Fish Oil Credited For Recovery of Teen After Serious Accident

 





A family credits fish oil with saving their badly injured son, CNN reports.
Grant Virgin was involved in a hit-and-run accident last September, according to the New York Daily News. His list of injuries was long: a torn aorta, skull fractures, bleeding through his brain, compound bone fractures and spinal fractures.
When Grant’s family arrived at the hospital to check on their son, doctors had little hope that he would survive his injuries. His parents, however, weren’t willing to say goodbye.
“It’s like, how dare you not fight for my son’s life?” JJ Virgin, Grant’s mother, told CNN. “It really took us … getting very aggressive and assertive to save our son’s life, because they weren’t going to do it.”
“They told us not to. They told us to let him go,” she added.

Hoping to save their son, Grant’s family tried a variety of different approaches, CNN reports. They started occasionally rubbing a cream containing progesterone on him. Shortly after they started this unorthodox treatment, Grant awoke from his coma. However, the family ultimately credits fish oil with saving their son’s life.
According to CNN, the idea behind using fish oil to treat traumatic brain injury is “at once simple and complex.” The brain’s cell wall is, in part, made up of omega-3 fatty acids. 

“It can prevent cells from dying,” Dr. Sanjay Gupta said while discussing Grant’s story on “Sanjay Gupta, MD.” “It can also act as an anti-inflammatory in the brain – very important, inflammation being a big culprit after a head injury. The brain itself, if you look at it, about a third of it is actually made up of substances that are very similar to Omega-3 fatty acids … so essentially, you’re trying to replace the very substance that the brain is comprised of.”
Amazingly, Grant was reportedly able to ask a nurse for a phone to call his mother only 48 hours after receiving high-dose fish oil.
The Desert Sun reports that today Grant’s recovery is almost complete. The 17-year-old boy reportedly lifts weights, runs, drums and participates in a variety of other activities. However, he still struggles with speech.
Nevertheless, his parents are optimistic.
“Grant is GREAT,” his mother recently wrote on Facebook. “He’s a reminder that we NEVER stop fighting. Our BEST life is worth the fight.”

James Fluere

Science Recorder.com