London: Stroke patients could be given an injection of fish oils to dramatically reduce the brain damage they suffer.
Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s patients may also benefit, after ‘remarkable’ experiments found omega-3 oils cut the number of brain cells killed by more than a half.
It could lead to thousands of stroke sufferers retaining the ability to eat, dress or walk unaided, hugely improving life for them and for their carers.
Currently hospitals have just one drug that eases brain damage. But it has to be given within three or four hours of a stroke.
It is hoped that the fish oil-based drug could be given much later and so help many more people.
The existing stroke drug works by breaking up clots that block blood flow to the brain but it does not prevent blood-starved cells from dying.
However, the fish oils, abundant in salmon and mackerel, help damaged cells stay alive, using multiple techniques to try such as switching on protective genes.
Experiments on mice showed that much of the ‘saved’ brain tissue was still healthy eight weeks after receiving the jab, the journal PLoS ONE reports.
The researchers, from Columbia University in New York, and Louisiana State University in New Orleans, hope to test the drug on people “very soon”. The drug would be given through an injection in the arm.
— Daily Mail
