Fish oil pills to help with anger management

[bluemoonKY]

I have read in multiple sources on the internet and in books that taking fish oil pills can help a person with anger management. According to my sources, it is the omega 3 fatty acids in the fish oil pills that help with anger management. What my sources don't say is how the omega 3 fatty acids in fish oil pills help a person with anger problems. How do the omega 3 fatty acids help a person with anger management? Do the ingredients in fish oil pills help a person manage their anger by reducing a person's anger, or do they not reduce a person anger at all but just help by helping the person not act out on their anger? In other words, do the fish oil pills not reduce anger at all but help by making a person less likely to throw a temper tantrum (even though they are angry)?

 

[Evo]

Did you read it in a peer reviewed study from an acceptable journal?. I'm afraid that reading something on "the internet" means nothing, there is more misinformation on the internet than facts.

Please post your "sources".

 

[bluemoonKY]

Evo, this is a link to one of my internet sources: http://angermentor.com/happiness-management-diet-to-fight-off-anger-and-depression

One of my book sources is mentioned in the link I provided: Diet, Stress, & Emotions: The Mind-Body-Diet Connection.

I don't remember the titles of the other books in which I got this information.

 

[berkeman]

I have read in multiple sources on the internet and in books that taking fish oil pills can help a person with anger management. According to my sources, it is the omega 3 fatty acids in the fish oil pills that help with anger management. What my sources don't say is how the omega 3 fatty acids in fish oil pills help a person with anger problems. How do the omega 3 fatty acids help a person with anger management? Do the ingredients in fish oil pills help a person manage their anger by reducing a person's anger, or do they not reduce a person anger at all but just help by helping the person not act out on their anger? In other words, do the fish oil pills not reduce anger at all but help by making a person less likely to throw a temper tantrum (even though they are angry)?

Evo, this is a link to one of my internet sources: http://angermentor.com/happiness-management-diet-to-fight-off-anger-and-depression

One of my book sources is mentioned in the link I provided: Diet, Stress, & Emotions: The Mind-Body-Diet Connection.

I don't remember the titles of the other books in which I got this information.

Those don't look to qualify as peer-reviewed studies or information. What you need to do is do some searching for articles on the effect, and look to see if they provide references at the end of the articles. Then look to see where the references were published. Look for articles in medical journals, or at websites of major medical organizations.

I did a google search on Medications for Anger Management, and got lots of hits. Sift though some of these to see if you can work your way to real medical studies (double-blind, etc.):

https://www.google.com/search?q=med...la:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&channel=sb

 

[Evo]

Yeah, those sources are not acceptable. bluemoonky, you should not be getting information from places that have no medical credibility. It's actually against our rules to post such things, I'm only allowing it to prove that they are not credible sources.

From now on, do not post anything that is not from a credible, peer reviewed study published in an accepted journal. You can find this in our rules.

 

[256bits]

From the link by bluemonkey, we have another link:( Britain’s Cambridge University )
http://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/serotonin-levels-affect-the-brain’s-response-to-anger

The research revealed that low brain serotonin made communications between specific brain regions of the emotional limbic system of the brain (a structure called the amygdala) and the frontal lobes weaker compared to those present under normal levels of serotonin. The findings suggest that when serotonin levels are low, it may be more difficult for the prefrontal cortex to control emotional responses to anger that are generated within the amygdala.

Using a personality questionnaire, they also determined which individuals have a natural tendency to behave aggressively. In these individuals, the communications between the amygdala and the prefrontal cortex was even weaker following serotonin depletion. 'Weak' communications means that it is more difficult for the prefrontal cortex to control the feelings of anger that are generated within the amygdala when the levels of serotonin are low. As a result, those individuals who might be predisposed to aggression were the most sensitive to changes in serotonin depletion.

Dr Molly Crockett, co-first author who worked on the research while a PhD student at Cambridge’s Behavioural and Clinical Neuroscience Institute (and currently based at the University of Zurich) said: “We've known for decades that serotonin plays a key role in aggression, but it's only very recently that we've had the technology to look into the brain and examine just how serotonin helps us regulate our emotional impulses. By combining a long tradition in behavioral research with new technology, we were finally able to uncover a mechanism for how serotonin might influence aggression.”

Key words to note are : "suggest" and "might"

Also, from the same study,

For the study, healthy volunteers’ serotonin levels were altered by manipulating their diet. On the serotonin depletion day, they were given a mixture of amino acids that lacked tryptophan, the building block for serotonin. On the placebo day, they were given the same mixture but with a normal amount of tryptophan.

Tryptophan supplement, in the form, I presume, of fish oil, is what bluemonkey could be referring to.

But tryptophan is also present in a wide variety of other foods.

Tryptophan is a routine constituent of most protein-based foods or dietary proteins. It is particularly plentiful in chocolate, oats, dried dates, milk, yogurt, cottage cheese, red meat, eggs, fish, poultry, sesame, chickpeas, sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, spirulina, bananas, and peanuts.[18] Despite popular belief.[19][20][21] that turkey has a particularly high amount of tryptophan, the amount of tryptophan in turkey is typical of most poultry.[22] There is also a myth that plant protein lacks tryptophan; in fact, tryptophan is present in significant amounts in almost all forms of plant protein, and abundant in some.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tryptophan

But that is hardly the whole story.

 

[jim mcnamara]

I did a small search, got this from NIH:

Binks CA, Fenton M, McCarthy L, Lee T, Adams CE, Duggan C. Pharmacological interventions for people with borderline personality disorder. Cochrane Database Syst Rev. 2006;(1):CD005653.

This is one limited clinical study dealing with a population of 30 women reacting with anger to normal situations where anger is not a normal response. The women given omega-3 improved.

I found nothing else. Omega-3's are a required fatty acid, but for what you are talking about they appear to me to be a wasted expense.

This is one article from pubmed about omega-3's in a healthy diet:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20145438

In reality and in terms of your question- this means fish oil pills have small chance of being something worth considering. Consider instead the tryptophan link in 256bits post above.

 

[bluemoonKY]

Yeah, those sources are not acceptable. bluemoonky, you should not be getting information from places that have no medical credibility. It's actually against our rules to post such things, I'm only allowing it to prove that they are not credible sources.

From now on, do not post anything that is not from a credible, peer reviewed study published in an accepted journal. You can find this in our rules.

Evo, you did not say "please post your sources if they are from a credible, peer reviewed study published in an accepted journal." You just asked me to post my sources, so I did.

 

[berkeman]

Evo, you did not say "please post your sources if they are from a credible, peer reviewed study published in an accepted journal." You just asked me to post my sources, so I did.

Well, she did mention peer-reviewed sources, and that is pretty clear in the PF rules (see Site Info at the top of the page). This is one of the ways we keep the discussions here on the PF grounded in real science, and don't get off track with popularist-type sources.

 

[Evo]

Evo, you did not say "please post your sources if they are from a credible, peer reviewed study published in an accepted journal." You just asked me to post my sources, so I did.

Yes, I asked you to post your sources, which is why no warning was sent to you. My post was to remind you that you should be looking for sources that meet scientific scrutiny.