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COULD FISH MAKE MY CHILD SMART

 

FENLEY: - Omega 3 oils are found in fatty fish like tuna sardines and salmons. It is known that it can reduce the risk of heart diseases but there is now tantalizing new research that suggest that Omega 3 oils could help depression and could even make our children smarter

 

UPS: - VOICER - Some say it’s brain food. Others say it oils the joints. Research has shown that fish contains a special kind of fat called omega 3. It seems to have an extraordinary property. Is this the key ingredient currently missing from our diet which could keep our hearts healthy?  A tenth of the brain is composed of omega 3.  Some scientists are now projecting that a host of brain disorders, including depression, could be treated with omega 3.A brand new scientific trial asks whether omega 3 could even make our children smarter. Could omega 3 be the new miracle cure for our generation?

 

PRE-TITLE: COULD FISH MAKE MY CHILD SMART

 

UPS: - VOICER – Our understanding of omega 3 began in the early part of the 20th century. It was here at Magdalen College, Oxford University, that one man began to investigate this strange fact. 

 

PROF JOHN STEIN; OXFORD UNIVERSITY - He was a remarkable man.  He was one of the brightest scientists of his generation.

 

UPS: - VOICER – As an undergraduate at Oxford, Professor John Stein was befriended by a somewhat eccentric scientist, Hugh Sinclair.  Back in the 1940s, it was thought that all fats were unhealthy.  Yet Sinclair noticed something odd about the diet of the Inuit, a group of people living in one of the harshest regions on earth. 

 

UPS: - PROF JOHN STEIN; OXFORD UNIVERSITY - He studied the Inuit because he was aware that they subsisted almost entirely on a diet of fish and in particular seal blubber, and that nevertheless they had very low rates of heart attacks and therefore there was a probability that fish oils that they were consuming were somehow protecting them from heart problem.

 

UPS: - VOICER - But Sinclair’s idea was so controversial he was ridiculed and subsequently lost his post at Oxford. Undeterred, Sinclair set up a research lab in his house, selling some of the family silver to fund his studies. For a hundred days, he ate nothing but oily fish and minced seal. Whilst he was on this diet, Sinclair carried out an unusual experiment.  He cut himself and timed how long it took to stop bleeding.   Initially, he bled for two minutes. But after several weeks it took fifty minutes for his blood to stop flowing. He had become like an Inuit who bleed copiously when cut.  Sinclair believed he had finally found the answer. Omega 3 could help reduce the risk of a heart attack by preventing blood from clotting. Tom Sanders, like Hugh Sinclair, took high doses of omega 3 to see if it would help protect us against heart disease.  Unlike Sinclair, he stuck to capsules rather than seal blubber.

 

UPS: - PROF TOM SANDERS; KING’S COLLEGE, LONDON - At one stage I was consuming forty mls of fish oil a day.  Now that’s a lot of fish oil, that’s about four tablespoons of fish oil.  I didn’t suffer any particularly bad effects except I tended to belch up the fish oil every so often and it was a rather nasty smell and the other thing that my wife noticed is I smelt like a fish which wasn’t very pleasant.

 

UPS: - VOICER - Tom’s work as well as other research has shown that taking at least a gram of omega 3 a day can prevent people who’ve already had a heart attack from having another one. 

 

UPS: - PROF TOM SANDERS; KING’S COLLEGE, LONDON - I think we’re pretty confident now that in populations who are at high risk of heart disease, that consuming oily fish once or twice a week does reduce the risk of sudden death.

 

UPS: - VOICER - Today using omega 3 to treat heart disease is acceptable practice in mainstream medicine

 

UPS: -JULIAN HALCOX; UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, LONDON - There are very good data from epidemiologic studies that suggest that people who have more fish in their diet and have high levels of omega 3 fatty acids within their blood stream or in their blood cells are at actually lower risk of having heart attacks and strokes.

 

UPS: - VOICER - Dr Julian Halcox is a cardiologist from University College London.  He uses omega 3 to treat patients who’ve already suffered from cardiovascular disease, as well as those who could be at risk from a heart attack.

 

UPS: -JULIAN HALCOX; UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, LONDON - The current recommendations for treatment of patients who’ve already had a heart attack include taking aspirin to reduce the tendency for blood to clot again. There’s also increasing evidence that supplementing the diet with omega 3 fatty acids is sensible and can improve the future outcome.

 

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UPS: - VOICER - Tantalising evidence suggests that omega 3 could also help the mind.  In the 1980s, Dr Joseph Hibbeln, a psychiatrist from the National Institute of Health near Washington, was examining a brain.

 

UPS: - DR JOSEPH HIBBELN; NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF HEALTH - When I was a medical student, I was in the autopsy room, I remember holding a brain and looking at this marvellous organ, looking at this beautiful thing and thinking this appears to be made of fat.  This wonderful lovely delicate organ appears to be mostly composed of fat.

 

UPS: - VOICER - In fact, the brain is almost 80% fat and is very rich in omega 3. About a tenth of the brain is made up of this fatty acid.  Joseph then wondered what would happen to our brains if we didn’t eat enough Omega 3.  Joseph followed a hunch and looked at how much fish people ate around the world.  South Africa for instance ate the least amount of fish.  The UK ate an average amount.  And the Japanese had the most. He then looked at the rate of depression in these countries.  Amazingly, he found a correlation. 

 

UPS: - DR JOSEPH HIBBELN; NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF HEALTH - There was a fifty-fold difference in the risk of depression predicted by how much fish people consumed.  I was ecstatic when I got these results, I’d been looking for more than five years for reliable data of depression across countries and fish across countries, and it all came together in an hour. 

 

UPS: - VOICER - In countries where small amounts of fish were eaten, people were fifty times more likely to suffer from depression.  For instance, the Germans ate less than ten kilos of fish each, and five out of a hundred were depressed.  In contrast, fewer than 1% of the Japanese were depressed but they ate around sixty-five kilos of fish each. However Tom Sanders thinks there could be a fundamental flaw in all the research carried out on Omega 3. It’s so serious it could undermine any findings on the benefits of Omega 3.

 

UPS: - PROF TOM SANDERS; HEAD: NUTRITIONAL RESEARCH KING’S COLLEGE, LONDON - I would regard myself as an enthusiast for omega 3 fatty acids.  But what I read in, in the media and the literature, I think takes it much further than the science actually warrants.

 

UPS: - VOICER - The problem is that those who advocate omega 3 say we should get it from oily fish.  Yet many people don’t eat fish.  In India, there are almost a billion vegetarians for instance.  Vegetarians seem to be fine, but could their health be at risk?

 

UPS: - VOICER - Omega 3 is an essential fatty acid. This means that we must have it but our bodies can’t make it. Another kind of omega 3 does exist in some food apart from fish, such as green leafy vegetables, nuts and seeds like pumpkin seeds and tofu. But these sources are not easy for the body to use. Omega 3 has to be converted to another fatty acid, called EPA, which is then converted to DHA. These are the forms that our bodies need so although vegetarians do have omega 3 in their diet, it is inefficiently converted. This is why some believe it’s better to get these fatty acids directly. Yet the only food that contains high amounts of EPA and DHA is oily fish. Even more worrying for vegetarians and those who don’t eat much fish is a landmark study called the Children of the 90s carried out by Bristol University.  The researchers showed that omega 3 from oily fish may be important for children. 

 

UPS: - DR CATHY WILLIAMS; BRISTOL UNIVERSITY  - The Children of the 90s is a study that’s followed the health and development of nearly all the children born in the area that was Avon over a twenty-one month period between early 1991 and 1992. 

 

UPS: - VOICER - Fourteen thousand women and children have been followed since before the children were born to the present day. One of the topics the researchers looked at was how much oily fish the women ate whilst they were pregnant and breast-feeding.  The researchers claim the impact on the children was dramatic.

 

UPS: - DR CATHY WILLIAMS; BRISTOL UNIVERSITY - What we found was that mothers who hadn’t eaten oily fish when they were pregnant had children whose vision was slightly less developed at the age of about three than mothers who had eaten oily fish when they were pregnant. And similar results were found looking at the child’s language development in early childhood. Women who hadn’t eaten oily fish in pregnancy had children who were using slightly fewer words than women who had eaten oily fish.

 

UPS: - VOICER - Mothers who ate oily fish four or more times a week had children who scored slightly higher in comprehension tests when they were a year and a half, and had better vision at age three and a half than mothers who had not eaten fish. Studies have revealed that omega 3 is vital for the foetus to develop its brain. This could explain the scientists’ findings that oily fish is important for pregnant women. But in spite of the huge numbers of women and children involved in this study, some disagree with the suggestion that vegetarian mothers have disadvantaged children. Tom Sanders has questioned the methodology and the validity of the results. 

 

I UPS: - PROF TOM SANDERS; HEAD: NUTRITIONAL RESEARCH KING’S COLLEGE, LONDON - I’ve spent much of my working life trying to find things wrong with vegans and vegetarians in relation to their low levels of omega 3 fatty acids.  They have low rates of heart disease which is one thing omega 3 is thought to protect against, and we’ve looked at sort of behaviour and development of the children and all I can say is they’ve grown up to be perfectly normal adults so I don’t think there’s anything particularly to worry about there.

 

UPS: - VOICER - However, Tom agrees that the foetus does need omega 3 to develop its brain.  So should pregnant women eat extra omega 3? 

 

UPS: - PROF TOM SANDERS; HEAD: NUTRITIONAL RESEARCH KING’S COLLEGE, LONDON -Women who are pregnant should not feel pressurised to take additional sources of omega 3 fatty acids.  A woman going into pregnancy will have accumulated significant body stores of fat and her body stores of fat will contain the omega 3 fatty acid which can be mobilised during pregnancy to help meet the needs of the growing infant.

 

UPS: -VOICER - As for those who do eat fish, it’s packed with protein and nutrients like vitamin A, zinc and iodine as well as omega 3. 

 

AD BREAK 2

 

UPS: -VOICER - Not only do we not eat enough Omega 3, we consume too much of another essential fatty acid which in some cases has devastating effects. It’s called omega 6.  Like omega 3, omega 6 is essential for brain function. It’s found in many foods. But oils and hydrogenated fat contain a particular form which seems to prevent omega 3 from working properly in the brain. A hundred years ago, our diet used to consist of roughly equal amounts of omega 3 and omega 6. Now we’re eating less omega 3 and about a thousand times more omega 6.  One group of people who rarely eat enough Omega 3 and have too much omega 6 are children.

 

UPS: - VOICER - A study on what over a thousand children ate in a day showed that 40% had chips at lunchtime, more than half hadn’t eaten a vegetable or a piece of fruit for twenty-four hours, and the majority had eaten something sweet.

 

UPS: - CHILD 1 - I never eat fish. 

 

UPS: - CHILD 2 - I don’t eat fish that much.

 

UPS: - CHILD 3 - I never eat fish.

 

UPS: - VOICER - Nearly all, 86%, had not eaten fish. If having a balanced diet is so important, could high amounts of omega 3 re-address this imbalance and boost brain function?

 

UPS: - PROF TOM SANDERS; HEAD: NUTRITIONAL RESEARCH KING’S COLLEGE, LONDON - I find it hard to believe that taking fish oil will suddenly transform a child’s reading ability. I can understand that deprivation of fatty acids during a critical period of brain development may have a lasting effect but once the brain is formed, it really hangs onto its fatty acids. I think it’s very unlikely that one would see an improvement of behaviour.  There is no proper physiological basis to expect such a change to occur. 

 

UPS: - DR MADELEINE PORTWOOD; DURHAM LEA - We are going to make this pattern

 

UPS: - VOICER - To find out whether omega 3 could benefit normal school children, Dr Madeleine Portwood from Durham LEA carried out a trial on nearly three hundred children. She assessed the children’s reading, writing and ability to concentrate. The trial lasted for six months. Half the children took a supplement containing omega 3, and the other half had a fishy tasting placebo made from palm oil. No one knew which child had which supplement. When Madeleine re-assessed them, she observed that the children who had taken omega 3, like Matthew, paid more attention in class.

 

UPS: - MATTHEW - Foot. Strap on the watch.

 

UPS: - DR MADELEINE PORTWOOD; DURHAM LEA - Yeah well spotted, because you struggled with that last time. If you think what you were like before you started taking the capsules, what were you doing in school?

 

UPS: - MATTHEW - Well, I wasn’t like getting much work finished.

 

UPS: - DR MADELEINE PORTWOOD; DURHAM LEA - And is that any different now? 

 

UPS: - MATTHEW - Yeah.

 

UPS: - DR MADELEINE PORTWOOD; DURHAM LEA - So you like doing your work?

 

UPS: - MATTHEW - I just want to get it all finished, all my thinking’s just like popping into my head.

 

UPS: - DR MADELEINE PORTWOOD; DURHAM LEA - What sort of things pop into your head?

 

UPS: - MATTHEW - Like good ideas of what I could do.

 

UPS: - DR MADELEINE PORTWOOD; DURHAM LEA - Before the trial started, Matthew described himself as a child who had problems concentrating, didn’t finish his work and was generally in trouble most of the time.  That was in school and at home.  Since he’s been taking supplements, he describes himself as being very different.  He’s able to finish work, his concentration has improved, his attention to detail is greater, and certainly we’ve seen improvements in his reading and spelling abilities.

 

UPS: - VOICER - The most striking difference according to Madeleine was in the children’s reading and spelling.  Some like Harry who also took omega 3 showed improvements in their handwriting.  This is Harry’s handwriting before. And after.

 

UPS: - DR MADELEINE PORTWOOD; DURHAM LEA - The results are now in and they have exceeded my expectations.  Children who were already functioning well above their ages, for example an eight year old child who was reading at the thirteen and a half year level, three months into the trial he was reading at the seventeen year level. Certainly the trend is suggesting that children of all abilities are achieving their full potential.

 

UPS: - VOICER - Madeleine’s analysis of the trial suggests that those children who took omega 3 showed a significant improvement in their school work, but only 40% of those who had the supplements did respond.  Tom thinks there are other reasons why these children might have improved. 

 

UPS: - PROF TOM SANDERS; HEAD: NUTRITIONAL RESEARCH KING’S COLLEGE, LONDON - We know that when people are being observed, they change their, their behaviour.  It’s very difficult to actually do a well-controlled dietary experiment, and certainly when it gets the attraction of the media in the papers, it will cause all sorts of biases in the result.

 

UPS: - VOICER - Although Madeleine Portwood claims that it can enable some children to reach their true potential, more trials are needed before the effects of omega 3 can be proven.  However, even if this fatty acid does not live up to the hype, our natural diet once contained a balance of omega 3 and omega 6. For many people, fish can be a good source of nutrients as well as these fatty acids.

 

UPS: - VOICER - The scientific consensus is that we should have a healthy diet which includes some omega 3 and less Omega 6. And we could achieve that by doing what we know we should be doing eating fresh food and cutting out processed food and oils laden with omega 6.