Omega-3 Fatty-Acid Intake Improves Neurodevelopment in Preterm Girls. Good Confirmation for those with Dementia??

If this is true for brain development in early life, then in my mind it is a good confirmation that the omega-3 fatty acids really are good for our brain at any age. But what about those little boys??

Omega-3 Fatty-Acid Intake Improves Neurodevelopment in Preterm Girls

By Allison Gandey

January 15, 2009 — Investigators observed an 80% reduction in the proportion of baby girls with significant mental delays when they had a diet rich in docosahexaenoic acid (DHA). These are the findings of a randomized controlled trial published in the January 14, 2009 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Although the researchers did not see statistically significant benefits in boys or babies born weighing less than 1250 g, they say that there appeared to be a reduction in the proportion of babies with significant mental delay in these groups with high-DHA treatment.

“We recommend increased DHA for all preterm infants born at less than 33 weeks’ gestation,” lead author Maria Makrides, PhD, from the Women’s and Children’s Hospital in Adelaide, Australia told Medscape Neurology & Neurosurgery.

We think that the level of DHA used in the treatment arm of our study should become the new gold standard for preterm infants.

“We think that the level of DHA used in the treatment arm of our study should become the new gold standard for preterm infants, whether it is supplied through breast milk or infant formula,” Dr. Makrides said.

“It is important to note that we did not find negative effects of increasing the dietary DHA content. The high-DHA babies grew as well as those fed standard DHA, and we have confidence that the level of DHA used in the study — around 1% of the total dietary fat — was safe,” she added.

Mental Development Index Higher Among Girls Receiving Fatty Acids

The research team randomly assigned babies born at less than 33 weeks’ gestation to either a high-DHA diet or a standard-DHA diet from about day 4 of life until the time they were due to be born. Infants were from 5 Australian tertiary hospitals.

“An important and unique aspect of the study was that the intervention was largely delivered to the baby through expressed breast milk,” Dr. Makrides said. “We supplemented nursing women with about 1 g of DHA per day in tuna-oil supplements to increase the DHA content of their milk.” If the mother could not express enough breast milk for her baby, an infant formula with a matching DHA content was provided.

Of the 657 infants enrolled, 93.5% completed the 18-month follow-up. Bayley Mental Development Index among girls fed the high-DHA diet was higher than for girls receiving standard DHA in unadjusted and adjusted analyses (unadjusted mean difference, 4.7; 95% CI 0.5 – 8.8; adjusted mean difference, 4.5; 95% CI, 0.5 – 8.5).

The Mental Development Index among boys did not differ between groups. For infants born weighing less than 1250 g, the index in the high-DHA group was higher than with standard DHA in the unadjusted comparison (mean difference, 4.7; 95% CI, 0.2 – 9.2). But this did not reach statistical significance following adjustment for gestational age, sex, maternal education, and birth order (mean difference, 3.8; 95% CI, -0.5 to 8.0).

No Improvements Found in Boys

“The lack of responsiveness of boys to the intervention is puzzling,” the researchers write, “and the reasons are unclear.”

“We can only speculate that there are differences in the metabolism of boys and girls that we do not yet understand,” Dr. Makrides said during an interview. “The higher metabolic rate in boys may mean that they utilize much of the DHA they receive into energy. Also, boys may have a higher requirement for DHA. Clearly, this is an area of important research for the future.”

Dr. Makrides pointed to a number of limitations to the study, including the fact that the majority of women in the high-DHA group correctly guessed their group allocation. “We tried to set up a double-blind study, but in the end about 70% of women correctly guessed they were in the DHA group. This was because they had fishy burps,” she said. “This could have introduced bias.”

The researchers plan to continue following this cohort. “Should these differences persist to school age, when we next plan to follow up these children,” Dr. Makrides noted, “the potential significance to the children, the families, and the health and education system will be large.”

This study was supported by a grant from the Australian National Health and Medical Research Council and by Channel 7 Children’s Research Foundation of South Australia. Treatment and placebo capsules were donated by Clover Corp, and infant formula was donated by Mead Johnson Nutritionals and Nutricia Australasia. Dr. Maria Makrides serves on scientific advisory boards for Nestlé, Fonterra, and Nutricia. Coauthor Dr. Robert Gibson, also from the Women’s and Children’s Hospital in Adelaide, serves on scientific advisory boards for Wyeth, Fonterra, and Nestlé. Coauthor Dr. Karen Simmer, from King Edward Memorial Hospital and University of Western Australia, in Perth, serves on a scientific advisory board for Wyeth.

JAMA. 2009;301:175-182. Abstract

McDonald’s — burger — fries — small drink — cookie

I’m noticing this coffee thing everywhere in the dementia news updates. For most of my life, I never drank coffee. Not in college, not in med school, not during residency, not in private practice. Am trying to remember when I started to drink 1-2 cups in the morning. Based on this article, maybe I should have been drinking coffee all along. And perhaps I need to drink a little more now. Coffee doesn’t seem to make me jittery but the teas sure do!  By the way, what is your favorite brand of coffee?

Midlife Coffee And Tea Drinking May Protect Against Late-life Dementia

ScienceDaily (Jan. 14, 2009) — Stockholm, Sweden — Midlife coffee drinking can decrease the risk of dementia/Alzheimer’s disease (AD) later in life. This conclusion is made in a Finnish Cardiovascular Risk Factors, Aging and Dementia (CAIDE) Study published in the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease.

“We aimed to study the association between coffee and tea consumption at midlife and dementia/AD risk in late-life, because the long-term impact of caffeine on the central nervous system was still unknown, and as the pathologic processes leading to Alzheimer’s disease may start decades before the clinical manifestation of the disease,” says lead researcher, associate professor Miia Kivipelto, from the University of Kuopio, Finland and Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden.

At the midlife examination, the consumption of coffee and tea was assessed with a previously validated semi-quantitative food-frequency questionnaire. Coffee drinking was categorized into three groups: 0-2 cups (low), 3-5 cups (moderate) and >5 cups (high) per day. Further, the question concerning tea consumption was dichotomized into those not drinking tea (0 cup/day) vs. those drinking tea (≥1 cup/day).

The study found that coffee drinkers at midlife had lower risk for dementia and AD later in life compared to those drinking no or only little coffee. The lowest risk (65% decreased) was found among moderate coffee drinkers (drinking 3-5 cups of coffee/day). Adjustments for various confounders did not change the results. Tea drinking was relatively uncommon and was not associated with dementia/AD.

Kivipelto also notes that, “Given the large amount of coffee consumption globally, the results might have important implications for the prevention of or delaying the onset of dementia/AD. The finding needs to be confirmed by other studies, but it opens the possibility that dietary interventions could modify the risk of dementia/AD. Also, identification of mechanisms of how coffee exerts its protection against dementia/AD might help in the development of new therapies for these diseases.”

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Journal reference:

1. Marjo H. Eskelinen, Tiia Ngandu, Jaakko Tuomilehto, Hilkka Soininen, Miia Kivipelto. Midlife Coffee and Tea Drinking and the Risk of Late-Life Dementia: A Population-based CAIDE Study. Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease, 16(1), xx-xx

Fun and more fun. Here’s the weekender for you. Just pretend you’re at McDonalds.

Fast Food Frank stopped in a brand-new burger joint for his quick lunch. Checking the lighted menu behind the counter, he saw that the following combinations were available:

• Burger and fries:  $3.50
• Fries and a small drink:  $2.25
• Small drink and a cookie:  $1.50
• Burger and cookie:  ??
  

Unfortunately, the lights behind the price of Frank’s favorite combo, a burger and cookie, were burned out and he didn’t know how much it was. It was the counter clerk’s first day on the job, and he didn’t know the price either. Luckily, Fast Food Frank was fast at figures and figured out how much a burger-and-cookie combo cost just by lookint at the other combo prices. What is the price of the burger-and-cookie combo?

I’ll work on it too. I’ll give out the answer next week. Have a good weekend.

Warmly…….David