Fish Oil Use in Pregnancy Didn’t Make Babies Smart

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/20/health/research/20fishoil.html

by seshagiric • 16 years ago

12 20 16 years ago

pyre• 16 years ago

It's more important to get vitamin d than to worry about loading up on omega-fatty acids so that you're baby will get into a good university. I forget if it was something submitted to HN or not, but I've seen suggestions that vitamin d deficiency might be a cause of Autism.

It certainly doesn't seem that far-fetched, but IIRC the study was only based in Oregon (or at least some of the data being quoted was).

adammichaelc2• 16 years ago

The vitamin D theory of autism http://alliancept.us/vitamind/articles/Autism-Cannell1107.pd... (recently this theory was accepted by a team of Harvard researchers; more research needs to be done but it looks quite promising)

borism• 16 years ago

is Autism a disorder? (I suspect it's autist in me asking)

blueben2• 16 years ago

This is interesting. One might also assume an increase in autism rates among babies developing in the womb during winter months and babies developing in northern climates. Is this true? Do spring and summer babies have a higher rate of autism?

kristiandupont• 16 years ago

Do you have a source for that? I mean, there are many things you should be concerned about if you are suffering from deficiency - is vitamin D unusually bad or just more common?

blueben2• 16 years ago

Vitamin D is vital to dozens of critical processes in the body. Vitamin D deficiency can lead to developing rickets and bone loss. Studies have linked lower winter-time levels of Vitamin D with proliferation of influenza. Studies also suggest that Vitamin D disruptions can increase the risk of breast cancer, and consuming the RDA of Vitamin D significantly reduces (by 43%) the occurrence of pancreatic cancer.

So yeah, Vitamin D is pretty important. Get about 10-15 minutes of sun exposure at least 3 times a week.

baddox• 16 years ago

Maybe they should try snake oil.

robchez2• 16 years ago

Omega3 (Specifically DHA) Fish Oil has so many other benefits its ridiculous. If you are not getting enough (chances are you aren't) you should really add them to your regime.

timcederman• 16 years ago

I was relatively skeptical, but I am surprised at the rather drastic benefits it has shown to my blood pressure and cholesterol.

nodata• 16 years ago

Can you back this up please? The science says Omega3 is not worth it: http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/play/snake-oil-supplem...

Evgeny• 16 years ago

Maybe the supplement is not worth it, but the ratio of omega 6 to omega 3 has been shown to be important. The proper ratio should be somewhat close to 1:1, but the current western diet is more like 10:1 (10 omega 6, 1 omega 3)

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12442909

Western diets are deficient in omega-3 fatty acids, and have excessive amounts of omega-6 fatty acids compared with the diet on which human beings evolved and their genetic patterns were established. Excessive amounts of omega-6 polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA) and a very high omega-6/omega-3 ratio, as is found in today's Western diets, promote the pathogenesis of many diseases, including cardiovascular disease, cancer, and inflammatory and autoimmune diseases, whereas increased levels of omega-3 PUFA (a low omega-6/omega-3 ratio) exert suppressive effects. In the secondary prevention of cardiovascular disease, a ratio of 4/1 was associated with a 70% decrease in total mortality. A ratio of 2.5/1 reduced rectal cell proliferation in patients with colorectal cancer, whereas a ratio of 4/1 with the same amount of omega-3 PUFA had no effect. The lower omega-6/omega-3 ratio in women with breast cancer was associated with decreased risk. A ratio of 2-3/1 suppressed inflammation in patients with rheumatoid arthritis, and a ratio of 5/1 had a beneficial effect on patients with asthma, whereas a ratio of 10/1 had adverse consequences.

Also, http://www.physorg.com/news198518697.html

CamperBob2• 16 years ago

I'm not sure how to interpret the graph. The 'Omega3' bubble is below the 'worth it' line, but the 'Fish Oil' bubble is all the way at the top.

toaster• 16 years ago

On the page you pasted click on the top "Fish Oil" bubble and you'll find that the key study was about "Dietary supplementation with n-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids ..."

From wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omega-3_fatty_acid "n−3 fatty acids (popularly referred to as ω−3 fatty acids or omega-3 fatty acids)"

so omega-3 is just another name for n-3 fatty acids and on that chart it's just listed as Fish Oil instead.

robchez2• 16 years ago

The Omega3 PUFA's found in Fishoil (Specifically DHA) have many benefits. But the key one, as mentioned, is the balancing of the Omega6 : Omega3 ratio found in our diets. The Omega6 PUFA, another essential fatty acid is pro-inflammatory and over consumed these days. This is due to mainly the consumption of the vegetable franken-oils and the consumption of grain fed meats. Where we should actually have a ratio of omega6:omega3 of roughly 2-3:1, most people actually have ratios somewhere in the order of 30:1.

Now eating a diet with little vegetable oils and opting for grass fed meat, you are able to bring your Omega6 consumption down drastically, which, with some fresh wild caught salmon every now and then will remove the need for you to supplement. But unfortunately, we cant do that all the time, so every now and then its good to take some fishoil.

Anyway some studies:

[1] http://www.ajcn.org/cgi/content/full/70/3/560S

[2] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18370801

[3] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17607361

[4] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18483335?ordinalpos=1&...

If you jump on Pubmed or DailyScience and search for omega3, you will find a plethora of studies.

seshagiric• 16 years ago

Yes. Even the article says they do not want people to stop taking DHA supplements.

Our boy is one month old and my wife has been taking DHA supplements for more than half the pregnancy. I was actually looking at DHA supplements for infants when I came across the above article and it being very recent one caught my interest. It is yet to be seen if DHA makes him smart but as of now we are very happy with the little dude :)

rg• 16 years ago

"... people who consume more omega-3 fatty acids enjoy lower rates of inflammatory gum disease (periodontitis).

"... the study linked moderate intake of fish-derived omega-3 DHA to a 20 percent reduced rate of periodontitis.

"Periodontitis is a common, chronic inflammatory disease characterized by gum tissue separation from the tooth – the so-called periodontal “pockets” that can lead to bone and tooth loss."

Naqvi AZ et al. n-3 Fatty Acids and Periodontitis in US Adults. J Am Diet Assoc. 2010 Nov. Volume 110, Issue 11, Pages 1669-1675. doi: 10.1016/j.jada.2010.08.009

jseifer• 16 years ago

Ray Peat has some not so positive things to say about fish oil: http://raypeat.com/articles/articles/fishoil.shtml.

CamperBob2• 16 years ago

Is there a tl;dr version of his thesis anywhere?

geekman• 16 years ago

I don't have an issue with the conclusions about making babies smart.

However it's different with maternal depression. If you read the original study, there was a 91% probability that the DHA reduced severe maternal depression. In the study the reduction in severe depression was 15%. However because 91% probability is less than the gold standard of 95% probability it was not conclusively proven.

Given the study design, a reduction of 35% would have been required before it would have been found to be proven ie statistically significant.

Unfortunately, showing an innumeracy that is common in the medical world, they claimed they had shown there is no relationship, which is plainly false.

It is also worth pointing out that the study was prompted by earlier studies that showed eating fish had all sorts of benefits. But in the study they only gave one component of fish oil (DHA) in substantial quantities. Fish also contain protein, minerals, other vitamins, Omega3 EPA and many other beneficial nutrients. So by no means did they show no benefit from eating fish.

Finally the study did have a major reduction in the incidence of pre-term deliveries. Some of the "no results" statistics were only obtained by artificially removing the effects of this reduction in premature births from the analysis. If you are concerned about, or have a history of pre-term delivery it is worth considering fish oil for this benefit alone.

Fish Oil Use in Pregnancy Didn’t Make Babies Smart

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