Essential Fatty Acids and Visual Acuity in Infants 12

Essential n-3 fatty acids in pregnant women and early visual acuity maturation in term infants.

BACKGROUND Docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) is important to neural development. Whether DHA intakes are low enough in some pregnant women to impair infant development is uncertain. OBJECTIVE We sought to determine whether DHA deficiency occurs in pregnant women and contributes to poor infant development. DESIGN Biochemical cutoffs, dietary intakes, or developmental scores indicative of DHA defici...

Key words: omega-3 fatty acids: pregnancy: lactation: infant formula: term infants: neurodevelopment: visual acuity: growth

The aim of this review is to evaluate the effects of omega-3 long chain polyunsaturated fatty acids (n-3 LCPUFA) supplementation in pregnant and lactating women and infants during postnatal life, on the visual acuity, psychomotor development, mental performance and growth of infants and children. Eighteen publications (11 sets of randomized control clinical trial [RCTs]) assessed the effects of...

Essential fatty acids and inflammation.

Dietary Omega-3 Fatty Acids and Improvement of Visual Acuity in School -Age Children

Previous studies have supported the benefit of increased intakes of DHA (docosahexaenoic acid) omega-3 fatty acid during pregnancy and lactation (or via infant formula) on visual acuity in infants and young toddlers. The present study was directed to investigate the potential benefit of enhanced dietary omega-3 fatty acid intakes in children ages 7-12 on visual acuity. The study population comp...

N-3 fatty acids and cognitive and visual acuity development: methodologic and conceptual considerations.

Several randomized clinical studies in infants born preterm and at term have explored the effects on visual acuity development of postnatal supplementation with various sources of docosahexaenoic acid (DHA). Higher visual acuity after DHA supplementation is a consistent finding in infants born preterm. For infants born at term, the results are less consistent and are better explained by differe...