Low DHA Levels Linked To Suicide Risk Among U.S. Military Personnel » The Behavioral Medicine Report

A new study suggests that low levels of the highly unsaturated omega-3 essential fatty acids, in particular DHA, may be associated with increased risk of suicide. Researchers at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences (USU) and the National Institute of Alcoholism and Alcohol Abuse (NIAAA) at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) drew this finding following analysis of a large random sampling of suicide deaths among U.S. military personnel on active-duty between 2002 and 2008. The results of this retrospective study appear in the August 23 online version of the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry.

“We were surprised to find just how low the levels of omega-3 fatty acids were in the entire sample,” said Army Col. (Dr.) Michael D. Lewis, lead author on the study and assistant professor in the Department of Preventive Medicine and Biometrics at the USU. “There still was a significant suicide risk when we stratified the population. When we compared the 1,400 samples with the lowest levels of DHA to the remaining 200, there was a 62 percent increased risk that the samples were from a documented suicide. We need to continue to evaluate these results with a well-designed interventional study, but this represents a potential simple nutritional intervention that warrants further investigation.”