Omega-3 fatty acids and depression (RCPsych Congress 2016)

Walk into any health food shop and you might think that omega-3 highly unsaturated fatty acids are a cure for all ills. The hype for these dietary supplements arose from research that appeared to find various benefits, including many trials that reported beneficial effects in depressive disorders. However, other trials have reported essentially no effect. In this podcast Dr Brian Hallahan discusses the key findings of his meta-analysis, which pools together all the data accumulated on the subject in an attempt to cut through to the truth about omega-3s and depression.