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Fish oil as brain supplement? Or not...
I'm normally very good at spotting bogus claims for vitamins, magic pills, superfoods, etc. but there was one that even I used to fall for - fish oil.
There are loads of claims made that it will improve your child's intelligence, cure you of depression, etc.
However, the trials showing this generally turn out not to be proper trials (or not to have published their results when nothing happened). It's important to have a control group (who are randomly assigned and do not know which group they are in).
The findings of a a well-conducted, randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial, in 450 children aged 8–10 years old from a mainstream school population showed no improvement from fish oil.
Here's to Ben Goldacre, who makes the effort to look up the original papers every time newspapers make claims about these things (and misquote the papers they're basing the articles on)
There are loads of claims made that it will improve your child's intelligence, cure you of depression, etc.
However, the trials showing this generally turn out not to be proper trials (or not to have published their results when nothing happened). It's important to have a control group (who are randomly assigned and do not know which group they are in).
The findings of a a well-conducted, randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial, in 450 children aged 8–10 years old from a mainstream school population showed no improvement from fish oil.
Here's to Ben Goldacre, who makes the effort to look up the original papers every time newspapers make claims about these things (and misquote the papers they're basing the articles on)