Fish Oil Helped Save Our SonExtract from CNN 2012-10-19 Part-3

'The whole place was cheering for me'

Two weeks after beginning the regimen, Ghassemi was emerging from his coma.
"We saw hand movements on the left side," Peter Ghassemi said. "Around the fifth or sixth week, there was some movement, and then his hands started moving more, the leg was moving more."
Soon after that, Bobby began to show signs of recognizing his family and his dog and of discerning things like colors and numbers. Slowly, his brain was recovering, and his family ardently believes that the high-dose fish oil is the reason why.
"His brain was still recovering, but with (omega-3), it recovered much faster and in a shorter amount of time," Peter Ghassemi said. "His brain was damaged, and this was food for the brain."
Three months after his accident, Bobby Ghassemi was well enough to attend his high school graduation.
"The whole place was cheering for me, and they all stood up and were screaming and cheering my name," Ghassemi, now 20, recalls with a smile. "I took my graduation cap off and waved it around."
He still has significant left-side weakness and is relearning how to walk, but his progress has been tremendous, according to Lewis.
"In my opinion, and this is pure speculation, he never would have come out of a coma if it hadn't been for the use of omega-3s to allow that natural healing process to occur," said Lewis, founder of the Brain Health Education and Research Institute. "In the end, the brain has to heal itself. There are no magic cures for brain injury."

Large-scale study needed

But what do these two dramatic stories really say about omega-3 as a potential treatment for traumatic brain injury? For now, they are merely stories with omega-3 as a common denominator.

The remaining questions are as poignant as the stories themselves: Could youth have been a factor for Ghassemi and McCloy? What about other treatments given to McCloy, like hyperbaric oxygen? Could they have played a role?
Those and other questions could and should be answered, according to experts, with a large-scale clinical study.
"These two clinical cases where we have a wildly unexpected recovery, was it just luck that they woke up?" asked Dr. Joseph Hibbeln, an omega-3 expert and chief of the Section on Nutritional Neurosciences at the National Institutes of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. "Or is there some reasonable scientific explanation for it?
"Given that there aren't any other treatments, this is a good bet," Hibbeln said. "It's really only reasonable to go forward with doing the full press of careful intervention studies."
The implications of a successful study are huge: 1.7 million people suffer a traumatic brain injury each year in the United States.
And research into how omega-3 might function for stroke, Parkinson's disease and early Alzheimer's disease is ongoing.
"The message that I'm trying to get across is, there's more you can do," Lewis said. "If you add omega-3s, we can then begin to let the brain heal itself a little more efficiently."
"Up until the time the pharmaceutical industry gives us a drug that cures all brain injury, this is the best hope we have," Bailes 

魚油救了我們的兒子 翻譯節錄自CNN  2012-10-19  Part-3

在利益掛帥主義當道的不幸時代,攝取富含Omega-3脂肪酸的海洋魚類油脂,可謂是既利腦又補腦矣!

2個星期的時間過去了,鲍比-賈斯密從昏迷(coma)中慕然甦醒!鲍比-賈斯密的父親彼得-賈斯密開始滿懷感激的敘述隨後發生了什麼事?!大概是5-6個星期的時間吧,鲍比-賈斯密的左手開始能活動,接著腳掌也有了感覺反應;然後鲍比-賈斯密首次能辨識家人以及他心愛的寵物,同時對於顏色與數字的區分也頗有進展;鲍比-賈斯密的腦部功能真的已經在逐漸恢復之中了!而這一切可能要拜高劑量Omega-3不飽和脂肪酸的魚油所賜!鲍比-賈斯密的父親彼得-賈斯密接著繼續敘述兒子鲍比-賈斯密的魚油治療過程:毫無疑問的鲍比-賈斯密的腦部功能仍在持續的復原之中,如果沒有Omega-3不飽和脂肪酸的魚油介入,我兒子不可能恢復的那麼快(植物人的腦部功能還是在遲緩的恢復之中,只是這種復原過程太過於漫長,往往早已因為身體的不堪負荷與退化,而失去了意義)!鲍比-賈斯密的腦部功能雖然是受損了,但這種治療方式確實對恢復腦部功能有所幫助!車禍發生之後的3個月過去了,鲍比-賈斯密在持續接受魚油治療的情形之下,已經進步到可以參加自己的高中畢業典禮!他們都在站著對我歡呼,而我也舉起了自己的畢業帽給予回禮(根據鲍比-賈斯密的事後甜蜜回憶)!而按照鲍比-賈斯密主治醫師-麥可-路易士的說法,雖然鲍比-賈斯密很明顯的身體左邊功能還是差了一些,也時常需要學習如何調整走路的方式;不過如果沒有使用高劑量的Omega-3不飽和脂肪酸之魚油介入治療方式,讓受傷的腦部組織及時有機會以自然的方式來修護自己,鲍比-賈斯密應該不可能會有如此不可思議的恢復結果!更甭提現在還有什麼秘方可以幫的了他?!

失智症的腦部組織,一般而言重量朝逐漸減少的趨勢發展 ,但萎縮的腦部有時也常見於正常的老年人---阿茲海默症腦組織(右邊)對比正常腦組織(左方)照片 from WikiPedia

那麼2006年雷恩-麥克羅和2012年鲍比-賈斯密案例所顯示出來的Omega-3不飽和脂肪酸魚油之巨大治療潛力,又該如何定義?畢竟在眾多的腦部功能醫療案例中,它們只是皆有使用魚油的二個零星案例而已?況且這二個案例所要面對的挑戰,就像它們的劇烈性結果一樣的尖銳?其中的疑問可能包含有:會不會因為是雷恩-麥克羅和鲍比-賈斯密都是年輕人,才會有此治療結果?亦或是由於高壓氧的施行,這二個年輕人才能死裡逃生?還是因為此二人就是好運,故而能躲過一劫?根據美國國家腦神經治療中心酒精中毒醫療小組主治醫師-約瑟夫-黑伯林(本人同時也是Omega-3不飽和脂肪酸魚油專家)的推演,上述問題絕對會被各種不同背景的醫藥利益團體所質疑,甚至被詆毀?可是你也不能就輕率推翻掉,魚油某種未經發現的腦部功能治療功效?!所以惟一比較可行的辦法就是:儘可能的進行嚴謹而又長期的魚油治療案例探討(當然藥商以及利益團體,總是會虎視眈眈)!如果魚油最後可以被接受用來醫治受損的腦部功能,勢必將會造福許多腦部功能受損的患者(例如每一年在美國,就有170萬名的腦部功能受損的患者;此外魚油也可以更積極的對於中風患者(腦部血管病變後遺症),帕金森病人(腦部Dopamine分泌過少所引起),或者是延緩初期阿滋海默病患症狀(腦部組織逐漸退化縮小)做出貢獻)?!最後鲍比-賈斯密案例的主治醫師-麥可-路易士對於魚油的相關治療經驗,做了一個公開的呼籲:我想要傳遞的訊息是,腦部功能受損病患絕對自己可以嘗試更多的治療選擇!如果患者選擇使用了魚油,也就是等於有機會幫助自己腦部功能復原的更有效率?!至於所謂的傳統處方用藥,除非藥廠能成功開發出,可以全面治療所有腦部宿疾的安全用藥.否則魚油仍將是我們這些擁有相同觀念的醫療專家之最好選擇!

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