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【medical-news】吃鱼的女孩聪明
20 June 2008
Girls who eat more omega-3 fatty acids outsmart those who eat higher amounts of omega-6 fatty acids, according to new research. As a result of this and other studies, government dietary recommendations--especially those aimed at pregnant women--should emphasize fish over soy and corn oils, which are respectively high in these fatty acids, says Joseph Hibbeln, a psychiatrist and lipid biochemist at the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism in Bethesda, Maryland. "We don't want the brain to be deficient in its critical nutrients during development."
The omega-3 advantage was first hinted at in studies of distribution of body fat. Earlier this year, William Lassek, an epidemiologist at the University of Pittsburgh in Pennsylvania, and anthropologist Steven Gaulin of the University of California, Santa Barbara, reported that women who accumulated more fat on their hips than on their waists--and who, therefore, had low waist-hip ratios like many movie stars--had higher cognitive test scores, as did their children. They proposed that because the fat on the hips and thighs contains more omega-3s than belly fat does, these women were storing omega-3s critical for fetal and infant brain development--and boosting their own brainpower as they grew up. They also predicted that women who ate more omega-3s would perform better on cognitive tests than those who ate more omega-6s.
To test this hypothesis, Lassek and Gaulin analyzed data on about 4000 girls and boys between the ages of 6 and 16. The children had participated in the Third National Health and Nutrition Examination Study, part of a U.S. project to assess the health and nutritional status of kids and adults. After the researchers controlled for the parents' income and education and for the children's age, race, number of siblings, and blood lead levels, they found that girls who ate more omega-3 scored significantly better on four cognitive tests, including an IQ test.
Although genetics and parental education influence intelligence far more, the dietary effect explained about 1% of the difference in test scores between girls, about the same amount as exposure to lead, says Lassek. Boys also perform a bit better on cognitive tests if they eat more omega-3s than other fatty acids, but the effect is "twice as great in girls as in boys," says Lassek. That disparity suggests that evolution has favored girls who stow omega-3 fats on their lower bodies. The team, which presented its findings earlier this month at the Human Behavior and Evolution Society meeting in Kyoto, Japan, also found that omega-6 fatty acids interfere with cognition, because girls who ate more of these oils didn't perform as well.
Other researchers who have studied omega-3s are not surprised to see the link between omega-3s and intelligence: "Deficiency in omega-3 intake in modern diets is associated with an increased risk of violence, major depression, suicide, and bipolar disorder," says Hibbeln, so seeing a connection to another aspect of brain function makes sense, particularly because neurons use fatty acids to build axons. Most important, he says, is the omega-6 finding. "The big change in the Western diet of the past 100 years is a massive increase in the dietary intake of omega-6 fatty acids," he says. Hibbeln has advised the U.S. government to revise its recent advisory warning that pregnant women reduce their consumption of fish during pregnancy because of mercury toxicity; he says the dangers can be avoided easily by limiting consumption of certain fish.
________________________________________ 本人已认领该文编译，48小时后若未提交译文，请其他战友自由认领。 Smart Girls Eat Fish
聪明的女孩多吃鱼
20 June 2008
2008.06.20.
Girls who eat more omega-3 fatty acids outsmart those who eat higher amounts of omega-6 fatty acids, according to new research. As a result of this and other studies, government dietary recommendations--especially those aimed at pregnant women--should emphasize fish over soy and corn oils, which are respectively high in these fatty acids, says Joseph Hibbeln, a psychiatrist and lipid biochemist at the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism in Bethesda, Maryland. "We don't want the brain to be deficient in its critical nutrients during development."
据新的研究显示，进食更多Ω-3脂肪酸的女孩比进食Ω-6脂肪酸较多者更聪明。根据该研究和其他研究结果，比起大豆和玉米油，政府的饮食推荐—特别是针对孕妇的—应该特别突出鱼类的地位，这些食物中Ω-3脂肪酸含量丰富。以上是Joseph Hibbeln，马里兰州贝塞斯达市全国防治酒精滥用和酒精中毒研究所一位精神病学家和脂类生化学家的意见。“在成长过程中我们希望大脑不会缺少那些关键的营养素。”
The omega-3 advantage was first hinted at in studies of distribution of body fat. Earlier this year, William Lassek, an epidemiologist at the University of Pittsburgh in Pennsylvania, and anthropologist Steven Gaulin of the University of California, Santa Barbara, reported that women who accumulated more fat on their hips than on their waists--and who, therefore, had low waist-hip ratios like many movie stars--had higher cognitive test scores, as did their children. They proposed that because the fat on the hips and thighs contains more omega-3s than belly fat does, these women were storing omega-3s critical for fetal and infant brain development--and boosting their own brainpower as they grew up. They also predicted that women who ate more omega-3s would perform better on cognitive tests than those who ate more omega-6s.
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作者:admin@医学,生命科学 2011-03-13 17:14
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