Omega-3 Fatty Acids Are More Beneficial in the Depressive Phase Than in the Manic Phase in Patients With Bipolar I Disorder."

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Sir: We read with interest the recent (June 2005) report byOsher et al.¹ that described the potential effectiveness of omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) in the treatment of bipolardepression.1 In 1999, Stoll et al.² found that adjunctivetreatment with omega-3 PUFAs had a mood-stabilizing effectin patients with bipolar disorder in their 4-month doubleblind,placebo-controlled study. In our reexamination of thedata reported by Stoll et al., we³ found that all "non-completed"cases (3 of 14 cases) in the omega-3 group developed a manicepisode, whereas the depressive symptoms in all but 1 of thenon-completed cases (10 of 16 cases), in the placebo groupworsened.’ ‹