Fish Oil and Memory

My family and I found out awhile ago about the power of fish oil. In case you haven't heard, this is the memory and concentration aid that everyone has been looking for. If you and your kids are not taking a dose each day, I strongly recommend you consider it.

Two of my five children have struggled with mild speech problems, behavior problems, and problems with school. So we were looking for some kind of vitamin supplement that might help. We started looking into fish oil on a tip from a friend.

All seven of us now take this daily. We are huge believers in it. We don't give our kids the vitamin pills, of course, because pills are a choking hazard. So we give them the liquid. We use the Carlson brand, which can be ordered online from vendors such as eVitamins.com.

Our friend had tried fish oil with her son and noticed a big improvement. Her son started listening to her, his speech improved, he started doing better in school, and he was acting out (being "bad") a lot less. To me this seemed like more than just a coincidence.

But why does it work? It turns out that fish oil contains a high amount of Omega-3 fatty acids. I won't get technical, but here are a few important things you should know about Omega-3's.

• Omega-3's can only be found in the diet. Your body can't make them.
• Most of today's foods do not have them.
• Your brain requires them for concentration and memory.

Experts say that most people only get about 20% of the Omega-3's they need. In the old days, it was not a problem. It's ironic, but in some ways the diet your grandparents ate growing up was a lot healthier than today's diets.

The problem is in the way today's food is processed. Modern food needs to have a lot of preservatives so it can stay on the shelf a long time. If you can believe it, this processing removes the natural Omega-3 fats from the food! In its place, we get to eat "partially hydrogenated fats". These fats are completely useless from a health standpoint.

So eating modern, prepackaged foods can basically cause an Omega-3 deficiency. That's why taking fish oil can improve your memory, concentration, and so on. It works because it contains essential brain nutrients that are hard to get from the so-called modern diet.

What really got my attention was a 2006 study in Britain that gave fish oil to a large group of school children. Children with memory, attention, concentration, and behavior problems experienced major improvement. According to the study, "...the most striking improvement was in concentration or attention, which improved by a third."

There are lots of medical experts singing the praises of fish oil these days. Dr. Barry Sears, the creator of the Zone Diet, says this: "High-dose pharmaceutical grade fish oil is as close to a medical miracle as we will see in the 21st century.”

You can buy quality fish oil vitamins almost anywhere. Just about every grocery store and drug store now sells them. They are pretty cheap, too. The pills are a problem, though, if you want to give it to your kids (or if you don't like swallowing large pills).

For months and months, I cut up dozens of fish capsules a week to get the oil out for my kids. I would slit each capsule with a sharp knife, then squeeze the oil onto a spoon. Just to get one teaspoon, I would have to cut up five capsules. This was messy, wasteful, and time-consuming.

I just knew there had to be a way to buy the oil in a bottle. I checked every store in my town but just could not find it. I did find flax oil in a bottle at the grocery store. However, flax oil does not have the same Omega-3's as fish oil so that was no good. So now I order Carlson's oil online.

We give our kids two to three teaspoons of fish oil a day, with meals. I take a tablespoon or two a day. The liquid is so much easier than cutting up the capsules! Only one of our kids complains about the taste. It doesn't bother me at all. It's just kind of an oily/lemony flavor.

The science makes sense, and the idea that the modern diet causes Omega-3 deficiencies makes sense too. We aren't quitting this anytime soon. :)

"High-dose pharmaceutical grade fish oil is as close to a medical miracle as we will see in the 21st century"