Taking fish oil may help prevent schizophrenia and other psychotic disorders in at-risk young adults, new research suggests.

The study, in the Archives of General Psychiatry, found that young people at very high risk of developing psychosis were much less likely to develop full psychotic disorders over the next year if they took fish oil capsules for just 12 weeks.

The study looked at 81 young patients who did not yet meet the criteria for a diagnosis of psychosis, but who had begun to show enough mental illness symptoms to prompt them to seek psychiatric care.

These patients had either had mild psychotic symptoms, transient psychosis, or a family history of psychotic disorders plus a decrease in functioning.

Schizophrenia and other severe psychotic illnesses are typically diagnosed in adolescence or early adulthood. It's been shown that young people with early symptoms have as high as a 40 per cent risk of becoming psychotic in the next year.

In a bid to lower that risk, the researchers, led by Dr. G. Paul Amminger, of Medical University of Vienna, Austria, had 41 of the patients take four daily fish oil capsules containing a total of 1.2 grams of omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids for 12 weeks; another 40 patients took placebo capsules.

Only six per cent of all the patients dropped out during the study, suggesting the fish oil was well-tolerated.

After one year, two patients in the fish oil group (4.9 per cent) had been diagnosed with a psychotic disorder, compared to 11 (27.5 per cent) in the placebo group.

The patients taking fish oil also showed significant reductions in their psychotic symptoms and improvements in function, while they were at no greater risk of side effects than those taking the placeboes.

The authors think that patients with schizophrenia may have an underlying dysfunction in fatty acid metabolism, so providing them with extra omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids may help to prevent the progression to psychotic disease. Fish oil is also thought to boost levels of glutathione, an antioxidant that protects the brain against oxidative stress.

The authors note that fish oil capsules are inexpensive, safe, and would probably be more palatable to young people than anti-psychotic medications, which are known to cause significant side effects, such as weight gain and sexual problems.

"The finding that treatment with a natural substance may prevent or at least delay the onset of psychotic disorder gives hope that there may be alternatives to antipsychotics for the prodromal [early symptomatic] phase," the authors write.

The researchers are now beginning a larger international study in eight cities with hopes of replicating these findings.