Eating more fruits during pregnancy is associated with increased IQ in infants, according to findings of a recent study in the University of Alberta led by Dr. Push Mandhane, the senior author of the study. Mandhane said that in the study they found out that the more fruits the mothers had, the higher their babies' cognitive development.
"We wanted to know if we could identify what factors affect cognitive development," Mandhane said. To investigate, they used the data from 688 kids in the Canadian Healthy Infant Longitudinal Development (CHILD) study. Results show that kids of moms who consume 6 or 7 portions of fruits daily during pregnancy got high scores on the developmental exams.
"We know that the longer a child is in the womb, the further they develop--and having one more serving of fruit per day in a mother's diet provides her baby with the same benefit as being born a whole week later," Dr. Mandhane explains. If you are pregnant, you have all the reasons to store up fruits in your belly.
Surprised by the power of the results, Mandhane, as stated in the The Wall Street Journal, looked for a colleague to double check. And he found Francois Bolduc, an associate professor of pediatric neurology also recognized as the "fly guy" in the University of Alberta.
Though flies and humans are two unlike species, according to Bolduc, flies have 85% of the genetic factors utilized in the brain function of humans, making them a perfect model to examine the genetics of learning and memory. As reported in Tech Times, in the experiments that Bolduc had performed, he found out that flies born to mothers who were provided increased fruit juice during pregnancy had better learning and memory, similar to the findings of Mandhane's investigation.
Though the findings of the research have shown a stronger association between cognitive enhancement and eating fruits for pregnant women, Dr. Mandhane warns pregnant women not to go to extremes and eat a tremendous amount of fruits. Everything should be done in moderation.
