Nurture for the Future

Brain Nutrition: Fish Oils, Cod Liver Oil, DHA and EPA

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In a recent post, we highlighted some brain boosting foods of which one was fish. Well, we’ve always known fish was good, but how good is good? I thought I should check it out further, especially since Aristotle no longer likes to eat fish. The funny thing is that he really liked it when he was little. He really liked vegetables, too. Then he grew out of them both and move into junk food.

A quick scan on the Internet showed that the brain boosting ability can be seen directly in children who take fish oils:

“regular doses of fish oils dramatically boosted young children’s performance at school. Nearly three quarters of the youngsters – who were of mixed academic ability – showed improvements in numeracy, reading and writing after taking fish oil supplements for nine months.” – Daily mail.

And:

“More and more studies are offering encouraging results to suggest that fish oils can improve children’s concentration.

Recent research has highlighted the specific benefits to the brain of the fatty acids in fish, particularly in children with behavioural or learning difficulties.

This is because in conditions such as autism, the brain needs more fatty acids than normal. Fatty acids also  improve blood flow to the brain, which may help concentration.” – Daily mail.

Then there are the results from the Durham trial:

“Dramatic results were seen within just 3 months of the trial. The children in the active group supplementing with fatty acids saw significant improvements in reading (9.5 months), spelling (6.5 months) and behaviour, compared to the placebo group where no overall improvement  was made.

During the 3-6 month period when the placebo group crossed over to fatty acid supplementation, considerable improvements were shown in the same areas, with an average reading gain of 13.5 months and an average spelling gain at over 6 months. The active group that continued with fatty acid supplementation showed further signs of progress or maintained their improvement.

At the start of the trial, all of the school children were a year behind their chronological age for reading and spelling, but after the trial, the active group who had been on fatty acids throughout the trial made spelling and reading gains over and above their chronological age.”

Wow! Amazing! We should start giving the boys fish oil immediately! Until you dig a little deeper and find out that there’s a lot of controversy over the Durham trial and it has been hailed as “bad science”. Okay, so I didn’t really have a lot of time to do more than a superficial scan of the media so I’m not too clear what the final conclusion was – whether it was all bogus or whether it was inconclusive or if there was some but limited brain benefits from fish oils proven. Whatever the case, an article from BBC seems to indicate that there is potential benefit but it isn’t fully understood just yet.

They might have some slight benefit on children with attention disorder, and some of them might have dyslexia. But there are a lot of provisos,” says Snowling.

While researchers have yet to fully resolve how the balance of different Omega 3s affects brain function, one point on which they agree is that studies into their effects need to be widened beyond children.

Well, even if the jury is still out on the brain benefits of taking fish oils, there is no denying the health benefits of taking fish oils. So if the boys take their fish oil, they’ll get the health benefits at the very least and possibly some brain benefits, too, and that’s good enough for me.

Since Hercules is fine eating fish, it’s only really Aristotle we have to work on.  So far we’ve been giving him Scott’s Emulsion which he is taking but a brief online investigation seems to suggest that for children, cod liver oil is not the way to go. This is because cod liver oil contains high levels of Vitamin A and D which can be toxic since they are both fat-soluble vitamins that the body can’t get rid of if taken in excess. Also, traditional cod liver oil is apparently not particularly rich in EPA and DHA – which are the Omega-3 fatty acids that we’re after.

The best sources for Omega-3 fatty acids are tuna and salmon because they have lots of it. Although nutrients are best taken directly from food sources, which means eating fish like tuna and salmon, we’ve already identified that this isn’t going to work for Aristotle. So we’re back to supplements…

The recommended daily dose of DHA and EPA is about 450-500mg, so that’s what we’re looking for in the market. Currently, Aristotle is taking Sustegen milk powder (a very recent formula milk addition to his diet that he finally tolerates) which only offers 120mg per serve so we need to start looking for an additional supplement. I haven’t figured out what that will be as yet so if you have one that’s working well for you, please recommend it to us in the comments section. Thank you!

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Children’s Eye Care: Testing for Amblyopia

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Since Gavin was little, we have been concerned about the possibility of him developing lazy eye. It was a cause for concern because both his uncle and father have lazy eye. Hubby’s lazy eye was detected late and as a result it was not corrected. The information back then was that lazy eye had to be discovered early enough to take the appropriate intervention measures. According to the Children’s Vision Information Network, this is a misconception – children over the age of 6 years can still be treated for amblyopia (lazy eye). In fact, there is even a case of a 66 year old grandmother getting her lazy eye treated successfully.

The Children’s Vision Information Network advise getting your child’s eyes tested as early as possible – at the very least by the age of three. This is because any visual impairment that goes undetected can affect your child’s learning ability and future success in any areas that require clear vision, good hand-eye coordination and strong depth perception. Young children cannot tell you that they have a problem with their vision (they may not even be aware of it) and it can be quite difficult for parents to recognise that their children hae a vision impairment.

Last year, after Gavin turned three, we got a referral to an eye specialist to get Gavin’s eyes checked. The doctor scheduled us for a second appointment where he arranged for some eyedrops to be put into Gavin’s eyes. They were supposed to “open” his eyes so the optometrist could check his eyes properly. Unfortunately, the eyedrops caused Gavin a lot of discomfort and he had to have them reapplied several times. By the time we got to the optometrist, Gavin was completely uncooperative and we didn’t succeed in getting his eyes tested. The optometrist advised us to come back again in 6 months for another test.

I honestly don’t know what the purpose the application of the eyedrops served because it did not appear to have done anything for the eye test. All it did was create an aversion for eye testing in Gavin. So recently, when I tried to take him to an optometrist to test his eyes again, I didn’t bother going back to the eye specialist for the drops. We happened to be in Midvalley and the optometrist I tried to see wasn’t going to be in until much later so we ended up in ISEC (the International Specialist Eye Center).

We got an appointment for Dr Choong Yee Fong who is a Consultant Ophthalmologist & Eye Surgeon, and Paediatric Ophthalmologist. After our horrifying experience trying to get Gavin’s cooperation to test his eyes the previous time, I figured it was worthwhile getting an eye specialist who was experienced with children. I am glad to say that he did not disappoint. In fact, I was so impressed that I would recommend anyone to take their children to get their eyes checked by him. He handled Gavin so smoothly that the eye check-up was completely painless and over within minutes.

Dr Choong’s experience with children was evident right from the start. He picked up Gavin’s interest (Thomas and Friends) and started asking him about the trains to distract him while he checked and tested his eyes. Gavin was rambling away and completely oblivious to the fact that he hates getting his eyes tested.

Dr Choong’s eye chart is child friendly as well. Instead of the usual letters and numbers, he’s got pictures. Even though Gavin can recognise letters and numbers, I think identifying pictures is a lot less stressful. For a child getting their eyes tested possibly for the first time, the whole experience is already daunting enough without having to be tested to see if they can remember their alphabets and numbers. We all know that performance decreases with stress so even if a child can read alphabets and numbers, he might struggle to do so in such an environment.

Gavin’s vision is 20-20. Whatever squint we thought we saw was obviously imagined because his eyes have equal vision. The cause of lazy eye is usually due to having a disparity in vision between the two eyes. Because the weaker eye cannot see as well, the brain suppresses the input from the lazy eye and only uses the sensory input from the good eye. Over time, this makes the lazy eye worse. Since Gavin has no difference in vision between both eyes, it is unlikely that he will ever develop lazy eye. What a relief…

For more information about amblyopia, please refer to the article on Children’s Vision Information Network.

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Some Important Facts about Brain Health and Brain Development

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I was reading a couple of interesting articles about the brain from Live Science when I stumbled across these interesting morsels.

From 10 Things Your Didn’t Know About the Brain…

Whenever Gavin acts out, I keep reminding myself that no matter how rational and grown up he can appear for his age, he is still a child. And, as a child, he is prone to all those childish things that annoy us like an itch we can’t scratch. And while we would like to say “he’s older now, he should know better”, in some instances, at least according to the science of brain development, that statement is somewhat flawed because:

Teen brains aren’t fully formed

“Parents of stubborn teenagers rejoice, or at least relax: That adolescent attitude stems, in part, from the vagaries of brain development.

The gray matter of the brain peaks just before puberty and is pruned back down throughout adolescence, with some of the most dramatic development happening in the frontal lobes, the seat of judgment and decision-making.

A 2005 study published in the journal Child Development found that the parts of the brain responsible for multitasking don’t fully mature until we’re 16 or 17 years old. And research presented at the BA Festival of Science in 2006 revealed that teens also have a neural excuse for self-centeredness. When considering an action that would affect others, teens were less likely than adults to use the medial prefrontal cortex, an area associated with empathy and guilt. Teens learn empathy by practicing socializing, the researchers said. So much for grounding them until they’re 20.”

So until they are literally grown up, we will still need to cut them some slack for some of those errors in judgment that they “ought to know better” about.

I also thought it was interesting that:

Brains never stop changing

Scientific wisdom once held that once you hit adulthood, your brain lost all ability to form new neural connections. This ability, called plasticity, was thought to be confined to infancy and childhood.

Wrong. A 2007 study on a stroke patient found that her brain had adapted to the damage to nerves carrying visual information by pulling similar information from other nerves. This followed several studies showing that adult mice could form new neurons. Later studies found more evidence of human neurons making new connections into adulthood; meanwhile, research on meditation showed that intense mental training can change both the structure and function of the brain.

Especially the bit “research on meditation showed that intense mental training can change both the structure and function of the brain”. This is not just good news for me my my “Mom brain” that appears to be ever so forgetful these days, but it also means it is never too late for us to “develop” our childrens’ brains. We might talk about the massive potential for the first 6 years in a child life (Doman, Montessori, Shichida, et al.), but for those parents who started late, it is important to remember that it is never too late. For those parents who have been asking about right brain development activities you can do for older children beyond the first 6 years, I have something coming up for you so stay tuned.

From 10 Ways to Keep Your Mind Sharp…

Exercise is good for the brain

Again this one comes up. We know that movement is good for a child’s brain development. Well, it appears that it doesn’t stop there. Regular aerobic exercise is great for long term brain health, too, so it is a good idea to get our children involved in sports or some sort of physical activity to inculcate this beneficial brain activity for life.

Tease the brain

Whether crossword puzzles, sudokus and other brain teasers actually keep your brain in shape, has not been well-established. However, lack of education is a strong predictor of cognitive decline. The more you’ve tried to learn, the better you’ll be at mental sit-ups in old age. The key may be tackling something new; the challenge of the unknown is likely more beneficial than putting together the same jigsaw puzzle over and over again.

All the more reason so kick start a healthy learning habit from early childhood to inculcate a love of learning for life. Also all the more reason to expose our children to lots of “new” activities. The learning curve for learning something new has always been steeper than revisiting the same old material over and over again. 10,000 hours of practice might be necessary for getting really good at something, but that doesn’t mean we should neglect to exercise the brain with new challenges on a regular basis.

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Nutrition: Getting Children to Eat Vegetables – is Wheatgrass a Viable Alternative?

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Although wheatgrass has been on the Mum radar for quite some time, until recently, I never really gave it much in depth thought. What really got my notice was an ad at a BoostJuice Bar that claimed “one shot of wheatgrass is equivalent to eating a bowl of vegetables”. When you have a child that projectile vomits if you try to sneak even the tiniest piece of lettuce into a mouthful of his favourite noodles, an ad like that is bound to capture your notice.

I’ve had plenty of remarks about all the things I should have done with Gavin when he was little (which apparently would have prevented his food fussiness if I had just done it when he was younger) but believe me, I tried them all and then some (see Annabel Karmel, The Sneaky Chef, PediaSure and Probiotics). It wasn’t until I had Gareth who is much more open to trying new flavours that I finally came to terms with the guilt that has plagued me for over two years and accepted the fact that Gavin’s food fussiness is largely inherited and possibly very little to do with my management of him. After all, how do you sneak food into a child’s mouth when he can smell you coming from a mile away (and I mean that literally because Gavin’s keen sense of smell is like that rat in Ratatouille who could detect rat poison in food just by smelling it)? You can’t feed a child anything if he won’t open his mouth – we tried force-feeding him medicine once only to end up with vomit all over him and me. We also tried “a spoonful of sugar”, but in his case, it didn’t make the medicine go down.

Okay, I’m digressing…  Back to wheatgrass.

Although the claims for wheatgrass benefits include its ability to treat numerous medical conditions, there isn’t much of the scientific literature to support these claims. Then again, neither is there any scientific literature to debunk these claims either which suggests there is room for more research. However, these aren’t the reasons for my interest in wheatgrass. What I wanted to know is whether a shot of wheatgrass really does provide the equivalent nutrition as a bowl of vegetables.

According to Health Psychology, there isn’t sufficient information to answer the question whether one shot of wheatgrass is equivalent to a kilogram of vegetables. The nutrition table on Wikipedia, however, seems to suggest that the nutrient content of wheatgrass is comparable to the equivalent amount of broccoli or spinach, while the Nutrition Supplements Center states that:

“Wheat grass has nearly a gram of protein per teaspoon, but contains no cholesterol or fat. It provides eight of the essential amino acids, and thirteen of the non-essential amino acids.  It contains Vitamins A, B1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 8, and 12; C, E and K, as well as 15mg of Calcium, 8mcg Iodine, 3.5mcg Selenium, 870mcg Iron, 62mcg Zinc, and many other minerals.”

The American Cancer Society warns that because wheatgrass falls under the category of nutritional supplements which is unregulated (unlike pharmaceutical products), there is a lot of variation between different wheatgrass preparations.

What I found particularly interesting were the historical experiments with wheatgrass conducted by Charles Schnabel on chickens. He fed fresh cut grass to dying hens to nurse them back to health and discovered that not only did they recover, they were also able to produce eggs at a higher rate compared to the healthy hens. Later studies found that hens supplemented with wheatgrass were able to double their egg production.

So are there benefits from taking wheatgrass? It would appear that wheatgrass consumption has its benefits. The extent of those benefits, though, are unconfirmed. Is it better than eating vegetables? The American Cancer Society still advocates consuming a “balanced diet that includes 5 or more servings a day of vegetables and fruit, choosing whole grains over processed and refined foods and limiting red meats and animal fats. Choosing foods from a variety of fruits, vegetables and other plant sources such as nuts, seeds, whole grain cereals, and beans is healthier than consuming large amounts of one particular food.”

Is wheatgrass safe for children to consume? Wheatgrass is generally safe for consumption by children (although you should be aware of the potential for allergic reactions which have been reported in a few individuals). Additionally, since wheatgrass preparations vary in quality, it is important to check the individual product to determine whether it is safe your your child to consume. Some wheatgrass preparations may contain other ingredients that are not suitable for children to consume.

Coming back to my particular case – since Gavin isn’t eating vegetables, it would appear that if we can get him to take wheatgrass, it would definitely be better than nothing. Although it would be advisable to check the nutritional content of the wheatgrass preparation first due to the variation in quality between different brands.

Have you given your children wheatgrass? What are your experiences?

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Teachable Moments: Healthy Diet Pyramid

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I’ve been trying very hard to get Gavin to eat more healthy foods.  This has been one uphill battle for me since our household isn’t exactly renown for healthy eating.  There’s just too much junk food around the house…  I guess this is one of the down-sides of extended family living (unless the entire family is health conscious).

One of the problems about exposing a child to junk food is that once they have a taste for it, they will always have the taste for it.  It’s a habit that is difficult to kick.  The best thing is to avoid exposing them in the first place.  Unfortunately, that’s a little too late for Gavin.

So what’s a mother to do but try to encourage her child to consume more healthy foods?

In an effort to introduce greens into his diet, I’ve decided to take a two-step plan.  Gavin’s been pretty resistant at dinner time.  Even if I can get the veggies into his mouth, he gags and sounds like he’s about to throw up.  So I figured the easier route is to start with the fruits.

Most mornings, I blend a fruit-yoghurt cocktail in the Vitamix to start our day.  It’s like a smoothie, but better because I don’t dilute it with ice or water.  The typical concoction might be something like this: yoghurt, banana, grapes, and orange.  Sometimes I might add strawberries, raspberries, cherries, or an apple.  If the mix is too thick, I’ll add some milk.  I used to add ice to make it cold, but now I just freeze the banana or the grapes and it has the same effect.  Personally, I think this is one of the most pleasant ways to consume a variety of fruits (including the sour varieties which I don’t like).  Unfortunately, for Gavin, I might as well be trying to convince him to eat his greens…

This morning, I told Gavin that if he didn’t want to drink my very delicious yoghurt drink then he wasn’t allowed to have his junk food any more.  Naturally, he went berserk.  When he was calm again, I took the opportunity to teach him about the healthy diet pyramid.  We talked about all the foods that he needed to eat a lot of and how they kept him strong and healthy.  Then I explained that junk food were bad foods that we needed to limit.  I acknowledged that they taste nice and that everyone likes to eat them because they taste nice, but because they weren’t good for us, we have to make sure we don’t eat too much of them.  Most of all, we had to make sure that we eat all the good foods first so we don’t get full on junk food.  We could have the junk food after we ate our main meals.  Ideally, it would have been good to eliminate the junk food altogether, but I figured that was being a tad unrealistic, so I opted for reducing the consumption quantity.  After that, I showed him pictures of the healthy diet pyramid and pointed out the different food groups.

I didn’t expect Gavin to absorb the lesson, but I figured it was a good start.  I was pleasantly surprised after lunch, when I allowed him a treat of Panda biscuits, that he didn’t finish the packet.  He gave the rest back to me and said, “I shouldn’t eat too much because it’s not good for me.”  He did a pretty good reiteration of my morning’s lesson on healthy eating which did me proud.  Unfortunately, the lesson didn’t stay with him until dinner time when he started asking for junk food again.  Ah well, baby steps…

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Post-Natal: Getting Fit Again

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Post-delivery there is a dicey period where you have to be careful about what you’re doing.  As eager as we all are to start exercising and shedding off all that excess post-baby weight, there are exercises that you should and shouldn’t be doing.  It is especially important to find out what you can and can’t do based on your individual position.

For instance, if you have a separated rectus abominis, there are quite a number of exercises you should avoid.  There are also exercises you can and should do to facilitate closure of the gap between the muscles.  Since this is the problem I have, the exercises I’m going to focus on are those that help recondition these muscles.

Firstly, it is important to have realistic expectations.  If you kept fit and were exercising during your pregnancy, then you will find it easier to get back into shape – too bad for me…  It is also important to have a realistic time line for achieving your weight loss goals.  Expect to take anywhere between three to nine months to return to “normal”, after all, it did take you nine months to get to this stage.

General recommendation is to wait six weeks after a normal delivery before commencing an exercise regime, although some women can begin earlier than this.  The best person to check with is your doctor.  Always get your doctor’s okay before you start.

BeFitMom is a good website to start with if you intend to do your own homework on what you should and shouldn’t do.  Ideally, if you can get an instructor who is experienced and knowledgeable about the post-partum body, you’re also good to go.  If you have to work out at home, postnatal workout DVDs are a good bet as they give more consideration towards the post-partum body when developing exercise programs.  However, it is important to make sure you check the credentials of the DVD as some are better than others.  Make sure that the DVDs you are specially for post-partum mothers and not simply exercises thrown together which have little relevance to post-partum mothers.  There are also some DVD exercises developed for mother and baby so you can even work out with your baby.

So I was going to get started on my own personal “get fit again” exercise program, but after reading through that extensive list of “things you shouldn’t do when you have separated rectus abdominis” I got a little concerned.  Most of the DVD work outs I have aren’t exactly appropriate as they focus a little too intently on working out the abdominals doing many exercises that involve moves I should be avoiding.  As for the stuff I’ve been reading on the internet, I’m not exactly convinced either.  The last thing I need right now is a hernia so perhaps it’s back to Fitfor2 for me where there is someone experienced can tell what to do and what not to do.  Don’t worry, when I know what exercises those are, I’ll let you know too.

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