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Nutrition and neurodevelopment in children: focus on NUTRIMENTHE project

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Abstract

There is growing evidence that early nutrition affects later cognitive performance. The idea that the diet of mothers, infants, and children could affect later mental performance has major implications for public health practice and policy development and for our understanding of human biology as well as for food product development, economic progress, and future wealth creation. To date, however, much of the evidence is from animal, retrospective studies and short-term nutritional intervention studies in humans. The positive effect of micronutrients on health, especially of pregnant women eating well to maximise their child’s cognitive and behavioural outcomes, is commonly acknowledged. The current evidence of an association between gestational nutrition and brain development in healthy children is more credible for folate, n-3 fatty acids, and iron. Recent findings highlight the fact that single-nutrient supplementation is less adequate than supplementation with more complex formulae. However, the optimal content of micronutrient supplementation and whether there is a long-term impact on child’s neurodevelopment needs to be investigated further. Moreover, it is also evident that future studies should take into account genetic heterogeneity when evaluating nutritional effects and also nutritional recommendations. The objective of the present review is to provide a background and update on the current knowledge linking nutrition to cognition and behaviour in children, and to show how the large collaborative European Project NUTRIMENTHE is working towards this aim.

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Abbreviations

AA:

Arachidonic acid

ADHD:

Attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder

ALA:

Alpha-linolenic acid

aMRI:

Anatomical magnetic resonance imaging

COMT:

Catechol-O-methyltransferase

DHA:

Docosahexaenoic acid

DNA:

Deoxyribonucleic acid

EEG:

Electroencephalogram

ELOVL:

Fatty acid elongase 5

ERG:

Electroretinogram

ERPs:

Event-related potentials

FADS:

Fatty acid desaturase

FFQ:

Food frequency questionnaire

fMRI:

Functional magnetic resonance imaging

GWA:

Genome-wide association studies

HOTV:

Single letters that are presented to the child using the Electronic Visual Acuity System

IQ:

Intelligence quotient

LA:

Linoleic acid

LC-PUFA:

Long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acid

MRI:

Magnetic resonance imaging

mRNA:

Messenger ribonucleic acid

MTHFR:

Methylenetetrahydrofolate reductase

NUTRIMENTHE:

The Effect of Diet on the Mental Performance of Children

PET:

Positron emission tomography

PUFA:

Polyunsaturated fatty acid

RNA:

Ribonucleic acid

T3:

Triiodothyronine

T4:

Thyroxine

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by Spanish Ministry of Education (Grant no. SB2010-0025), Marie Curie post-doctoral fellowship (FP7, no. 329812, NutriOmics), and the European Community’s 7th Framework Programme (FP7/2008-2013) under grant agreement no. 212652 (NUTRIMENTHE Project ‘The Effect of Diet on the Mental Performance of Children’). The authors acknowledge all the people involved in the NUTRIMENTHE Research Group: White T, Roza S, Steer-Degraaff J, Golding J, Steer C, Grote V, Webber M, Gudrun H, Décsi T, Gyorei E, Csabi G, Martínez-Zaldívar C, Torres Espínola FJ, Muñoz Machicao AJ, Catena A, Carrasco A, Cruz F, Dios Luna J, Teresa Miranda M, Ibañez I, Beyer J, Fritsch M, Grote V, Haile G, Handel U, Hannibal I, Kreichauf S, Pawellek I, Schiess S, Verwied-Jorky S, von Kries R, Weber M, Dobrzańska A, Gruszfeld D, Janas R, Wierzbicka A, Socha P, Stolarczyk A, Socha J, Carlier C, Dain E, Goyens P, Van Hees JN, Hoyos J, Langhendries JP, Martin F, Poncelet P, Xhonneux A, Perrin E, Agostoni C, Giovannini M, Re Dionigi A, Riva E, Scaglioni S, Vecchi F, Verducci, Escribano J, Blanco A, Canals F, Cardona M, Ferré N, Gispert-Llauradó M, Mendez-Riera G, Rubio-Torrents MC, Zaragoza-Jordana M, Rauh-Pfeiffer A, Wiseman S, González Lamuño D, García Fuentes M, McDonald A, Winwood R, Reischl E, Thomas I, Gage H, Raats M, Lopez Robles JC, Gyorei E, Brands B, Mico B, Saris W, Hadders-Algra M, Hernell O, Rietschel M.

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The authors declare no conflict of interest in relation to this manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Pediatrics, School of Medicine, University of Granada, Granada, Spain

    Tania Anjos, Signe Altmäe & Cristina Campoy

  2. School of Social and Community Medicine, University of Bristol, Bristol, UK

    Pauline Emmett

  3. Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Erasmus University Medical Center, Rotterdam, The Netherlands

    Henning Tiemeier

  4. Paediatrics Research Unit, Universitat Rovira i Virgili, IISPV, Reus, Spain

    Ricardo Closa-Monasterolo & Verónica Luque

  5. UNILEVER Research and Development, Vlaardingen, The Netherlands

    Sheila Wiseman & Jan Willem van Klinken

  6. Department of Clinical Psychology, University of Granada, Granada, Spain

    Miguel Pérez-García

  7. Research Unit of Molecular Epidemiology, Helmholtz Zentrum München, German Research Center for Environmental Health (GmbH), Neuherberg, Germany

    Eva Lattka

  8. Hauner Children’s Hospital, University of Munich Medical Centre, Munich, Germany

    Hans Demmelmair & Berthold Koletzko

  9. Food, Consumers Behavior and Health Research Centre, School of Human Sciences, University of Surrey, Surrey, UK

    Bernadette Egan

  10. Institute for Market Research, Strategy and Planning, Munich, Germany

    Niels Straub

  11. 2nd Department of Pediatrics, Medical University of Warsaw, Warsaw, Poland

    Hania Szajewska

  12. BetaTechnology Ltd, Doncaster, UK

    Jayne Evans & Claire Horton

  13. The Rotman Research Institute, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada

    Tomas Paus

  14. Childhood Nutrition Research Centre, UCL Institute of Child Health, London, UK

    Elizabeth Isaacs

  15. PepsiCo R&D, New Born, NC, USA

    Jan Willem van Klinken

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  1. Tania Anjos
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  2. Signe Altmäe
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The NUTRIMENTHE Research Group

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Correspondence to Cristina Campoy.

Additional information

Tania Anjos and Signe Altmäe have contributed equally to this study.

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Anjos, T., Altmäe, S., Emmett, P. et al. Nutrition and neurodevelopment in children: focus on NUTRIMENTHE project. Eur J Nutr 52, 1825–1842 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00394-013-0560-4

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