Dr. Nicolas G. Bazan of the Louisiana State University in New Orleans, and associates at LSU and Brigham & Women’s Hospital in Boston, studied how docosahexaenoic acid (DHA), an omega-3 fatty acid, affects the human brain.
The team used tandem mass spectrometry to test postmortem brain samples from six Alzheimer’s patients and six controls who did not have the disease. The investigators report that adding DHA, a building block of brain cell structure, to human neurons slows down secretion of the harmful plaque-forming beta amyloid proteins associated with Alzheimer’s, while increasing production of neuroprotectin D1 (NPD1), a derivative of DHA that protects neurons from cell death.
They confirmed that Alzheimer’s patients have much less NPD1 in the area of the brain critical to memory formation and cognition than in other areas of their brains.
These findings suggest that the DHA in coldwater fish, like salmon and mackerel, may protect the brain from cognitive decline.