Does This Sound Fishy?

By Stephanie Smith
January 18, 2014
cnn.com
"He's going to get better than he was before"

What if taking a few grams of fish oil could wake someone up from a coma? The NorthShore Neurological Institute in Evanston, Illinois has discovered that feeding people fish oil after sustaining a severe brain injury can actually cause the brain to heal and to begin functioning once again. The brain’s cell wall is composed of omega- 3 fatty acids, which is found in abundance in fish oil.  By simply giving the patient a substantial dosage of the fish oil, we provide the brain with the foundation to repair itself. The omega-3 acids also reduce inflammation in the brain, which becomes unstoppable after a serious head trauma. However, there are only seven miraculous cases of fish oil bringing patients back from deep comas that are recorded in medical literature.  There was the case of a teenager named Bobby Ghassemi who nearly died in a car accident before getting a large infusion of fish oil. A couple of months later, after receiving high doses of fish oil, he attended his high school graduation. In another incident, sixteen year old Grant Virgin, who suffered an in repairable brain injury during an accident, was awakened from a deep coma by receiving the fish oil treatment. Unfortunately, we are years away from just taking fish oil and curing brain injuries since we need more extensive studies done.