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NetWellness provides the highest quality health information and education services created and evaluated by faculty of our partner universities.
Saturday, November 21, 2009
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NetWellness provides the highest quality health information and education services created and evaluated by faculty of our partner universities.
Saturday, November 21, 2009
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Children's Health |
Autism and Fish oil Paste12/15/2004 |
My sister suspects her 26 month old son may be Autistic. She has been giving him "fish oil paste" (peach flavored) in attempts to improve his speech. Is there any research to support this and is there any risk (i.e. mercury or other toxicity) of using this? Thank you for your help.
There are many aspects of your question that I would like to address:
The one that I think has the most impact is the "suspicion" of a disease. As a health care provider, one of the most difficult issues involves accurately diagnosing any condition. If there is any doubt as to the diagnosis of autism, then I would urge your sister to get a more definitive diagnosis before starting any treatment.
The next idea to address is what the FDA regards as "supplements," which is where fish oil paste fits. By the nature of what it is, fish oil paste - you and I both would likely agree that the make-up of this is dependent on the catch of the day (or week) that goes into that paste, which is in turn dependent on the type(s) of fish, what those fish ate (both healthy and toxic) and where those fish were caught. After that it depends where the fish oil is extracted, where the paste is made, the type of container it is placed in and many other variables that are very difficult to quantify. The way drugs are tested require them to be one single chemical compound, made in a pure form and made under exacting control, and still some drugs recently have been pulled off the market for safety concerns. Fish oil paste is an ever changing collection of different chemicals, with unknown impurities (some likely helpful, some likely harmful), so it makes any prediction of benefit or risk impossible to assign.
The final point is one on research to support the use of any supplement. What I would love to have is true data on the benefits and side effects of each supplement, but due to the nature of what was discussed above, that is impossible to get. Lacking that type of data, the next best would be data that shows that there is no harm, which again is difficult to get because of the ever changing nature of any natural product.
I would urge your sister to get a more formal diagnosis, and considering the risk of exposure to mercury from eating fish, I cannot recommend fish oil paste without suggesting that each batch of paste be examined for mercury and other heavy metal content.
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Michael Spigarelli, MD, PhD Assistant Professor Division of Adolescent Medicine Department of Pediatrics Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center University of Cincinnati |
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