Saturday, January 26, 2008

Omega-3's and dyspraxia..

Recently, there's been a lot of attention of how various omega-3 fatty acids, particularly DHA, affect autism. This has also spawned a lot of research into how various omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids affect other disorders, including dyspraxia.

Probably the best study on how fatty acids affect dyspraxia is the Oxford-Durham study from 2005. The study used 117 students with DCD, ages 5-12 in a double-blind random study (no crossover). For 3 months they were given a blend of fish oil (EPA and DHA in a 3:1 ratio) and evening primrose oil (provides GLA, which easily converts to ARA) or a placebo of olive oil. At the end of the study they found several improvements cognitive learning rate and behavior, but no motor improvements relative to the placebo group.

So, omega-3's aren't a magic arrow for the motor problems of DCD. That said, there are several DHA supplemented baby foods Ella still strongly enjoys, so her typical daily diet does contain 40mg of DHA and 8-40mg of EPA. (none of the products label their EPA content, but are fish oil based and there's always some EPA. How much varies with blending and processing.)

1 comment:

Matt said...

note: we later wound up giving Ella a cod liver oil supplement. That wound up coinciding with a significant burst development. Of course, she's always been bursty, so we can't say for sure that's the cause, but it certainly doesn't seem to hurt.

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