Effect of Fish Oil Supplementation on Fatty Acid Status, Coordination, and Fine Motor Skills in Children with Phenylketonuria

Fat and Fatty Acid Requirements and Recommendations for Infants of 0–2 Years and Children of 2–18 Years

“…These studies indicate that increasing DHA status with fish oil supplements is consistent with improvements in speed of information processing in the central nervous system as assessed by latencies of VEPs [Beblo et al, 2001], as well as marked improvements of coordination and fine motor skills [Beblo et al, 2007].…”

“…In addition children with PKU who are placed from birth on diets restricted in animal foods, to prevent phenylalanine excess, have low DHA status and have been shown to improve their visual electrophysiological responses with n-3 LCP supplementation. Taken together, these findings suggest a potential benefit for early nutritional interventions with DHA supplementation to improve neurologic outcome for infants with some metabolic diseases, improvements correlate with better DHA status in red blood cells and plasma [Agostoni et al, 2000;Beblo et al, 2001Beblo et al, , 2007. The work of Martinez et al [1994] on 13 patients who had Zellweger syndrome demonstrated improvements in vision, muscle tone, social contact, and liver function and brain myelination after being supplemented with DHA ethyl ester (100-500 mg/day), and offers further evidence in favour of the effect of DHA supplementation in patients with DHA deficits in early life.…”

“…Beyond infancy, evidence linking EFA and LPCs with neurological benefits is limited to special population groups with very low dietary intakes of EPA and DHA, such as children with phenylketonuria [Beblo et al, 2001[Beblo et al, , 2007. These studies indicate that increasing DHA status with fish oil supplements is consistent with improvements in speed of information processing in the central nervous system as assessed by latencies of VEPs [Beblo et al, 2001], as well as marked improvements of coordination and fine motor skills [Beblo et al, 2007].…”

The Nutrient Formula Containing Eicosapentaenoic Acid and Docosahexaenoic Acid Benefits the Fatty Acid Status of Patients Receiving Long-Term Enteral Nutrition

“…Similarly, supplementation with EPA and DHA through the consumption of fish oil effectively improved the systemic EPA and DHA status in patients with phenylketonuria (Beblo et al 2007). Among vegetarians, direct supplementation with DHA effectively increased the concentration of DHA as well as that of EPA by retroconversion of DHA in blood lipids (Geppert et al 2005;Wu et al 2006).…”

The role of omega-3 fatty acids in child development

“…After supplementation with DHA, EPA (+ALA and AA) wave latency of visual evoked potentials decreased in both studies, indicating more rapid central nervous system information processing (Beblo et al, 2001). The open-label study also showed significant improvements of EPA+DHA supplementation on a test of motor function and coordination (Beblo et al, 2007). When the subjects of the controlled trial were assessed again three years later after the end of the treatment to see whether improvements had lasted in the longer term, initial improvements had returned to baseline (Agostini et al, 2003).…”