Omega 3 children: better cognitive function from fish oil, especially in females

Increasing the intake of Omega-3 and concomitant decrease in dietary Omega-6 intake may improve cognitive abilities in children and teens, especially females. This is shown by a study published in Frontiers in Evolutionary Neuroscience, in which William Lassek of the University of Pittsburgh and Steven Gaulin of the University of California, Santa Barbara, USA, analyzed the effect of intake of these fatty acids on children's cognitive abilities. Their results indicate that typical diets in Western countries, unbalanced in favor of omega-6s, may negatively affect learning.

Omega-3 and the brain

Docosahexaenoic acid (DHA), an Omega-3 in which marine-derived fatty fish are rich, is a major component of nerve structures and can make up 10 percent of the dry weight of the human brain. The need for this nutrient is particularly high in women. In fact, during pregnancy, expectant mothers provide children with the DHA needed for brain development by taking it from fat stores accumulated in childhood. Not only that, several studies have shown that there is a correlation between Omega-3 levels in pregnant women's diets and in breast or formula milk and children's cognitive abilities. To further investigate the role played by these fatty acids in the 2 sexes, Lassek and Gaulin decided to evaluate the effect of an Omega-3-rich diet by paying attention to any differences in the benefits obtained in males and females.

The study

The research involved more than 4,000 U.S. children between the ages of 6 and 16: 2,253 were boys and 2,309 were girls. Each participant was tested for cognitive ability in both math and reading. Combined analysis of the results obtained in these tests as well as the content of fatty acids of the diet followed by the children revealed that the higher the amount of Omega-3 introduced in the diet, the better the scores obtained in the tests by both boys and girls. In the latter, the positive effect of Omega-3 intake is twice as high as what can be obtained in boys. Conversely, only in girls the higher the amount of dietary Omega-6 intake, the more negative the test results on learning ability. In females, a ratio of Omega-6 to Omega-3 unbalanced in favor of the former is associated with obtaining lower scores on these tests.

Intelligence, a matter of fatty acids

Lassek and Gaulin concluded that in boys, an increase in daily Omega-3 intake corresponding to 1 gram can improve learning test scores by 0.19 points. In girls, on the other hand, increasing the daily intake of Omega-3s by 1 gram can increase their achievement scores by 0.38 points. These results could help in planning public health protection initiatives based on increased knowledge of the benefits of Omega-3 intake and the disadvantages caused by excessive Omega-6 consumption.    

Source 

1. Lassek WD, Gaulin SJ, "Sex differences in the relationship of dietary fatty acids to cognitive measures in American children," Front Evol Neurosci. 2011;3:5. Epub 2011 Nov 2