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What is DHA?

 
Why is it important for KIDS

Some of you have been asking me: "What is this DHA stuff and why is it important for kids.
DHA stands for docosahexaenoic acid - DHA is a long chain omega-3 fatty acid that
comes from fish oil. To help you understand why it, and the other long chain omega-3 fatty acids like EPA, are important for brain function I need to tell you a little bit about how our nerves function.

You can think of each nerve as an electric wire. Each nerve has axons that carry the electrical
impulse much the same way that wires contain electricity. And, just as wires are coated with
plastic to keep the electrical current within the wire, each axon is coated with a membrane
called a myelin sheath that allows it to deliver the electrical impulse to the very end of the axon.
Those myelin sheaths have a high content of omega-3 fatty acids - and a lot of that is DHA. For
example, at birth DHA makes up 93% of the omega-3 acids in the retina and 97% of the omega-
3 fatty acids in the brain. By age 5, a child's brain is 3.5 times larger than at birth, so kids obviously require a lot of DHA for adequate brain development. Animal studies have shown that DHA is essential for both brain development and visual acuity, and these studies have been confirmed in humans. For example, one clinical trial showed that maternal supplementation with a cod liver oil enriched for DHA resulted in a higher IQ at age 4 years compared to supplementation with corn oil. Another clinical trial reported a beneficial effect of DHA supplementation on visual acuity when given to infants after weaning. But, it is not just visual acuity and brain development that are affected by DHA.

Several studies show that a low intake of omega-3 fatty acids is associated with
behavioral disorders such as ADHD. And clinical trials in England, Israel & Japan have all
shown that supplementation with DHA-rich omega-3 fatty acids significantly reduces ADHD
behavior.

So DHA is important for kids - but how much do they need? There is no official Daily Value
for DHA yet, but most experts recommend a daily intake of 125 to 150 mg.
Unfortunately, most kids age one to five are only getting 20-40 mg/day from the foods that they
eat! This is where supplementation comes in. We could feed our kids more sardines & liver, but
I doubt that they would eat them. We could feed them more tuna and salmon, but the
Environmental Protection Agency warns that those kinds of fish may be contaminated with
mercury, pesticides and dioxins, which can be harmful to young children.
Plus, supplementation works. A recently published study showed that when children aged 4-12
were given a supplement containing 100 mg of DHA per day their levels of DHA increased by
65%-70%. So DHA and other omega-3 fatty acids are brain food - but are they only important for kids?

Absolutely Not! In previous "Health Tips From The Professor" I have alerted you to studies
showing that depression in adults is associated with low intake of omega-3 fatty acids. I
have also alerted you to clinical studies showing that increased intake of omega-3 fatty acids
slowed age-related cognitive decline and neurodegenerative diseases.
Does that mean that adults should be taking a DHA supplement or focusing on DHA-rich foods?
That's not entirely clear. Most of the clinical trials in children have focused on DHA intake, while most of the clinical trials in adults have used fish or fish oil preparations in which the major omega-3 fatty acid was EPA.
So until the science changes I recommend that kids get their DHA from supplements providing
100 mg of DHA a day and adults get their omega-3 fatty acids from fish
or fish oil supplements.
To your health!
Dr. Stephen Chaney, PhD

Please contact me for more info on YOUR child's health, and to START NOW doing something about it!!

article by: Facebook | Lyn Shaklee: What is DHA & Why so important for KIDS by Dr Chaney

Author Affiliations

1. ¹Department of Epidemiology, Mario Negri Institute for Pharmacological Research, Milan
2. ²Department of Occupational Medicine ‘Luigi Devoto Work Clinic’, Section of Medical Statistics and Biometry ‘Giulio A. Maccacaro’, University of Milan, Milan
3. ³Unit of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Centro di Riferimento Oncologico, Aviano (PN), Italy

1. *Correspondence to: Dr F. Bravi, Dipartimento di Epidemiologia, Istituto di Ricerche Farmacologiche ‘Mario Negri’, via Giuseppe La Masa 19, 20156 Milano, Italy. Tel: +39-0239014773; Fax: +39-0233200231; E-mail: francesca.bravi@marionegri.it

• Received December 22, 2009.
• Revision received April 15, 2010.
• Accepted April 16, 2010.

 

Abstract

Objective: Several studies have shown an inverse relation between vegetable and fruit intake and pancreatic cancer, but no specific beneficial component of such foods has been consistently identified. We considered the role of 15 selected vitamins and carotenoids and 6 minerals on pancreatic cancer risk in an Italian case–control study.

Methods: Subjects were 326 patients with incident pancreatic cancer and 652 controls, admitted to the same hospitals as cases for acute conditions. Micronutrient computation was based on a validated and reproducible food-frequency questionnaire. We estimated the odds ratios (OR) and confidence intervals (CI) using conditional logistic regression models, adjusted for various confounding factors and for energy intake, according to the residual model.

Results: Comparing the highest to the lowest quintile of intake, the OR were 0.60 (95% CI 0.36–0.98) for vitamin E, 0.44 (95% CI 0.27–0.73) for vitamin C, 0.56 (95% CI 0.34–0.93) for folate, and 0.57 (95% CI 0.35–0.92) for potassium. No significant inverse associations were observed for α-carotene (OR = 0.69, 95% CI 0.43–1.12), β-carotene (OR = 0.64, 95% CI 0.39–1.06), and β-cryptoxanthin (OR = 0.66, 95% CI 0.39–1.09). No relation was found for other micronutrients considered.

Conclusion: Our findings support a favorable role of vitamins E and C, selected carotenoids, and folate on pancreatic carcinogenesis.

Dietary intake of selected micronutrients and the risk of pancreatic cancer: an Italian case–control study — Ann Oncol

To your Health,

Meyling Calero

www.meyling.myshaklee.com

The Sustained Release B + C Complex in Shaklee's Vitalizer continuously releases small amounts of the B vitamins and vitamin C during the 12 hours that it takes to pass through the small intestine. Clinical studies have shown that this results in up to a 200% increase in blood levels of some B vitamins and that blood levels of vitamin B12 are equal to or greater than the same amount of B12 in an immediate release B complex.

Report from Dr. Stephen G Chantey

Dear Shaklee Member -

Facebook | Shaklee Meyling: The Real Difference in Shaklee Products - Vitamin B- Complex

A public health debate is raging around the world about the safety of bisphenol A (BPA). Chemical manufacturing and packaging companies claim BPA is safe and necessary to protect food from metal can corrosion and bacterial contamination.

However, scientists, health professionals, and children’s and environmental health advocates are concerned that hundreds of independent peer-reviewed scientific studies have found negative health outcomes resulting from low doses of BPA.

Canada, Denmark, five U.S. states, three New York State counties, and the city of Chicago have restricted the use of BPA in certain children’s products, like baby bottles and infant formula can linings. Other countries and U.S. states are actively considering BPA restrictions and bans.

This report provides new data about the amount of BPA that could be consumed from eating canned food and drinks available in the U.S. and Canada.

For No Silver Lining, we tested the food and beverage contents of 50 cans collected
from 19 U.S. states and Ontario, Canada. The report reveals that BPA is a routine contaminant in canned foods. Our study details potential exposure to BPA from not just one can, but from meals prepared with canned food and drink that an ordinary North American person might consume over the course of a day.

It shows that meals involving one or more cans of food can cause a pregnant woman to ingest levels of BPA that have been shown to cause health effects in developing
fetuses in laboratory animal studies.

• polycarbonate water


• baby bottles,


• 5-gallon water coolers,


• printer inks, toners and thermal receipt paper (used by most gas stations and supermarkets),where BPA can rub off paper onto our hands and into our mouths.

Exposure of animals to low doses of BPA has been linked

• to cancer,
• abnormal behavior,
• diabetes and
• heart disease,
• infertility,
• developmental
• and reproductiveharm, obesity, early puberty,
• a known risk factor for breast cancer.

The Environmental Working Group found BPA in the cord blood of newborn babies.

PA was first synthesized in the 1890s. It was identified as a synthetic estrogen in the
1930s and considered for pharmaceutical use, but it was ultimately not pursued due to the identification of DES as a stronger synthetic estrogen. Decades after millions of women had been prescribed DES in a misguided attempt to prevent miscarriages, doctors discovered its link to a rare form of cancer and reproductive problems in women whose mothers took the drug.

These studies went on to determine that more than 90 percent of DES daughters (those exposed to DES while in the womb) have abnormalities of the reproductive tract.

More than two decades of research on the low dose effects of BPA show similar patterns of reproductive problems in animals and cells exposed to BPA.Unlike the relatively limited human exposure to DES, nearly all of us living in North America are exposed to BPA from a myriad of sources on a daily basis, like canned foods, which could pose serious health problems for ourselves and future generations.

LINK TO ENTIRE RESEARCH

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To your Health,
Meyling Calero
Independent Distributor
Product order site: www.meyling.Myshaklee.com

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Here's an interesting article on how vitamin insufficiency boosts age-related diseases. Another reason to keep taking our vitamins! another reason to join Shaklee...

It is literally all about living for today. By understanding that nature favours survival today over tomorrow, a theory that vitamin inadequacy is behind the rise in chronic diseases “makes sense… and it is almost certainly going to be right,” says world-renowned scientist Bruce Ames.


In an exclusive interview with Stephen Daniells, Professor Bruce Ames from the University of California, Berkeley explains why his “triage theory” could have enormous implications for human health.

For many, Professor Ames needs no introduction. In the 1970s, he invented the Ames Test, a simple and inexpensive assay to check the mutagenicity of compounds. Since then he has dedicated his research to understanding the biochemistry of ageing, with a focus on mitochondria, the power plants of our cells, as well as how micronutrients may prevent disease, malnutrition, and obesity.

So, when the native New Yorker with over 450 scientific publications tells you his triage theory is “the most important thing I have ever worked on”, you sit up and listen.

Evolutionary mechanisms

Triage – from the French word trier meaning to sort, separate, or select – works on the battlefield by military doctors prioritising treatments depending on the probable survival of the wounded.

Prof Ames’ theory works in much the same way: By appreciating that natural selection favours short-term survival over the long-term, Prof Ames’ hypothesised that our short-term survival is achieved by prioritising the allocation of scarce micronutrients. In other words, to stop us falling over from a lack of iron in the heart, for example, iron is pulled from non-essential sources.

The triage theory is a way of “measuring the insidious damage going on over time”, he said.

The theory was first proposed in 2006 (PNAS, Vol. 103, Pages 17589-94) to explain why age-related diseases like heart disease, cancer, and dementia may be unintended consequences of mechanisms developed during evolution to protect against episodic vitamin/mineral shortages.

“If this hypothesis is correct, micronutrient deficiencies that trigger the triage response would accelerate cancer, aging, and neural decay but would leave critical metabolic functions, such as ATP production, intact,” explained Prof Ames in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

However, since it was first published Prof Ames concedes that the wider nutrition community has not embraced the theory.

“A new idea is always hard to get through,” he said. The resistance has come from some of the “old timers”, said the octogenarian scientist, who think that such a theory would “encourage people to take more vitamins”.

Despite claims that the theory may have important implications for determining the optimum intake of all vitamins and minerals, as well as major implications for preventive medicine, financial funding for triage research has been difficult to obtain, said Prof Ames.

Scientific support

While the finances may be the lacking, scientific support is not. Working with the “very good” Joyce McCann, PhD, Prof Ames recently applied his theory to vitamin K. Writing in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition (Vol. 90, pp. 889-907), they reported that five of the 16 known vitamin K-dependent proteins are required for coagulation had critical functions, meaning that animals genetically manipulated to have inactive forms did not survive.

On the other hand, another five proteins were found to be less critical, and the animals survived through weaning. However, a lack of these less critical vitamin K-dependent proteins, inadequate intakes of vitamin K1 from the diet, or vitamin K deficiency were all associated with age-related conditions, including weaker bones and hardening of the arteries, which increased the risk of cardiovascular disease. An increase in the incidence of spontaneous cancer was also observed.

“The triage theory supplies a unifying framework explaining why a crop of diseases associated with aging is emerging for so many micronutrients,” wrote McCann and Ames in the AJCN.

“It is our hope that this analysis will stimulate further efforts to redefine micronutrient adequacy on the basis of long-term effects,” they added.

Triage theory has cleared every hurdle it has come up against, but that doesn’t surprise Prof Ames.

“My triage theory makes sense,” he said. “And it is almost certainly going to be right.”

Professor Ames is also a senior scientist at Children's Hospital Oakland Research Institute (CHORI).

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