Eating Organic Helps Kids Score Higher on Cognitive Tests, According to Study

AHA Publisher — Thu, 29 Jul 2021 07:19:05 +0000

Stephanie Woods via NaturalHealth365 – Have you ever noticed that you have more energy when you eat nutrient-rich, organic food and have a better overall feeling of wellness than when you eat fast food? There’s a reason for that, and researchers are linking an organic diet to improved cognition and higher academic performance in children. The study, published in Environmental Pollution, was conducted by researchers at the Barcelona Institute for Global Health. It took an in-depth look at environmental hazards that children come into contact with regularly. Without examining unique lifestyle factors individually, the researchers concluded that “healthy diets, including eating organic diets, are richer than fast food diets in nutrients necessary for the brain…” According to the study, antioxidants, vitamins, and fatty acids found in a balanced, healthy diet are credited with enhancing cognitive function in children. A Large-Scale Study of 1,300 Participants Examines the Connection Between Children’s Diet and Cognitive Development The researchers chose nearly 1,300 mother-child pairs from those enrolled in the pan-European study, Human Early Life Exposome (HELIX) Project. HELIX has a number of various projects spanning several European countries The children participating in the study ranged in age from 6 to 11 years old, all in good health. In addition, because the participants were already a part of HELIX, researchers already had data on the mothers’ pregnancies and birth experiences as well as urine samples for all participants. They used each participant’s home addresses to evaluate the area for environmental exposures, such as level of pollution and how close they were to parks and natural areas. The researchers administered tests to both child and mother to determine specific lifestyle factors, alcohol use and smoking by either or both parents, the child’s diet, their environment indoors, level of physical activity, and other habits. Researchers tested the children’s working memory, attention function, and fluid intelligence through both clinical tests and computer evaluations. Then, they combined these scores as an overall level of cognition. Pesticides and Other Chemicals Have a Detrimental Impact on Cognitive Health The researchers concluded that eating organic foods helped children score higher in tests measuring working memory and fluid intelligence. Lower scores on each of the tests were found to have several contributing factors. For instance, children who scored lower on fluid intelligence tests tended to have a diet high in fast food. They were also regularly exposed to tobacco smoke and experienced house crowding. Children with lower scores on working memory tests tended to regularly be exposed to poor indoor air quality. Pesticides and other chemicals in conventional foods – and their absence in organic foods – are believed to be the primary reason for the study results. Children are smaller, so the levels of these dangerous chemicals in their bodies are higher. Other studies have linked pesticides to ADHD, developmental problems, and lower IQ in children. It is important to note that organophosphate insecticides which are specifically associated with lower IQ scores in children are still commonly used on vegetables and fruit in the United States. What’s the bottom line? While the test results seem to reveal a direct link between test scores and diet and environmental factors, more research is needed to provide solid evidence that an organic, nutrient-rich diet improves cognitive performance. Nevertheless, this offers some solid evidence to switch to an organic diet, dramatically lowering pesticide levels in the body. No doubt, eating organic food will take you one step closer to better health and higher brainpower. Sources for this article include: BeyondPesticides.org ScienceDirect.com App.Dimensions.AI ScienceDirect.com To read the original article click here. For more articles from NaturalHealth365 click here.

The post Eating Organic Helps Kids Score Higher on Cognitive Tests, According to Study appeared first on Amazing Health Advances.

Study Associates Organic Food Intake in Childhood with Better Cognitive Development

AHA Publisher — Mon, 12 Jul 2021 07:00:32 +0000

Barcelona Institute for Global Health (Isglobal) via EurekAlert – A study analysing the association between a wide variety of prenatal and childhood exposures and neuropsychological development in school-age children has found that organic food intake is associated with better scores on tests of fluid intelligence (ability to solve novel reasoning problems) and working memory (ability of the brain to retain new information while it is needed in the short term). The study, published in Environmental Pollution, was conceived and designed by researchers at the Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal)–a centre supported by the “la Caixa” Foundation–and the Pere Virgili Health Research Institute (IISPV-CERCA). The explanation for this association may be that “healthy diets, including organic diets, are richer than fast food diets in nutrients necessary for the brain, such as fatty acids, vitamins and antioxidants, which together may enhance cognitive function in childhood,” commented lead author Jordi Júlvez, a researcher at IISPV-CERCA who works closely with ISGlobal. The study also found that fast food intake, house crowding and environmental tobacco smoke during childhood were associated with lower fluid intelligence scores. In addition, exposure to fine particulate matter (PM2.5) indoors was associated with lower working memory scores. The study, titled “Early life multiple exposures and child cognitive function: A multi-centric birth cohort study in six European countries”, used data on 1,298 children aged 6-11 years from six European country-specific birth cohorts (United Kingdom, France, Spain, Greece, Lithuania and Norway). The researchers looked at 87 environmental factors the children were exposed to in utero (air pollution, traffic, noise, various chemicals and lifestyle factors) and another 122 factors they were exposed to during childhood. A Pioneering Study The aim of the study was to analyse the influence of these exposures on the development and maturation of the human brain, since during childhood the brain is not yet fully developed for efficient defence against environmental chemicals and is particularly sensitive to toxicity, even at low levels that do not necessarily pose a risk to a healthy mature brain. The originality of the study lies in its use of an exposome approach, i.e. the fact that it takes into account the totality of exposures rather than focusing on a single one. This approach aims to achieve a better understanding of the complexity of multiple environmental exposures and their simultaneous effect on children’s neurodevelopment. Another strength of the study, which analyses cohorts from six European countries, is its diversity, although this factor also poses the additional challenge of cultural differences, which can influence exposure levels and cognitive outcomes. Notable Associations The study found that the main determinants of fluid intelligence and working memory in children are organic diet, fast food diet, crowdedness of the family home, indoor air pollution and tobacco smoke. To date, there has been little research on the relationship between type of diet and cognitive function, but fast food intake has been associated with lower academic development success and some studies have also reported positive associations between organic diets and executive function scores. “In our study,” explained Júlvez, “we found better scores in fluid intelligence and working memory with higher organic food intake and lower fast food intake.” In contrast, exposure to tobacco smoke and indoor PM2.5 during childhood may negatively affect cognitive function by enhancing pro-inflammatory reactions in the brain. Still, according to Júlvez, it is worth bearing in mind that “the number of people living together in a home is often an indicator of the family’s economic status, and that contexts of poverty favour less healthy lifestyles, which in turn may affect children’s cognitive test scores”. Some Surprising Findings The study also found some unexpected associations, which could be explained by confounding and reverse causality. For example, a positive association was found between childhood exposure to perfluorooctane sulfonic acid (PFOS) and cognitive function, even though PFOS is considered an endocrine disruptor that may alter thyroid function and negatively influence cognitive development. The study forms part of the large European project Human Early-Life Exposome (HELIX), as does another recent paper that used the same exposome and the same participants but looked at symptoms of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and childhood behavioural problems. “We observed that several prenatal environmental pollutants (indoor air pollution and tobacco smoke) and lifestyle habits during childhood (diet, sleep and family social capital) were associated with behavioural problems in children,” explained Martine Vrijheid, last author of the study and head of ISGlobal’s Childhood and Environment programme. “One of the strengths of this study on cognition and the earlier study on behavioural problems is that we systematically analysed a much wider range of exposure biomarkers in blood and urine to determine the internal levels in the model and that we analysed both prenatal and childhood exposure variables,” concluded Vrijheid. To read the original article click here.

The post Study Associates Organic Food Intake in Childhood with Better Cognitive Development appeared first on Amazing Health Advances.

organic food Archives - Amazing Health Advances

Eating Organic Helps Kids Score Higher on Cognitive Tests, According to Study

Study Associates Organic Food Intake in Childhood with Better Cognitive Development