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Research: UAUY and co-workers,
Listed in Issue 97
Abstract
UAUY and co-workers, Institute of Nutrition and Food Technology, University of Chile, Santiago, Chile, have reviewed (29 references) studies of the effects of fatty acid supplementation on the neurodevelopment of full-term infants.
Background
Healthy term infants who are not breast-fed may need long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acid supplementation in their food. However consistent functional effects of such supplementation across different studies conducted over the past two decades are difficult to document.
Methodology
Exhaustive literature searches were conducted.
Results
There are 14 controlled trials in term infants that have included bottle feeding with or without fatty acid supplements and have assessed visual or other measure of neural development. Another 7 trials have evaluated specific measures related to cognitive development. This study has computed the development of visual acuity responses as a function of total dose of docosahexaenoic acid (DHA), allowing for extra linolenic acid in the food to be converted at a rate of between 1% and 10%. At 4 months, there is a strong and significant effect of DHA-equivalent dose on the magnitude of the visual acuity response (p = 0.001).
Conclusion
The authors conclude that there is strong evidence for the positive effect of polyunsaturated fatty acid supplementation on the development of bottle-fed infants.
References
Uauy R, Hoffman DR, Mena P, Llanos A, Birch EE. Term infant studies of DHA and ARA supplementation on neurodevelopment: results of randomized controlled trials. The Journal of Pediatrics 143 (4 Suppl): S17-S25, Oct 2003.
