Attention all mothers-to-be: some new research done by the U.S. National Institutes of Health has shown that eating more fish and seafood while pregnant could have a positive effect on the intelligence of children in the long run compared to the children of those women who ate less seafood, or none at all. The omega-3 fatty acids in seafood play an important role in fetal brain development, and the additional benefit that can come from eating more than 12-ounces of seafood (about two meals' worth) a week. Lower consumption, in spite of the fact that the government recommends no more than 12-ounces a week, did nothing to help fetal development.
The study looked at the children of 8,000 British women, tracking them from before birth to the age of 8. On average, they "were more advanced in developmental tests measuring fine motor, communication and social skills as toddlers, behaved better at age 7, and earned higher verbal IQ scores at age 8."
One of the controversial things about this study is the fact that so much seafood is affected by pollution - specifically mercury, which can damage the nervous system. In this study, a negative impact on the children was not found, but researchers say that solid evidence of the benefits of seafood should motivate the legislature to "take [further] actions to keep pollutants out of seafood."
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
2-17-2007 @ 4:33PM
Berkana said...
I have to take issue with the following statement quoted from the above: "One of the controversial things about this study is the fact that so much seafood is affected by pollution - specifically mercury, which can damage the nervous system."
A lot of fish from the ocean is contaminated with mercury, but the mercury IS NOT FROM POLLUTION. This is a misconception, based on the mistaken notion that anything dangerous in the ocean couldn't have been there in the first place. The ocean has a naturally occurring level of mercury salts; it is a mineral, like table salt, except a lot more dangerous.
I'm not saying that mankind hasn't abused and polluted the oceans, but that the mercury present in the ocean is not due to pollution. Consider how much water there is in the ocean; at the levels of mercury concentration found in the ocean world wide, we would have had to dump an unfathomable amount of mercury into the ocean. Its almost as absurd as saying that the ocean is too salty due to pollution.
Of all the things dumped into the ocean, I have yet to hear of a single industrial waste that humans dump that bears so much mercury that it could be responsible for the mercury levels found in ocean waters world wide. (If you know of one, name it. Even old batteries couldn't do that, as we don't dump them all into the oceans.) If our waste were that rich in mercury, we wouldn't need to mine cinnabar for mercury; we may as well use this waste for ore.
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2-17-2007 @ 4:34PM
Berkana said...
I have to take issue with the following statement quoted from the above: "One of the controversial things about this study is the fact that so much seafood is affected by pollution - specifically mercury, which can damage the nervous system."
A lot of fish from the ocean is contaminated with mercury, but the mercury IS NOT FROM POLLUTION. This is a misconception, based on the mistaken notion that anything dangerous in the ocean couldn't have been there in the first place. The ocean has a naturally occurring level of mercury salts; it is a mineral, like table salt, except a lot more dangerous.
I'm not saying that mankind hasn't abused and polluted the oceans, but that the mercury present in the ocean is not due to pollution. Consider how much water there is in the ocean; at the levels of mercury concentration found in the ocean world wide, we would have had to dump an unfathomable amount of mercury into the ocean. Its almost as absurd as saying that the ocean is too salty due to pollution.
Of all the things dumped into the ocean, I have yet to hear of a single industrial waste that humans dump that bears so much mercury that it could be responsible for the mercury levels found in ocean waters world wide. (If you know of one, name it. Even old batteries couldn't do that, as we don't dump them all into the oceans.) If our waste were that rich in mercury, we wouldn't need to mine cinnabar for mercury; we may as well use this waste for ore.
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2-17-2007 @ 7:28PM
sarah said...
This seems very confused reporting to me. Mercury in fish is a US problem (US rivers mainly, not the ocean), not a UK problem, so surely it isn't remotely surprising that British babies had no developmental problems. The low fish consumption advisory is a US phenomenon, not a UK one.
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2-17-2007 @ 8:06PM
Deidara said...
Well, if people in the US don't eat enough seafood, wouldn't that make the kids in Japan much more intelligent? I mean, Japanese people eat seafood all the time and yet their water isn't as polluted. But pollution affects the entire world, and yet in some parts there is less pollution. I'm confused now... ._.
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