How to Make Smarter Children:

Today I have something to say that may astonish some of you that haven't had a baby in the last 8 years or. The story surrounds essential nutrition and how to make your kids much smarter and calmer, and get better vision to boot. There is a simple dietary change you can make that will give your child an IQ boost of up to 10 points. There are a couple of other things that you can do that can similarly increase your child's IQ. Lets do the two easy ones first. First, get a pet. There is data that having a pet, any pet, will mean that your child has an IQ boost of about 10 points. It doesn't seem to matter what kind of pet. A fish, a goat, a pig, a cat, a dog, a bird, whatever. It seems that the responsibility engendered by having someone depend utterly upon you for survival leads to smarter kids. In fairness, it has to be said that this may be a case of correlation and not causation. In other words, it may be that smarter kids are the ones that wind up with pets, and not the other way around. I'm not sure. But since pets are great to have, it seems like a good bet to me. Personally I love pets. The unconditional love that a dog has just seems to suck the stress out of the day. And watching a fish swim around and eat the food that you dropped in to the tank is mesmerizing. And a purring cat, that seems like heaven to me. And then watching it catch a mouse is even better. 

The next thing you can do is take advantage of the Mozart studies. It seems that fetuses that are exposed to Mozart have a 10 IQ point boost. Again, there may be a correlation/causation reversal here, in that the smarter kids are really the ones that wind up getting exposed to complex music. But I don't think so. I think that the human brain is stimulated in complex ways by the complex music. And I don't think it is limited to Mozart. I think that the Beatles, Billy Joel, or the Beastie Boys can do it. Personally, I think Wagner is pretty cool too. The Ride of the Valkyries turned up loud is something to behold. And Beethoven. My kids knew what Bah Bah Bah Boom was just about the same time they new about UB40. Bah Bah Bah Boom is Beethoven's fifth, by the way. It is easy to get music to the fetus. Just turn it up kind of loud and enjoy it. Dance if you want. But high impact dancing may not be good for the placenta, so take it easy on the impact. Just moderate low impact dancing and some moderately loud music. It can be really fun. 

Finally, how to have a smarter kid: What you probably don't know is that human brain cells are made out of a molecule that can be called DHA. The human retina, as well. The retina is really just a neuron, anyway.  DHA is an ESSENTIAL FATTY ACID. DHA cannot be made by human cells inside of human bodies. That, essentially, is what makes it an essential fatty acid. It means that it must be consumed in the diet. The chemical name for DHA is DocosaHexaenoic Acid. DHA is necessary for the fetal brain to develop. My theory is, if you don't nourish the fetal brain enough, it will not develop to it's maximum potential. The experts who have decided how much is enough, have decided that you will need 300 milligrams in your diet to help the baby grow good brains. The average American Women, circa 1990, ate about 50 milligrams a day. There is a similar deficiency in other countries that don't rely on seafood in their main diet. Women in other cultures that get a lot of seafood, have much more DHA in their diet. Nordic countries, coastal China, Japan, all of those women get a lot more DHA. Mezoamerican Aztecs, relied on maize, or corn. Who has been more successful? 

Why do I say that seafood matters? There are only two known sources for DHA in nature. And that is one, fish, and two, algae. And the fish probably get it from the algae. Since DHA is an oil  (fatty, remember), the fattier the fish, the more the DHA. Salmon is a yummy very fatty pink fish meat. It has 600 milligrams per palm sized piece. Whitefish, like Cod, Tilapia, Bass, Trout, Flounder, etc, has about 100 milligrams per palm sized piece. Salmon is number one for DHA. To stack the deck even more, Salmon has almost no mercury. This makes Salmon number the number one fish for pregnant women. Tuna is sort of a whitefish, with the requisite amount of DHA, but it has some mercury in it. So a pregnant women should limit her Tuna to once a month or less. Shellfish is yummy, has some, but not enough. A pregnant women can eat shellfish, but it will not in itself be enough DHA. 

Some people will sell you an omega three supplement made out of flaxseed, or some other terrestrial source. You should be aware that this terrestrial source has no DHA, even though it is a legitimate omega three fatty acid. But, it most clearly is not DHA. And it will not help to make babies brains or eyes. The only vegetarian source of DHA is algae. There are some algae sourced DHA supplements on the market. The biggest brand is Expecta. This is an algae sourced DHA. It is  on the market, for pregnant women, with no mercury, marketed by Mead Johnson.  Mead Johnson is a big producer of infant formula as well. Expecta has about 200 mg of DHA per capsule, so itself it is not quite enough, but it goes a long way towards a proper dietary consumption. 

In the last few years, most of the big providers of prenatal vitamins have been adding DHA to the mix.  Some of the PreNatal Vitamins have 300 milligrams. Some have 200. So, you must read your label to decide how much fish to eat, or if you need an extra supplement, such as Expecta, or need to add  some Salmon to your diet. 

An important DHA story comes out of the FDA. It seems that about 30 years ago, the American FDA advised pregnant women to stop eating certain kinds of fish because those fish had mercury in them. Those recommendations were very controversial at the time because even back then the story of Essential Fatty Acids was known. The experts thought that pregnant women would give up all fish when they heard that some fish were bad. Those experts thought that pregnant women were better off eating all fish, than eating no fish. In the end those experts were right. American women basically stopped eating all fish in their diet, potentially depriving their babies of DHA. I think that American women just assumed that since some fish were bad, then all fish were. 

Not a day goes by in my office when a pregnant women will announce to me that fish is bad for pregnant women. I try to explain to them the DHA story. In the end, many of them wind up taking the vegetarian sourced DHA. That is fine with me, as it has the same function as fish oil. And the algae oil has no mercury. 

I have a lot of studies on my office that establish that DHA supplementation increases IQ, decreases jitteryness in babies, and improves vision. All of these are important ways to improve the life of a baby. 

So there you have it. Three ways to improve a human babies IQ. And the DHA will decrease jitteryness, and improve vision as well.  

Sincerely, 

John Marcus MD

Board Certified Ob/Gyn

Ridgewood, New Jersey, 07450 

201-447-0077 

Comments below are welcome. Thank you.