Fetal Alcohol Syndrome and Essential Fatty Acids

Fetal Alcohol Syndrome and Essential Fatty Acids

Erik von Elm PLoS Medicine now encourages translations in languages other than English; this decision can only be welcomed. German-speaking readers are pleased by the novelty of a PLoS title written in their language. The Editorial starts with the fi rst line of the well-known German poem “Lorelei” by Heinrich Heine (1797–1856) [1]. This year commemorates the 150th anniversary of his death. Ori...

Fetal Alcohol Syndrome

Background: About 40 thousand newborns are delivered annually with fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS). It induces serious CNS complications. Methods: In a review of, the word “fetal alcohol syndrome” was searched in PubMed and Google Scholar and the retrieved articles were summarized. Results: Many studies showed that alcohol can cause more defects in fetus than heroin, cocaine and marijuana. The pos...

Essential fatty acids and inflammation.

Consequences of Essential Fatty Acids

Essential fatty acids (EFA) are nutrients that form an amazingly large array of bioactive mediators that act on a large family of selective receptors. Nearly every cell and tissue in the human body expresses at least one of these receptors, allowing EFA-based signaling to influence nearly every aspect of human physiology. In this way, the health consequences of specific gene-environment interac...

Fetal alcohol syndrome

Alcohol is a physical and behavioural teratogen. Fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS) is a common yet un­ der-recognized condition resulting from maternal consumption of alcohol during pregnancy. While preventable, FAS is also disabling. Although FAS is found in all socioeconomic groups in Canada, it has been observed at high prevalence in select First Nations and Inuit communities in Canada. This stat...