| The Effect of Omega-3 Fatty Acid Supplementation on Cerebral Blood Flow and Vascular Resistance: A Preliminary Study |
| Jae-Hyeok Heo1, Hye-Yeon Won1, Dong-Gyu Im1, Jung-Hee Kim2, Hee-Tae Kim3, and Jin-Young Ahn1 |
1Department of Neurology, Seoul Medical Center, Seoul, Korea
2Department of Neurosurgery, Seoul Medical Center, Seoul, Korea
3Department of Neurology, Hanyang University Hospital, Seoul, Korea |
| Corresponding Author:
Jin-Young Ahn ,Tel: +82-2-2276-8670 , Fax: +82-2-2276-8539, Email: neuroahn@gmail.com |
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Received September 2, 2015 Accepted November 26, 2015 |
| Copyright 2015 by The Korean Society of Clinical Neurophysiology |
| This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. |
| ABSTRACT |
Background: The effects of omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) on cerebral vessels have not been clarified until now. Thus we investigated the efficacy of omega-3 PUFAs supplementation on cerebral blood flow velocity and vascular resistance via transcranial doppler (TCD).
Methods: Consecutive twenty patients (13 male and 7 female) with at least 1 cerebrovascular risk factor or a known cerebrovascular disease were enrolled. Patients were treated with omega-3 PUFAs (1 g, two times per day) for 12 weeks. Cerebral blood flow velocity, resistance index, and pulsatile index were checked before and after 12 weeks of treatment using TCD.
Results: The change of resistance index in right MCA (from 0.58 ± 0.07 to 0.55 ± 0.07, p = 0.042) and left PCA (from 0.56 ± 0.07 to 0.53 ± 0.06, p = 0.037) showed significant improvement after 12 weeks of omega-3 PUFAs treatment. The changes in other vessels, however, failed to show any significant changes compared to the baseline.
Conclusions: Omega-3 PUFAs treatment showed feasible efficacies for cerebral vascular resistances in this open label trial. To confirm these results, larger samples of patients and longer period of follow-up is warranted. |
| Key words:
Omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids, Vascular resistance, Transcranial doppler |
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