Omega-3 supplements may reduce elevated levels of a surrogate biomarker of head trauma called Nf-L, a new study on NCAA football players found, in addition to providing multiple beneficial cardiovascular effects in these athletes.
 
American Football players are uniquely susceptible to a number of adverse cardiovascular outcomes and brain injury, according to the authors of the present study, which appears in the Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition.
 
“Despite intense physical training, American-style football (ASF) athletes exhibit an increased risk of developing cardiovascular disease,” they said. “For ASF athletes, increased body mass may lead to longer careers, more playing time, and, for those competing at the highest level, greater salaries. High body mass increases the risk of obesity which is linked to CVD; however, an increased incidence of CVD in ASF athletes is not limited to those with increased body mass. A large percentage of ASF athletes, independent of body mass, have hypertension and dyslipidemia, and sport-participation at the elite level is a stimulus for oxidative stress and inflammation, all contributors to CVD.”
 
Furthermore, football is a sport uniquely associated with high incidence of mild traumatic brain injury, between concussions and repetitive subconcussive head impacts, the latter of which are now looked at as a possible source of neurological changes even in the absence of a clinically-discernible injury.
 
Between the previously-investigated cardiovascular health benefits, and the potential to attenuate elevated levels of Nf-L, the authors of the study posited that supplementation with omega-3 fatty acids could target markers of cardiovascular disease risk and brain trauma in NCAA players. Two NCAA teams were divided into experimemtal and observational groups, with 31 players on one team being administered a highly-bioavailable omega-3 formulation containing 2000 mg DHA, 560 mg EPA, and 320 mg DPA. Blood was sampled at specific times throughout pre- and regular season, which is coincident with changes in physical activity, contact, and incidence and severity of head impacts.
 
Over the course of 89 days, the experimental team took at least four supplements per week, and by the end of the study period, experienced elevated omega-3 blood concentrations compared to the control group. While serum Nf-L was the same between both study groups at baseline, the control group saw increased blood concentrations of it as the season went on, while Nf-L blood concentrations in the omega-3 fatty acid group failed to see the same significant elevation by the end of the treatment period. Specifically, the authors of the study considered the changes in Nf-L in the experimental group to be “trivial to small” in magnitude, even among starting players on the team who typically experience the greatest increases in Nf-L, according to prior studies.
 
“To date, only few studies have documented the relationship between serum Nf-L and repetitive head impact in ASF athletes,” the authors of the study noted. “The available evidence has demonstrated that Nf-L increases progressively through a season, particularly in athletes categorized as starters […] the most novel finding of the current study is that omega-3 fatty acid supplementation likely attenuated elevations in serum Nf-L observed over the course of a season, specifically in the treatment group categorized as starters.”
 
Additionally, the treatment group saw significantly improved omega-3:omega-6 fatty acid ratios with the most notable changes in linemen, which suggests cardioprotective benefits were achieved in the players, especially since most athletes don’t obtain recommended amounts of omega-3s from their diet alone, the authors noted.