Does taking fish oils with antipsychotic medication have any beneficial effect?

Professor David Taylor: Fish oils contains various compounds that are utilised in parts of human cells, and it can be shown that the taking of fish oils or the eating of oily fish has a range of effects on the body, and indeed on the mind.

So there’s a little bit of evidence to suggest, for example that fish oils are effective in the treatment of depression. There is also a little bit of evidence to suggest that fish oils are effective in the treatment of schizophrenia, particularly when added to antipsychotic medication. The evidence in both cases is not strong, and the trials are generally small and few and far between.

So some people believe that they are helpful, and some believe they’re not. Even if you don’t believe that they are helpful in depression or schizophrenia, the taking of fish oils generally speaking is good for one’s health. It seems that the taking of fish oils has a beneficial effect on the different constituents of the fats in the blood, and it can reduce the risk of heart attack, for example, it can reduce the risk of cardiac arrest, and other cardiac arrhythmias. So even if fish oils don’t work for mental illness, and they might, they will definitely work for one’s physical health.

One rider to that, one caveat, is that you have to take the right constituents of the fish oil and you have to take the right dose.

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