2007-06-06 10:52:40
When pregnant mom eats fish, kids do better: study
By Will Dunham Thu Feb 15 2007, 9:41 PM ET
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Children of mothers who ate more fish and other seafood
while pregnant are smarter and have better developmental skills than kids of
women who ate less or none, researchers said on Thursday in findings they
called surprising.
The study, sure to be controversial, sought to assess whether it is wise, as
some experts and the U.S. government have recommended, for pregnant women to
limit their seafood intake to avoid mercury, a toxin that can harm the nervous
system of developing fetuses.
Dr. Joseph Hibbeln, a U.S.
National Institutes of Health researcher who led the study in The Lancet
medical journal, said seafood is a key source of omega-3 fatty acids, important
for fetal brain development.
The researchers said limiting pregnant women's weekly intake to 12 ounces (340
grams) of fish and seafood, as advised by the U.S. government, did not protect
their children from developmental problems. Women who avoid seafood, they said,
may actually be harming their babies by depriving them of essential nutrients
needed for the developing fetal brain.
"It was very surprising," Hibbeln said in a telephone interview. "We did not
expect such clear-cut results of the harm of low seafood consumption."
The study looked at the children of more than 8,000 British women tracked by
the University of Bristol to determine how kids fared if their mothers ate more
than 12 ounces -- about two average meals.
These children, compared to those whose mothers ate lesser amounts, were more
advanced in developmental tests measuring fine motor, communication and social
skills as toddlers, behaved better at age 7, and earned higher verbal IQ scores
at age 8, the study found.
The differences were striking when looking at kids whose mothers ate no
seafood. They were 48 percent more likely to have a relatively low verbal IQ
score at age 8 compared to children whose mothers ate the higher amount of
seafood.
POLLUTION CONCERNS
The Environmental Working Group, which calls the U.S. recommendations too
lenient, said the study highlighted the need for governments to take actions to
keep pollutants out of seafood, like cracking down on coal-burning power
plants.
"The study reinforces the importance of keeping our seafood supply clean,
making sure it's not overly contaminated with mercury and other chemicals that
could actually harm brain development," said Jane Houlihan, the group's vice
president for research.
Mercury can build up in fish living in waters contaminated with it due to
industrial pollution. Mercury can be particularly bad for fetuses and children
because it can cause neurological and developmental problems.
In 2004 the U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency and
Food and Drug Administration advised pregnant women and young children to eat
no more than 12 ounces per week of light tuna and other seafood lower in
mercury.
The agencies recommended they eat none of some fish with high mercury levels --
shark, swordfish, king mackerel and tilefish -- and no more than 6 ounces (170
grams) a week of albacore tuna because of mercury.
"When you look at the net benefits of the nutrients in seafood and the net
risks in seafood, it appears that the advisory inadvertently causes the harm
that it was intended to prevent," Hibbeln said.
In a commentary in Lancet, Dr. Gary Myers and Philip Davidson of the University
of Rochester Medical Center in New York wrote, "These results highlight the
importance of including fish in the maternal diet during pregnancy and lend
support to the popular opinion that fish is brain food."