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Response to critiques on ‘Omega-3 fatty acids for the treatment of depression: systematic review and meta-analysis’

Molecular Psychiatry volume 17, pages 1163–1167 (2012)Cite this article

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We thank Drs Martins et al and Su et al. for their careful critiques of our paper entitled ‘Omega-3 fatty acids for the treatment of depression: systematic review and meta-analysis’.1, 2 These authors have made substantial contributions to the field of psychopharmacology and omega-3 fatty acid research, and we are flattered that they took the time to comment on our work. We also thank Martins et al. for detecting our error in computing the effect size from one of the articles in our meta-analysis and replicating our analysis.3 Adjusting the effect size for this article does not affect any of the primary or secondary findings from our meta-analysis because of the small sample in this trial.

In this response, we will discuss several thoughtful critiques made in response to our article, including (1) our criteria for selection of studies and (2) our use of a preselected hierarchy for outcomes used in meta-analysis rather than using the primary outcome selected by the author. We will finish by conducting several reanalyses to discuss the major secondary findings made in our original article and by Martins et al. in their reanalysis of the data. Specifically, we will discuss the effects of publication bias and eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) dose on omega-3 effects on Major Depression in the data set from our meta-analysis, as well as data presented in the critiques from Dr Martins et al. and Dr Su et al.

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Acknowledgements

We acknowledge the National Institute of Mental Health support of the Yale Child Study Center Research Training Program (MHB), the National Institutes of Health 1K23MH091240-01(MHB), the APIRE/Eli Lilly Psychiatric Research Fellowship (MHB), the AACAP/Eli Lilly Pilot Research Award (MHB), the Trichotillomania Learning Center (MHB), NARSAD (MHB and JH) and UL1 RR024139 from the National Center for Research Resources, a component of the National Institutes of Health, and NIH roadmap for Medical Research (MHB and JH).

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  1. Department of Psychiatry, Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, CT, USA

    M H Bloch & J Hannestad

  2. Yale Child Study Center, Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, CT, USA

    M H Bloch

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  1. M H Bloch
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  2. J Hannestad
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Correspondence to M H Bloch.

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Bloch, M., Hannestad, J. Response to critiques on ‘Omega-3 fatty acids for the treatment of depression: systematic review and meta-analysis’. Mol Psychiatry 17, 1163–1167 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1038/mp.2012.116

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