One of the most common complications associated with traumatic brain injuries is the risk of dangerous blood clots that can form in the circulatory system elsewhere in the body.
For patients with traumatic injuries, the body forms blood clots which can break loose and travel to the lungs or other areas, causing dangerous complications.
New research shows that using blood-thinning drugs to treat patients with traumatic brain injuries reduces the risk of life-threatening blood clots without increasing the risk of bleeding inside the brain.
DR. LEWIS COMMENTS: This finding is extremely significant to the concept of using omega-3s following brain injury. Potent blood thinners used in this protocol (heparin and Lovenox) completely block the enzymes responsible for allowing the blood to clot, thus preventing deep vein thromboses that can result in worsening of the patient’s condition or death. Omega-3s potentiate the body’s natural anti-clotting abilities rather than blocking enzymatic processes AND add the ability to modulate neuroinflammation, decrease apoptosis (cell death), and start synaptogenesis (building of new neuron synapses).
Ironically, most doctors will not use omega-3s, mostly out of ignorance, but almost always because they cite that high doses of omega-3s decrease the ability of blood to clot and increase a patient’s risk of bleeding – a risk that is theoretical, but never been shown in any clinical study to be a clinical issue. Yet these same doctors almost immediately put their ICU patients on potent pharmaceutical blood thinners that increase the risk far greater than that of omegas. Now here is a study to show that even that risk has been overstated. The major barrier as to why omega-3s couldn’t be used following TBI is no longer valid.