Word: omegas
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Reporting in the Journal of the American Medical Association, Maria Makrides and her colleagues at the Women's and Childrens' Hospital in Adelaide, Australia, found that supplementing premature baby girls' diets with omega-3 fatty acids in the first few days after birth improved their performance on cognitive tests 18 months later. The same benefit was not seen in baby boys, however, possibly because premature girls and boys simply develop at different rates, the researchers speculate. (See the year in medicine...
Many nutrients vital to fetal development, including omega-3s, are delivered during the third trimester, and when premature babies miss this critical period in utero, doctors believe they may need to make up for it through either the breast milk or formula they are fed after birth. Earlier studies have shown that about 1% of a baby's total third-trimester fatty-acid intake comes from omega-3s, but by comparison, only about 0.2% to 0.35% of the total fatty acids in breast milk and infant formulas come from omega-3s. So, it makes sense that supplementing preemies' diets with...
Makrides asked 272 nursing moms who had given birth prematurely to take six omega-3 capsules a day, to mimic the 1% ratio that full-term babies receive in their final months in the womb. A control group of 273 similar moms took six capsules of soy, a placebo. Overall, the two groups showed no differences in cognitive tests 18 months later, but when Makrides looked at the data by gender, she found that girls getting the omega-3 supplemented breast milk did slightly better than girls receiving regular milk. The smallest premature babies also showed more benefit from...
...studied more than 1,000 patients with heart disease at the VA for nearly five years. The patients filled out regular questionnaires to determine their mood state, and were asked yearly to report on any heart-related events. Researchers took blood and urine samples to measure their levels of omega-3 fatty acids, cortisol and the inflammatory marker C-reactive protein, as well as the neurotransmitters serotonin and norepinephrine - all agents that may be involved in both depression and heart disease. In all, about 20% of the participants reported depressive symptoms; over five years, those patients had a 50% higher...
...trend in which people try to prevent illness through food and exercise rather than waiting until they get sick and taking medicine. The company's advisers, he says, "see probiotics, particularly for immunity and digestive health, as the largest and most enduring functional food trend - significantly bigger than omega-3 and plant oils to lower cholesterol...