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Dietary patterns in infancy and cognitive and neuropsychological function in childhood

Dietary patterns in infancy and cognitive and neuropsychological function in childhood
Dietary patterns in infancy and cognitive and neuropsychological function in childhood
Background: trials in developing countries suggest that improving young children's diet may benefit cognitive development. Whether dietary composition influences young children's cognition in developed countries is unclear. Although many studies have examined the relation between type of milk received in infancy and subsequent cognition, there has been no investigation of the possible effect of variations in the weaning diet.
Methods: we studied 241 children aged 4 years, whose diet had been assessed at age 6 and 12 months. We measured IQ with the Wechsler Pre-School and Primary Scale of Intelligence, visual attention, visuomotor precision, sentence repetition and verbal fluency with the Developmental Neuropsychological Assessment (NEPSY), and visual form-constancy with the Test of Visual Perceptual Skills.
Results: in sex-adjusted analyses, children whose diet in infancy was characterised by high consumption of fruit, vegetables and home-prepared foods ('infant guidelines' dietary pattern) had higher full-scale and verbal IQ and better memory performance at age 4 years. Further adjustment for maternal education, intelligence, social class, quality of the home environment and other potential confounding factors attenuated these associations but the relations between higher 'infant guidelines' diet score and full-scale and verbal IQ remained significant. For a standard deviation increase in 'infant guidelines' diet score at 6 or 12 months full-scale IQ rose by .18 (95% CI .04 to .31) of a standard deviation. For a standard deviation increase in 'infant guidelines' diet score at 6 months verbal IQ rose by .14 (.01 to .27) of a standard deviation. There were no associations between dietary patterns in infancy and 4-year performance on the other tests.
Conclusions: these findings suggest that dietary patterns in early life may have some effect on cognitive development. It is also possible that they reflect the influence of unmeasured confounding factors
nutrition, infancy, weaning, intelligence, neuropsychology
0021-9630
816-823
Gale, Catharine R.
5bb2abb3-7b53-42d6-8aa7-817e193140c8
Martyn, Christopher N.
eb9a7811-3550-4586-9aca-795f2ad05090
Marriott, Lynne D.
59da580c-2738-49eb-b1cd-7d005b262159
Limmond, Jennifer
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Crozier, Sarah
a9c88016-8f46-4659-954e-4d7af8a49594
Inskip, Hazel M.
5fb4470a-9379-49b2-a533-9da8e61058b7
Godfrey, Keith M.
0931701e-fe2c-44b5-8f0d-ec5c7477a6fd
Law, Catherine M.
cf065efa-55c9-4f28-871e-e0df7a0727d9
Cooper, Cyrus
e05f5612-b493-4273-9b71-9e0ce32bdad6
Robinson, Siân M.
ba591c98-4380-456a-be8a-c452f992b69b
Gale, Catharine R.
5bb2abb3-7b53-42d6-8aa7-817e193140c8
Martyn, Christopher N.
eb9a7811-3550-4586-9aca-795f2ad05090
Marriott, Lynne D.
59da580c-2738-49eb-b1cd-7d005b262159
Limmond, Jennifer
26de987d-23ea-47db-83dc-18cac76e0983
Crozier, Sarah
a9c88016-8f46-4659-954e-4d7af8a49594
Inskip, Hazel M.
5fb4470a-9379-49b2-a533-9da8e61058b7
Godfrey, Keith M.
0931701e-fe2c-44b5-8f0d-ec5c7477a6fd
Law, Catherine M.
cf065efa-55c9-4f28-871e-e0df7a0727d9
Cooper, Cyrus
e05f5612-b493-4273-9b71-9e0ce32bdad6
Robinson, Siân M.
ba591c98-4380-456a-be8a-c452f992b69b

Gale, Catharine R., Martyn, Christopher N., Marriott, Lynne D., Limmond, Jennifer, Crozier, Sarah, Inskip, Hazel M., Godfrey, Keith M., Law, Catherine M., Cooper, Cyrus and Robinson, Siân M. (2009) Dietary patterns in infancy and cognitive and neuropsychological function in childhood. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 50 (7), 816-823. (doi:10.1111/j.1469-7610.2008.02029.x).

Record type: Article

Abstract

Background: trials in developing countries suggest that improving young children's diet may benefit cognitive development. Whether dietary composition influences young children's cognition in developed countries is unclear. Although many studies have examined the relation between type of milk received in infancy and subsequent cognition, there has been no investigation of the possible effect of variations in the weaning diet.
Methods: we studied 241 children aged 4 years, whose diet had been assessed at age 6 and 12 months. We measured IQ with the Wechsler Pre-School and Primary Scale of Intelligence, visual attention, visuomotor precision, sentence repetition and verbal fluency with the Developmental Neuropsychological Assessment (NEPSY), and visual form-constancy with the Test of Visual Perceptual Skills.
Results: in sex-adjusted analyses, children whose diet in infancy was characterised by high consumption of fruit, vegetables and home-prepared foods ('infant guidelines' dietary pattern) had higher full-scale and verbal IQ and better memory performance at age 4 years. Further adjustment for maternal education, intelligence, social class, quality of the home environment and other potential confounding factors attenuated these associations but the relations between higher 'infant guidelines' diet score and full-scale and verbal IQ remained significant. For a standard deviation increase in 'infant guidelines' diet score at 6 or 12 months full-scale IQ rose by .18 (95% CI .04 to .31) of a standard deviation. For a standard deviation increase in 'infant guidelines' diet score at 6 months verbal IQ rose by .14 (.01 to .27) of a standard deviation. There were no associations between dietary patterns in infancy and 4-year performance on the other tests.
Conclusions: these findings suggest that dietary patterns in early life may have some effect on cognitive development. It is also possible that they reflect the influence of unmeasured confounding factors

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More information

Published date: July 2009
Keywords: nutrition, infancy, weaning, intelligence, neuropsychology

Identifiers

Local EPrints ID: 68842
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/68842
ISSN: 0021-9630
PURE UUID: c9229943-d804-4075-ace6-857ea288fef8
ORCID for Catharine R. Gale: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0002-3361-8638
ORCID for Hazel M. Inskip: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0001-8897-1749
ORCID for Keith M. Godfrey: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0002-4643-0618
ORCID for Cyrus Cooper: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0003-3510-0709
ORCID for Siân M. Robinson: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0003-1766-7269

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Date deposited: 06 Oct 2009
Last modified: 18 Mar 2024 02:44

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Contributors

Author: Christopher N. Martyn
Author: Lynne D. Marriott
Author: Jennifer Limmond
Author: Sarah Crozier
Author: Hazel M. Inskip ORCID iD
Author: Catherine M. Law
Author: Cyrus Cooper ORCID iD
Author: Siân M. Robinson ORCID iD

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