04.01.07
Pregnant women who eat fish more than three times a week reduce the risk of having children with low IQ test scores, according to a study that counters U.S. government advice to limit seafood intake. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the Environmental Protection Agency suggested in 2004 that mothers-to-be eat less than 340 grams, or three portions of fish a week. A comparison of women who ate more and those who ate less showed “no evidence to lend support to the warnings,” the authors, led by researcher Joseph Hibbeln of the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, MD, said in the Lancet medical journal.
Consuming less fish was linked to a higher risk of having a child who scored in the lowest quarter in verbal IQ tests, the researchers said. It was also linked to lower scores on prosocial behavior, motor, communication, and social development skills, the study said…The researchers analyzed food questionnaires that 11,875 women in the United Kingdom completed at 32 weeks of pregnancy. Their children were tested in intervals from ages 6 months to 8 years.
— Eva von Schaper, Boston.com, 2/17/07
Consuming less fish was linked to a higher risk of having a child who scored in the lowest quarter in verbal IQ tests, the researchers said. It was also linked to lower scores on prosocial behavior, motor, communication, and social development skills, the study said…The researchers analyzed food questionnaires that 11,875 women in the United Kingdom completed at 32 weeks of pregnancy. Their children were tested in intervals from ages 6 months to 8 years.
— Eva von Schaper, Boston.com, 2/17/07