Can We Prevent Psychosis With...Fish Oil?
A decades long back and forth that I try to sort out, desperately.
The Frontier Psychiatrists is a health themed newsletter written by a physician1. I'm Owen Scott Muir, M.D. I am the sometimes silly proprietor of this news-establishment.
Preventing psychotic illness would be awesome. It can be disabling—particularly whatever schizophrenia is! No one wants psychotic experiences they can’t control. I'll take the time to define what I mean by that. The premise of this article is to struggle with my readers to interpret data, together. I want to answer a question—is there a reliable and low enough risk way to prevent psychotic illness from developing in the first place?
Might it be as easy as supplemental fish oil?
Well, that possible option has been proved. Then disproved. Then proved again. It’s been decades of scientific back and forth. Let’s dig in.
What is psychosis?
The national institutes for mental health define psychosis thusly:
People with psychosis typically experience delusions (false beliefs, for example, that people on television are …