, and clinical depressive and anxiety disorders in women states

These are the first observational data to indicate a role for DHA in anxiety disorders

In this 2014 animal study, Fish oil improves anxiety-like, depressive-like and cognitive behaviors in olfactory bulbectomised rats study

fish oil supplementation during critical periods of brain development attenuated anxiety-like and depressive-like behaviors and cognitive dysfunction”

Here is some of our discussion on weighing the concerns of mercury toxicity versus the health benefits (since it’s a topic that comes up a lot).  This is what Randy shared:

Fish has a whole sort of micronutrient spectrum. They’re swimming around out in this rich soup of minerals – vitamins, minerals, micronutrients – and you know, life evolved in the sea. And life has evolved amid background mercury levels forever, right? Because as much as half of it, if not more, comes from underwater volcanic activity and erosion of the land into the ocean. And mercury’s a naturally occurring element. Of course, the problem with a lot of it now is that it comes from fossil fuel burning.

But it’s always been there, and so life has evolved a capacity to deal with a certain amount of it. And you know, I always acknowledge that people are different, and some people process things differently than other people. But really, when you think about it, common sense tells you that life evolved in the sea. Mercury’s always been there, and I know there are studies of Alaskan natives from thousands of years ago, that they’ve recovered hair samples from these Alaskan natives, and there’s mercury in their hair. So it’s not like it’s something new that people are dealing with.

The message I hope people will take away is you’ve got to assess the risk versus the benefit. And virtually every study, or every major study, comes down on the side that benefits vastly outweigh the risks.

Here you have Randy sharing about the quality of fish they source and offer
– I love that he talks about the “golden rule”

During the interviews on mercury (part 1) with Kris Homme, and part 2, she shares her concerns saying that she believes that if you have major mercury exposure because of amalgams, then you might want to reduce fish consumption and especially avoid the bigger fish. She certainly does. 

Vital Choice is  very kindly offering us some nice discounts on their products:

15% discount on VitalChoice (wild fish) purchases (use MOODFOOD at checkout – expires 12/31/14)

50% discount on fatty acid testing (use MOODFOODTESTKIT at checkout – expires 12/31/14)

The above discounts have expired but you can check out Vital Choice products here.

I hope you’ll join us on the Anxiety Summit season 2. It runs from Nov 3-16, 2014 and you’ll learn about this and many other nutritional and natural solutions for anxiety, panic attacks, OCD and social anxiety. This is one of many great topics we’ll be sharing.