In Brief:
Omega-3 fatty acid supplements did nothing to slow memory declines in people with mild to moderate Alzheimer's disease, but a study in healthy people with slight memory complaints did show promise, U.S. researchers said on Sunday. The findings from an 18-month, government-backed study suggest taking supplements of docosahexenoic acid, or DHA -- an omega-3 fatty acid -- does not arrest Alzheimer's in people who have already developed the mind-robbing disease. Both studies, which are being presented at an international Alzheimer's Association meeting in Vienna, Austria, show the difficulty of treating Alzheimer's disease, which causes memory loss, confusion, the inability to care for oneself and eventually death. by the time you have Alzheimer's disease, it is too late,' Dr Ronald Petersen, director of Alzheimer's research at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, said in a telephone interview. Plenty of studies in both mice and people had suggested that a diet rich in DHA -- an omega-3 fatty acid found in fatty cold-water fish -- could dramatically slow Alzheimer's disease, and hopes were high for DHA as a possible new treatment. In the Alzheimer's study supported by the National Institute on Aging, Quinn and colleagues compared Martek's DHA supplements to a placebo in 402 people with mild to moderate Alzheimer's. But the study did suggest some benefit in people with Alzheimer's who do not have the ApoE4 gene, which raises their Alzheimer's disease risk.
