Fish Oil may Help Severe Brain Damage Recovery

First Posted: Jan 20, 2014 04:16 PM EST
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Grant Virgin's severe brain injury may have been saved by the simple consumption of fish oil. When the California teenager endured the injury after a brutal hit-and-run according to CNN, doctors told his family that due to compound bone fractures and a spinal fracture from being struck by a car, he wouldn't' live till morning.

"They told us to let him go," Grant's mother JJ, a celebrity nutritionist, via CNN. "It's like, how dare you not fight for my son's life? ... It really took us ... getting very aggressive and assertive to save our son's life, because they weren't going to do it."

However, News.com.au notes how determined the family was to save their son. Yet after undergoing several surgeries, he remained in a coma with severe brain damage. At this point, they were willing to try anything.

The family soon decided to move their son to the Children's Hospital Los Angeles where they decided to look into a new treatment.

Previous studies have shown that the brain's cell wall is partly composed of the same omega-3 fatty acids, and so, his family decided to put him on a regimen of 20-grams-per-day.

"If you have a brick wall and it gets damaged, wouldn't you want to use bricks to repair it?" Dr. Michael Lewis, founder of the Brain Health Education and Research Institute, via CNN. "By supplementing using (omega-3 fatty acids) in substantial doses, you provide the foundation for the brain to repair itself."

Grant soon woke up and began talking again. He also started to speak short phrases.

Now 17, he has moved back home and is nearly fully recovered, though he still struggles with speech, according to the Desert Son.  

"From when he first arrived compared to now is just night and day," Elly Schoap, an occupational therapist at the hospital said, via the news organization. "When he left us he was able to walk and talk, but he was still very impaired. ... This is why we work in this area. To have him come back and see this kind of success story is just amazing."

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